Patrick Kirch

University of Hawaii System · Anthropology

Most studies of the food resource potential of early Polynesian populations focus exclusively on agricultural potential, and specifically starchy staples, despite the importance of marine resources to the Polynesians. To more accurately estimate total precontact food resource availability, we characterized the terrestrial and near-shore marine envi...

Most studies of the food resource potential of early Polynesian populations focus exclusively on agricultural potential, and specifically starchy staples, despite the importance of the marine world to the Polynesians. In an attempt to more accurately estimate total precontact food resource availability, we characterized the terrestrial and near-sho...

The application of Social Network Analysis to the study of archaeological networks has become increasingly common around the world, with a proven track record of processing large, complex, spatial and temporal archaeological datasets. This study builds upon previous network-based analyses of interaction between communities of the Lapita Cultural Co...

This chapter provides an overview of the archaeology of East Polynesia (with the exception of Aotearoa, which is treated in a separate chapter). Whereas the island cultures of West Polynesia were settled ca. 800-900 BC, the East Polynesian islands were not discovered and settled until much later, between AD 950-1250. This final stage of Polynesian...

Building upon a pioneering 1909 survey of Moloka‘i Island heiau (temples) by archaeologist John F. G. Stokes, the pre‐contact temple system of Hālawa Valley is described and analysed. Ten heiau were relocated and mapped, with seven sites test excavated and radiocarbon dated. The majority of sites are terraces or terraced platforms in architectural...

Analyzing the spatial and temporal properties of information flow with a multi-century perspective could illuminate the sustainability of human resource-use strategies. This paper uses historical and archaeological datasets to assess how spatial, temporal, cognitive, and cultural limitations impact the generation and flow of information about ecosy...

The availability of nutrient‐rich soils capable of supporting intensive cultivation was a key factor in the relative vulnerability and resilience of traditional Polynesian societies, whose economies were based on agricultural production. We tested the hypothesis that geological age was a key controlling factor in determining the nutrient status of...

Domestic pigs (Sus scrofa) were first transported to Polynesia through a series of long-distance voyages ultimately linked to the Neolithic expansion of Austronesian-speaking people out of Asia. The descendants of the founding pigs belong to a rare mtDNA group referred to as the “Pacific Clade” that may have originated in peninsular or island South...

Archaeological sites in the Ndughore Valley of Kolombangara Island in the New Georgia group of the western Solomon Islands were investigated in 1971. The sites include formerly‐irrigated pondfield terrace complexes in the valley bottom, ridgetop residential hamlets and specialised ritual sites. The presence of European material culture such as trad...

We examined 2947 basalt and volcanic glass artifacts from 38 sites in leeward Kohala. Nondestructive energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence provided initial geochemical characterizations. Wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WDXRF) and thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) analyses were completed on samples from ambiguously sourced groups....

A genome-wide analysis of modern populations in Polynesia suggests the direction and timing of ancient Polynesian migrations. This model bears consistencies and inconsistencies with models based on archaeology and linguistics. A model of the spread of ancient populations across the eastern Pacific.

The 1950s were a pivotal era in Polynesian archaeology, with the beginnings of stratigraphic excavations and application of radiocarbon dating. Robert Carl Suggs played a key role with his seminal work on Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands. Suggs’s use of artefact seriation, and his focus on architecture along with portable artefacts, were key meth...

Tikopia Island, a small and relatively isolated Polynesian Outlier in the Southeast Solomon Islands, supports a remarkably dense human population with minimal external support. Examining long-term trends in human land use on Tikopia through archaeological datasets spanning nearly 3000 years presents an opportunity to investigate pathways to long-te...

Dossier d’Archéologie Polynésienne vol.6, Bilan de la recherche archéologique en Polynésie française 2005 - 2015, pp.323-330. ISSN: 1961-8506 http://www.culture-patrimoine.pf/spip.php?article942

In a recent paper published in The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, John Terrell (2020) objected to the proposition that islands can offer model systems to study human behavior and ecodynamics. He argues that a review of insular model systems in the study of non-human taxa is empirically flawed and theoretically incoherent and implies tha...

