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Joel Klenck, An Inventory Level Identification Report of the Breakers Point Complex, on Lauli’i Ridge, Island of Tutuila, American Samoa.
Abstract and Figures
Archaeologist Joel Klenck authors an archaeological identification project for prehistoric and historic properties covering approximately 70 acres was conducted on Breakers Point for the American Samoa Historic Preservation Office, in compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (“NHPA”), as amended. The project resulted in the identification and recordation of two sites: World War II defensive fortification complex (AS-23-64) and a precontact site (AS-23-65) that comprised 77 features and more sub-features (loci) and artifacts. There are 62 World War II features belonging to AS-23-64 and 23 precontact features ascribed to AS-23-65. A nomination for the U.S. National Register of Historic Places will be submitted for sites AS-23-64 and AS-23-65.
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... If metal was identified in the survey area, this would suggest the features either derived from or were reused during post-contact periods.Lastly, several researchers noted the presence of historic dirt roads. With the investment of U.S. Marine and U.S. Navy personnel on Tutuila Island and defensive fortifications to ward off a pending Japanese attack, particularly at Breakers Point(Klenck 2014) and Blunts Point(Kennedy et al. 2012), our firm sought to test if U.S. armed forces positioned any war materials or established any observation posts during World War II in the West Manu'a project area overlooking the only port facility on Ofu Island. This research objective ties into more expansive military science and historical studies regarding the development of U.S. Marine Corps tactics and strategies from initially defensive postures to now well-known offensive maneuvers in the "island-hopping" campaigns of World War II (Ulbrich 2007). ...
... ammunition in Feature 080, employed in World War II M1 Garand rifles, and a cultural history noting the presence U.S. military on Ofu during the War, support the hypothesis that Marines and soldiers were on Ofu but concentrated mostly outside the survey area at Alaufau and Toaga (Appendix D, S. Tupa'i). The data supports that U.S. military forces, specifically U.S. Army and Marines, occupied Manu'a while also preparing defenses of Tutuila, specifically around the deep-water port at Pago Pago(Kennedy 2012, Klenck 2014. ...
Archaeologist Joel Klenck authors an archaeological survey for prehistoric and historic properties covering approximately 60.12 acres (24.32 hectares) was conducted above the current village of Ofu, on the western coast of Ofu Island, Manu’a Archipelago, for the American Samoa Historic Preservation Office, in compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (“NHPA”), as amended. The project resulted in the identification and recordation of seven (7) historic sites, AS-13-050 to AS-13-056, comprising two hundred and seven (207) historic features, 661 lithic tools or pieces of debitage, 9 coral tools, 32 bones of a domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus), 4 molluscs representing three species, and 1 metal casing from a bullet. These features, particularly the slope terraces, were occupied during pre-contact periods and afterwards. The survey featured both pedestrian research and ground penetrating radar allowing a surficial and stratigraphic analyses of each locale.
... Lastly, several researchers noted the presence of historic dirt roads. With the investment of U.S. Marine and U.S. Navy personnel on Tutuila Island and defensive fortifications to ward off a pending Japanese attack, particularly at Breakers Point(Klenck 2014) and Blunts Point(Kennedy et al. 2012), our firm sought to test if U.S. armed forces positioned any war materials on Nu'utele or established any observation posts on the Islet during World War II. The steep walls of the Islet and the low trajectory of Japanese naval gunfire might have encouraged the deposition of material on the defilade side of Nu'utele facing Ofu. ...
Archaeologist Joel Klenck authors an archaeological survey for prehistoric and historic properties covering approximately 56.19 acres conducted on Nu’utele Islet, off the western coast of Ofu Island, Manu’a Archipelago. This survey was completed for the American Samoa Historic Preservation Office, in compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (“NHPA”), as amended. The project resulted in the identification and recordation of a historic site, AS-13-003, comprising thirty-eight (38) features including eight (8) natural features associating with Samoan legends. A National Register Nomination will be submitted for the Fo’isia Legendary Site and Nu’utele Islet (AS-13-003), specifically Feature 010, the Fo’isia Tupua or sacred stone.
... This was fantastic but lower ranks rarely got their hands on it." (Klenck 2014:142, 188-189) Klenck (2014 and Kennedy (et al. 2010aKennedy (et al. & 2010b note the presence of dark brown and green beer bottles from World War II at Breakers Point and Blunts Point / Utulei Ridge, respectively. Conversely, no liquor bottles are noted in World War II contexts from Breakers or Utulei Ridge. ...
Archaeologist Joel Klenck authors a hypothesis testing project conducted on Feature 008 at Site AS-25-89A, from the Fagatogo / Utulei Ridge Survey Project, first documented by Kennedy (et al. 2010). The area comprises 2 acres (0.8093 hectares). The concrete structure of several square meters comprised a series of tubular, metal containers that were connected by pipes. These metal containers ended with a pipe that angled downward and protruded from the structure. Feature 008 seemed to emulate the characteristics of an alcohol still, a device used to manufacture spirits. An alcohol still from World War II would be of interest because the War was instrumental in removing prohibitions against alcohol consumption in the United States. Also, a still from this era would be a unique historic structure in the Pacific showing that local military units made whiskey or brandy despite that distilleries were repurposed by the U.S. government for wartime needs such as the production of high-grade alcohol for torpedo fuel and penicillin. However, after further research, the traits of Feature 008 conflicted with the hypothesis of an alcohol still. Instead, analogies to other World War contexts on Tutuila and characteristics of the construction, including the lack of a coil in the last metal container and multiple pipes fanning out from the structure, supported the null hypothesis that Feature 008 was a pot boiler, a vestige of boiler technology that was replaced by condensing boilers, utilized in modern maritime and domestic constructions. This project was completed for the American Samoa Historic Preservation Office, in compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (“NHPA”), as amended.
