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Joel Klenck, Report for the Fo’isia Legendary Site and Nu’utele Archaeological Survey, Island of Ofu, American Samoa
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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.
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The book is particularly aimed at students of Samoan culture, botanists and lay people who want to know the names and uses of plants in Samoa.
Samoans have a rich heritage of using native and other traditional plants found in the islands to fulfill their everyday needs. The archipelago is home to nearly 800 native vascular plants, and the ancient Samoans also brought another 50 or so plant species with them for use as food, shelter, clothing, and other necessities of life. In recent times, however, much of the traditional plant lore has been lost as Samoa has undergone profound changes related to the introduction of western ways and material goods. A whole generation has grown up without much of this traditional knowledge that their parents and grandparents had, and the information is slowly being lost.
Plants in Samoan Culture: the Ethnobotany of Samoa is about this traditional plant lore, and is based upon the botanical literature of the last 150 years and the author's 30 years of work in Samoa. The book, which is richly illustrated with about 150 black and white photos, includes all the current and traditional use of plants in Samoan culture. The book is divided into chapters on food (staples and minor plants), plaiting of weaving materials, cordage, tapa cloth, wood products (for houses, boats, and artifacts), medicine, ornamentation, and other uses. It also features a listing of all Samoan plant names, with their scientific names, habitat, status, and uses. Also included is an appendix with other plant names that have not been substantiated.
The archaeological assessment of the Maloata 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 Maloata, 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 four (4) Polynesian plainware ceramic sherds, adze pre-forms, debitage, a denticulate, fire-cracked rocks, and clays annealing to basaltic cinders. The use of ceramics at Maloata indicate ceramic utilization was more widespread than previously recorded in archaeological literature and suggest the need for additional archaeological surveys in the west of Tutuila Island.
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.
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
If radiocarbon measurements are to be used at all for chronological purposes, we have to use statistical methods for calibration. The most widely used method of calibration can be seen as a simple application of Bayesian statistics, which uses both the information from the new measurement and information from the 14 C calibration curve. In most dating applications, however, we have larger numbers of 14 C measurements and we wish to relate those to events in the past. Bayesian statistics provides a coherent framework in which such analysis can be performed and is becoming a core element in many 14 C dating projects. This article gives an overview of the main model components used in chronological analysis, their mathematical formulation, and examples of how such analyses can be performed using the latest version of the OxCal software (v4). Many such models can be put together, in a modular fashion, from simple elements, with defined constraints and groupings. In other cases, the commonly used “uniform phase” models might not be appropriate, and ramped, exponential, or normal distributions of events might be more useful. When considering analyses of these kinds, it is useful to be able run simulations on synthetic data. Methods for performing such tests are discussed here along with other methods of diagnosing possible problems with statistical models of this kind.
Samples of inshore marine shell species (various taxa, see description below) were collected from controlled excavation of ceramic-bearing strata of two archaeologic sites in the Manu'a Island group, American Samoa. Located on the closely adjacent islands of Ta'u and Ofu (14° 14’ 30” S, 169° 30’ 40” E and 14° 10’ 55” S, 169° 39’ 0” E, respectively), these sites represent human occupation along shorelines undergoing a parallel depositional sequence of calcareous sand dune development and concomitant seaward progradation. Our primary objective was to obtain an initial age estimate for prehistoric ceramics from eastern Samoa. On stylistic and technologic criteria, the ceramics recovered from our excavations can be classified as thick-coarse Polynesian Plainware. Based on previous studies in Western Samoa, Polynesian Plainware represents a terminal phase of prehistoric pottery manufacture in the Samoan Islands, believed to date from ca 200 bc to ad 300 (Green & Davidson, 1974).
The timing and unprecedented speed of the Lapita migration from the western edge of Oceania to western Polynesia in the Central Pacific have long been of interest to archaeologists. The eastern-most extent of that great human migration was the Samoan Archipelago in West Polynesia, although critical questions have remained about the timing and process of Samoan colonization. To investigate those questions, we carried out a Bayesian analysis of 19 radiocarbon dates on charcoal and 8 uranium-thorium (U-Th) series coral dates from four archaeological sites on Ofu Island in the eastern reaches of Samoa. The analysis indicates initial settlement of Ofu at 2717–2663 cal BP (68.2%) by people using Plainware rather than the diagnostic dentate-stamped Lapita pottery. This date range indicates that there is not a significant chronological gap between Lapita and Plainware sites in Samoa, which holds implications for modeling the settlement process in the Central Pacific.