Establishing the timing of human colonization of the eastern Pacific and developing cultural chronologies within the island groups of Eastern Polynesia has relied primarily on ¹⁴C dating. Despite advancements in ¹⁴C dating, however, uncertainties introduced during calibration to calendar ages remain large relative to the tempo of human settlement o...

Molokai—fifth largest of the Hawaiian Islands—occupies paradoxically both center and periphery. Geographically, its middle position puts Molokai at the center of the archipelago, yet for centuries the thirty-eight-mile long island has been culturally and economically peripheral. In Braided Waters: Environment and Society in Molokai, Hawaiʻi, Wade G...

Reconstructing routes of ancient long-distance voyaging, long a topic of speculation, has become possible thanks to advances in the geochemical sourcing of archaeological artifacts. Of particular interest are islands classified as Polynesian Outliers, where people speak Polynesian languages and have distinctly Polynesian cultural traits, but are lo...

An Essay on Political Economies in Prehistory. TIMOTHY EARLE. 2019. Eliot Werner Publications, Clinton, New York. 56 pp. $17.95 (paperback), ISBN 9783774941151. - Patrick V. Kirch

The Pālehua enclosure in upland Honouliuli (O‘ahu Island, Hawai‘i) is a celestially-significant ritual structure believed to be associated with the annual Makahiki harvest period. Near the enclosure is an alignment of six basalt uprights typical of simple Central East Polynesian marae (temples), and early ‘shrine’ sites found in other geographicall...

Agroforestry systems have long played a central role in Polynesian societies, contributing to food production, building and craft production, and ritual activities. Until recently, however, archaeological studies of these important systems were limited. Recent methodological improvements and a growing number of macro- and micro-botanical studies ha...

Radiocarbon dating Pacific archaeological sites is fraught with difficulties. Often situated in coastal beach ridges or sand dunes, these sites exhibit horizontal and vertical disturbances, datable materials such as wood charcoal are typically highly degraded, may be derived from old trees or driftwood unless specifically identified to short-lived...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0039171.].

Radiocarbon dating Pacific archaeological sites is fraught with difficulties. Often situated in coastal beach ridges or sand dunes, sites exhibit horizontal and vertical disturbances, while datable materials such as wood charcoal are typically highly degraded, or derived from old trees or drift wood and bone collagen rarely survives in the tropical...

Polynesian societies have long been noted for encoding their histories in the form of oral narratives. While some narratives are clearly cosmogonic or mythological in nature, others purportedly recount the affairs of real persons, chronologically indexed to chiefly and family genealogies. Late 19th- and early 20th-century scholars such as Abraham F...

en Two recent papers, by Lipson et al. and Posth et al., have challenged current interpretations of the initial settlement of Remote Oceania. We invited Stuart Bedford, who is an author on both papers, to outline their importance, and a number of scholars in various disciplines to comment on their findings. RÉSUMÉ fr Deux articles récents, par Lip...

We analysed 1593 basalt artefacts from the Hālawa Dune Site, on the easternmost part of Molokaʻi Island, for a combination of geochemical and technological attributes to expose different reduction strategies related to basalt adze production and rejuvenation. West Molokaʻi is well known as a location where many outcrops were quarried to make adzes,...

Significance The arrival of humans and human-introduced species to Pacific islands resulted in significant, long-lasting transformations to local ecosystems. However, direct measurements of deep-time human effects can be difficult to quantify from archaeological datasets. Isotopically reconstructed diet of the Pacific rat ( Rattus exulans ), a comm...

Nonmarine mollusks recovered during archaeological excavations on the island of Mo'orea, Society Islands, French Polynesia, were analyzed as part of a multidisciplinary study of anthropogenic environmental change. Records of now-extinct taxa in dated archaeological contexts were combined with historic collection data from the 1830s to the present t...