Archaeologist Joel Klenck authored an NRHP Nomination of the Sogelau Hill Flag Pole Site, a flat terrace on the side of a hill, measuring approximately 10.2 m. in length, 6.7 m. in width, oriented along an axis of 248 degrees magnetic. The property is located on a hill in Fagatogo, in Mauputasi County, Tutuila Island, American Samoa. The area is filled with lush grass partially shaded by the hill and trees tended by an extended Samoan family that owns the area. In the center of the terrace is a flag pole where the first formal raising of the flag of the United States occurred, on April 17, 1900, symbolizing American Samoa’s deed of cession to the United States. Here, the principal chiefs of Tutuila signed the Deed of Cession, which recognized American control over their island. This signing of the Deed of Cession, which transferred authority of the American Samoa to the United States occurred at the Sogelau Hill Flag Pole, the property in this nomination.
The archaeological analysis of the Fagamalo site was conducted to keep the Fagali’i-Maloata-Fagamalo (“FMF”) Waterline Projects, for the American Samoa Power Authority (“ASPA”), in compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (“NHPA”), as amended. The Act requires all federally funded projects to record and mitigate damage to historic sites, usually greater than fifty (50) years of age. The ASPA Engineer Service Division’s (“ESD”) Archaeology Department also ensures that construction crews follow the American Samoa Coastal Management Act of 1990 (“ASCMA”) and adhere to the provisions of the Samoan Project Notification and Review System (“PNRS”), which further protects historic sites.
To fulfill the requirements of the NHPA, ASPA archaeologists completed Phase I, II, and III mitigation activities at Fagamalo, a town near the western coastline of Tutuila Island in American Samoa. These methodologies comprised the clearance of vegetation, pedestrian surveys, the mitigation of shovel-test pits, and excavation of square-meter excavation units.
Archaeologists retrieved an array of artifacts including Polynesian plainware ceramic sherds, adzes, adze pre-forms, volcanic glass, lunate-shaped lithic artifacts, debitage, lithic chisel, fire-cracked rocks, clays annealing to basaltic cinders, and clays of various colors. The use of ceramics at Fagamalo indicates ceramic utilization was more widespread than previously recorded in archaeological literature, suggests the possibility of ceramic manufacturing at the sites, and encourages additional archaeological surveys in the west of Tutuila Island.
Following U.S. Federal and local statutes, archaeologists from the American Samoa Historic Preservation Office and American Samoa Power Authority excavated three sites on Tutuila Island in American Samoa. At these locales: Maloata, Fagamalo, and Leone, archaeologists retrieved Polynesian Plainware ceramic sherds, adzes, adze pre-forms, volcanic glass, lunate-shaped lithic artifacts, blades, scrapers, and other artifacts. The retrieval of ceramic artifacts at these sites indicates ceramic utilization was more widespread than previously recorded in archaeological literature. Further, artifacts from Maloata and Fagamalo suggest the possibility of ceramic manufacturing locales.
Les ceramiques mises au jour sur le site d'Aoa (ile Tutuila, Samoa) semblent dater de 1000 ans d'apres l'abandon presume de la poterie en Polynesie occidentale. Les auteurs rapportent ici les resultats d'un test visant a verifier la probabilite d'une existence plus tardive de la ceramique, grâce a l'utilisation de la methode de mesures par hydratation des objets en obsidienne decouverts sur le site
The Samoan Archipelago occupies a critical position for understanding the dispersal of early Austronesian-speaking peoples into the southwestern Pacific, including the initial colonization by humans of the Polynesian triangle. To date, the most easterly reported site of the Lapita cultural complex (Green, 1979; Kirch, 1984; Kirch & Hunt, 1988) is the Mulifanua site on Upolu Island, Western Samoa (Green & Davidson, 1974). Lapita colonists settled the larger, western Samoan Islands by the end of the second millennium bc. Archaeologic and linguistic evidence also suggest that the islands of Eastern Polynesia (eg, Marquesas, Society and Cook Islands) were settled, at least in part, from Samoa. However, the timing of this movement into Eastern Polynesia has not yet been dated to earlier than ca 150 bc on the basis of radiocarbon dating of cultural materials from the Marquesas Islands (Kirch, 1986; Ottino, 1985). This has raised the issue of whether there was a “long pause” between the settlement of Samoa (and the other islands of Western Polynesia, such as Tonga, Futuna, and ‘Uvea) and that of Eastern Polynesia (Irwin, 1981; Kirch, 1986; Terrell, 1986).
Excavations in a deeply stratified coastal site at To'aga, Ofu Island, in the Manu'a group of American Samoa, yielded evidence of human occupation spanning the entire Samoan cultural sequence. The earliest deposits, dated to 3700–3300 BP, may represent a Lapita Period occupation, although the present sample is very limited. An Ancestral Polynesian phase, dated from 2500–1900 BP, is well attested, with abundant Polynesian Plainware ceramics, simple one-piece fishhooks, and other artifacts and associated faunal materials. Aceramic deposits, dated after 1900 BP, are also present. A model for the geomorphological evolution of the site, incorporating sea level change and the effects of human impact on the landscape, is presented.