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Joel Klenck, Report for the Malaeloa Archaeological Survey, Island of Tutuila, American Samoa
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Archaeologist Joel Klenck authors an archaeological survey, for prehistoric and historic properties covering approximately 353 acres, conducted in Malaeloa, Tutuila Island, American Samoa, 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 types of sites: forty (40) precontact sites and four (4) World War II sites. Our firm identified seven (7) World War II features and one-hundred and seventy-three (173) precontact locales. A National Register Nomination was submitted for Site AS-32-16 comprising Features 4 to 19, the Malaeloa Olo, a precontact defensive fortification.
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Listing of cultural heritage sites know for American Samoa in 1980. This report also presents the site numbering system used then, and since, for the Territory.
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).