This paper analyses 647 bird bones identifiable at least to family-level collected from archaeological sites in 2005, 2012 and 2014 by P. Kirch, in the Gambier Group,French Polynesia. The bones derive from Onemea Site (TAR-6) on Taravai Island,Nenega-Iti Rock Shelter (AGA-3) on Agakauitai Island and Kitchen Cave (KAM-1) on Kamaka Island. Eighteen b...

The Pacific Ocean covers one-third of the earth's surface and encompasses many thousands of islands that are home to numerous human societies and cultures. Among these indigenous Oceanic cultures are the intrepid Polynesian double-hulled canoe navigators, the atoll dwellers of Micronesia, the statue carvers of remote Easter Island, and the famed tr...

A use-wear and residue study of 56 retouched obsidian flakes from seven Lapita sites in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu confirms that they had been used for tattooing. These specialised tools all bear one or more very small points formed by alternating retouch. A detailed comparison of use traces and pigments on these and 19 addition...

The Polynesian Outlier of Tikopia, situated in the Santa Cruz Islands group (Temotu Province) of the Solomon Islands, has one of the best-defined archaeological sequences in the southwestern Pacific. Archaeological excavations in 1977–78 yielded a rich record of material culture and faunal remains, with a chronological framework provided by 20 radi...

An analysis of sediment cores from Lake Temae utilizing pollen, accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating, magnetic susceptibility measurements, and charcoal particle counts was undertaken to assess landscape transformation following Polynesian colonization of Mo’orea in the Society Islands. A significant influx of terrigenous sediment accompanied...

In the early 1900s, Australian-born archaeologist John F.G. Stokes was the first to extensively use modern surveying techniques and photography to document Hawaiian archaeological sites. Stokes carried out fieldwork for a Bishop Museum-based research program driven by interests in Polynesian origins and Hawaiian religious change, focusing specifica...

We report the unprecedented Lapita exploitation and subsequent extinction of large megafauna tortoises (?Meiolania damelipi) on tropical islands during the late Holocene over a 281,000 km2 region of the southwest Pacific spanning from the Vanuatu archipelago to Viti Levu in Fiji. Zooarchaeological analyses have identified seven early archaeological...

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis was applied to archaeological specimens of the commensal Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) to investigate nutrient fluxes in prehistoric socio-ecosystems on Mangareva (Gambier Islands) and their implications for anthropogenic environmental change. The Pacific rat – ubiquitous in Polynesian archaeological sites...

Significance Oceania, the last region settled on Earth, witnessed the greatest maritime migration in human history. Scholars have debated how and when islands were colonized and the role of postsettlement voyaging in maintaining founding colonies and in subsequent diversification of island societies. We geochemically “fingerprinted” exotic stone ar...

Traditional Hawaiian fishing and marine exploitation have been studied using both ethnographic and archaeological approaches, but few studies have attempted to investigate intensity of marine foraging over time at a regional scale. In this paper we examine Hawaiian exploitation of the marine eco-system of the leeward coast of Kohala, located on the...

Systems biology promises to revolutionize medicine, yet human wellbeing is also inherently linked to healthy societies and environments (sustainability). The IDEA Consortium is a systems ecology open science initiative to conduct the basic scientific research needed to build use-oriented simulations (avatars) of entire social-ecological systems. Is...

Systems biology promises to revolutionize medicine, yet human wellbeing is also inherently linked to healthy societies and environments (sustainability). The IDEA Consortium is a systems ecology open science initiative to conduct the basic scientific research needed to build use-oriented simulations (avatars) of entire social-ecological systems. Is...

Actes de la journée de la Société préhistorique française - Paris 30 janvier-1er février 2014

Perhaps no scholar has done more to reveal the ancient history of Polynesia than noted archaeologist Patrick Vinton Kirch. For close to fifty years he has explored the Pacific, as his expeditions took him to more than two dozen islands spread across the ocean, from Mussau to Hawai‘i to Easter Island. In this lively memoir rich with personal—and oft...

