Future Research: Hawai'i Archaeological Research Project

The Hawai'i Archaeological Research Project --a joint program of Thegn Ladefoged and Michael Graves, has joined up with UC Berkeley archaeologist Patrick Kirch and several natural scientists to establish a new, multi-year, collaborative and inter-disciplinary project: "The Dynamic Historical Ecology of the Hawaiian Islands". This project will address four inter-connected topics on the islands of Maui and Hawai'i: 1. the spatio-temporal processes of agricultural development in Hawai'i as these were linked to geomorphic and biogeochemical gradients and landscape mosaics; 2. patterns of demographic change and how these were linked to resource use and agricultural development, intensification; 3. the emergence of socio-cultural complexity including formal control hierarchies, disparities in access to resources and control over labor and surplus; and 4. the dynamic effects of human population growth and cultural evolution on the islands' natural resource base (Kirch 2001).

The Hawai'i Island component of this project will focus on the Kohala archaeological research program directed by Graves and Ladefoged over the next 3 years and will include several inter-related field and laboratory projects:

furthering the GPS survey and mapping of the Kohala Field System located in the uplands on the leeward (dry) side of the Kohala mountains in northwest Hawai'i island;
digitizing the North Kohala valley agricultural systems in Pololu and Honokane valleys that have been previously mapped by David Tuggle using survey instruments (but not published) and integrating them into the Kohala GIS;
extending the coastal survey along the north coast of Kohala, mapping and recording residential and ceremonial structures, and integrating these into the larger computerized GIS map we are developing for all of Kohala;
mapping and recording residential and ceremonial sites in the uplands of Kohala associated with the dry land field system, including the large enclosing wall features;
digitizing or integrating the previously mapped portions of the north Kohala coast (e.g., at Waika, Kahua 1 and 2, coastal Lapakahi) and the upland dry land field system (such as at Lapakahi) into the computerized database;
digitizing and integrating the previously mapped sections of the smaller, discrete agricultural field systems in South Kohala;
excavating a series of trenches through field border walls to expose stratigraphy and buried deposits to characterize the nature of building the walls, sediment deposition, soil formation, and the woody plant environment;
undertaking a series of test excavations at residential features, both along the coast and in the uplands to recover samples suitable for radiocarbon dating and reconstructing prehistoric and historic activities; and
reconstructing the geological, marine, and meteorological processes involved in bedrock and soil weathering, sediment transport, and nutrient cycling.

These sets of information will ultimately be integrated with data and modeling from the natural scientists working on the more inclusive Dynamic Historical Ecology of Hawai'i research project and that involve: spatial characterization of geological processes of substrate weathering and nutrient availability, identification of marine aerosol transport of elements both locally and over considerable distances, descriptions of current and past climatic parameters, particularly rainfall, and estimation of the effects of the rainfall and wind speed gradients in Kohala which change in both a north-to-south direction and from the coastline-to-upland (west-to-east). The goal of this project is to quantitatively analyze and develop models that couple the human and natural domains over the past 1000 years of Hawaiian agriculture and society in two separate dry land environments on Hawai'i and Maui islands.