This chapter relates a voyage to Eloaua Island, an area situated within the Mussau or St. Matthias Islands, on the northern rim of the Bismarck Archipelago. The object of this expedition is to reveal more insights into the origins of Lapita—whether from Southeast Asia or in the Bismarck Archipelago itself—but also about the culture of the people wh...

This chapter delves into an exploration into the Manu‘a Islands at Samoa's eastern extremity. Doing so would expand the author's research in Western Polynesia begun with the expeditions to Futuna and ‘Uvea in 1974 and to Niuatoputapu in 1976. Aside from recounting the challenges faced by the author in securing his research in the area, the chapter...

This chapter recounts the author's appointment to a professorship at the University of California at Berkeley, which would remain the author's academic home for twenty-five years. It reveals the challenges, both personal and professional, that the author had had to endure in leaving his post at Seattle for one of the world's preeminent centers of t...

This chapter talks about the research conducted in Mangaia, southernmost of the Cook Islands, and the results thereof—particularly at the Tangata-tau rockshelter. Here, the chapter marks a turning point where Kirch's academic interests shift toward Eastern Polynesian islands. What made Mangaian history different from that of Tikopia or some other s...

This chapter chronicles fieldwork focusing on the intensive dryland agriculture that had underwritten the staple economies of the emerging archaic states of Hawai‘i and Maui Islands in the centuries leading up to European contact. With a generous budget of $1.4 million granted by the National Science Foundation and a multidisciplinary team of scien...

This chapter chronicles a summer spent in Hālawa Valley on a research grant. Returning from Philadelphia to Honolulu, the author met his future comrades in the newly proposed Hālawa Valley Project sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Tom Riley was studying archaeology at the University of Hawai‘i (UH), focusing on how the ancient Haw...

This chapter narrates a return expedition to the Mussau islands, in particular to the Talepakemalai excavation site, from which Kirch had uncovered further evidence as to origins of the Lapita. The most striking artifact uncovered here was a carved piece of porpoise bone about six inches long, and representing a human face, which hints at its possi...

This chapter provides anecdotes, historical and personal, surrounding ‘Ōpūnohu Bay on Mo‘orea, second largest of the Society Islands. It briefly discusses the intertwined history of the ‘Ōpūnohu Valley, the Kellum family, and archaeology, before turning to the more current prospect of studying Polynesian household archaeology and the settlement lan...

This chapter highlights the author's expeditions into the Mangareva Islands. Also known as the Gambier Archipelago, Mangareva consists of fourteen small volcanic islets all enclosed within a single barrier reef and lagoon. The author's trips to Mangareva act as follow-ups to expeditions made to the region in previous decades, which have noted with...

This chapter features some anecdotes on key childhood events that have shaped the author's experiences in growing up in Hawai‘i. These experiences range from the peaceful—such as living within the natural rhythms of island life—to the life-threatening, such as a bout of acute kidney infection. These anecdotes further cement the author's growing int...

This chapter documents the period that the author spent in Yale University. In the early 1970s American anthropology was strongly committed to the “four fields” approach. The Yale faculty regarded anthropology as a social science, with an emphasis on science—on empirically based research. In the graduate program at Yale in the early 1970s, students...

This chapter reflects on some of the big changes that Kirch has witnessed in the past fifty years of his involvement in the sciences since that fateful meeting with Yoshio Kondo—changes in archaeology as an academic discipline and in the questions that archaeologists ask about the past, changes in archaeological practices, and changes in the instit...

This chapter recounts expeditions made to two distant parts of the Solomon Islands. This journey had two main goals: to seek out sites containing a distinctive kind of pottery called “Lapita,” and to discover the ways in which island cultures had adapted to the varied environments of the Solomon Islands. The trip would first take the author to Kolo...

This chapter details further archaeological ventures into Tikopia, as well as an additional venture into Vanikoro. Of note in the former area are the excavation sites at Kiki and Sinapupu, both of which hold important evidence into Tikopia's long history. Coming after the Lapita-related potsherds from Kiki in the stratigraphic sequence, the author...