Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

During the past four decades, J. Stephen Athens has set a sterling example as a professional archaeologist whose research has blended CRM and academic archaeology. True to the intention of historic preservation laws, Steve has held the complementary view that CRM must contribute to the broader research issues of archaeology while providing clients with support in fulfilling their historic preservation obligations. While running a successful CRM company in Honolulu and Guam, he has conducted research throughout Hawai‘i, Micronesia, Ecuador, and French Polynesia. He is known especially for his paleoenvironmental wetland coring research as it relates to human colonization and environmental impacts in the Pacific basin. Using this approach, he also documented the advent of maize farming in northern highland Ecuador, and climate and vegetation changes in the tropical Amazon region of Ecuador. Among his contributions are the identification of the major role that the Polynesian-introduced Pacific rat played in the rapid demise of Hawai‘i’s endemic lowland forest; the development of a chronology for northern highland Ecuador; investigation of the megalithic architecture of Pohnpei; and prehistoric landscape studies of Kosrae. This symposium celebrates Steve’s legacy through presentations by his colleagues, covering topics related to, or inspired by, his research.

Other Keywords
Coastal and Island Archaeology  • Geoarchaeology • Dating Techniques • Neolithic • Cultural Resources and Heritage Management • Historic Preservation • Migration • Chronology • Palynology • Historical Archaeology

Geographic Keywords
Republic of Panama (Country) • Republic of Ecuador (Country) • Japan (Country) • Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (Country) • Republic of Palau (Country) • Republic of the Philippines (Country) • Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Country) • Republic of Korea (Country) • United Mexican States (Country) • Republic of El Salvador (Country)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-13 of 13)

  • Documents (13)
Documents
  • Apotguan Revisited: A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Latte Period Burials from Guam (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rona Ikehara-Quebral. Judith McNeill. Michele Toomay Douglas. Michael Pietrusewsky.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cultural Resources Management studies in the Mariana Islands have consistently expanded opportunities for in-depth bioarchaeological research. Burial assemblages originating from historic preservation compliance obligations generally derive from one of three contexts: displaced fragmentary remains;...

  • The Best Gifts come in Small Packages? Coring Volcanic Landscapes in New Britain (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter White. Robin Torrence. Vince Neall.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A volcanic environment built up by characterised and well dated airfall tephras is paradise for landscape archaeology because in any excavation the cultural material is placed accurately in time. Shouldn’t this setting also be ideal for environmental data? With expertise provided by Steve Athens, we...

  • Buck Lake, Archaeological Research, and Subsistence and Settlement Patterns at Mount Rainier National Park (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Greg Burtchard.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For the past two decades, research directed at establishing onset of human use, patterned use of montane habitats, integration into lowland subsistence and settlement systems, and temporal change has been imbedded into CRM practices at Mount Rainier National Park. Once thought to be of little value...

  • Event, Process, and Occurrence: A Bayesian View (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Dye.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Steve Athens' substantive and interpretive contributions provide a firm Bayesian grounding for Hawaiian chronology. This paper offers operational definitions for archaeological events, processes, and occurrences and describes how they can each be investigated in a Bayesian framework with the R...

  • Farms with a View: The Evolution of Agriculture at Kealakekua, Hawai‘i (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Myra Jean Tuggle.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Above the 400 foot sea cliff at Kealakekua Bay on the leeward Kona coast of Hawai‘i are the remnants of extensive pre-Contact Hawaiian agricultural infrastructure. Inventory survey and data recovery on 100-plus acres at the top of the sea cliff provided an opportunity to examine a relatively large...

  • Getting the Chronology Correct: Bayesian Chronological Analysis of Initial Ceramic Deposits in Island Southeast Asia (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ethan Cochrane. Timothy Rieth. Darby Filimoehala.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Throughout his career Steve Athens has been concerned with generating archaeological chronologies that, because of their precision and validity, add to our understanding of the past. Steve was never one to generate dates of dubious quality simply to produce a table in a report. In this spirit, and...

  • Historical and Archaeological Investigations in the Mountain Forests of Okinawa, Japan (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Welch. Judith McNeill. Naoki Higa. Alexandra Garrigue. Taku Mukai.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Today the mountainous interior of the northern portion of Okinawa, covered by dense forests, remains sparsely populated or uninhabited. Archaeological surveys have found very little in the way of prehistoric or early historical remains, but widespread evidence of human use during the nineteenth and...

  • Human Ecodynamics in Central East Polynesia (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Melinda Allen.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our understanding of Pacific paleoenvironments, how they changed with human arrival, and further transformations in the post-settlement period owes much to the research and insights of Steve Athens. This paper considers palaeoenvironmental records from central East Polynesian islands in relation to...

  • Kanaloa: Lessons from Paleoecology of a Once Common Lowland Forest Species in Hawai'i (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jerome Ward.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the late 1980s and early1990’s paleoenvironmental investigations at wetland sites in coastal lowlands of O‘ahu and Mau‘i revealed a very common unknown mimosoid pollen type occurring during pre-Polynesian times. Following Polynesian arrival in the islands around AD 1000, sediment profiles...

  • Looking for Sites in all the Wrong Places: Finding Evidence of Preceramic Occupations in Northern Highland Ecuador (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria-Auxiliadora Cordero.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. J.S. Athens and colleagues recently published evidence of early maize (6,600 CAL BP) from a lake core in northern highland Ecuador. Deposits with maize phytoliths and pollen were interspersed with ash layers from volcanic eruptions. The various geological processes that have shaped the environment...

  • Nearly Two Millennia of Occupation along Ylig Bay, Guam: Archaeological, Osteological, and Paleoenvironmental Data (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Rieth. Alex E. Morrison. Rona Ikehara-Quebral.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Through CRM compliance-mandated investigations nearly two millennia of occupation at Ylig Bay, Guam, has been documented. Stratified archaeological deposits at three locales along the northern portion of the embayment reveal late Pre-Latte occupation and a possible decades- to centuries-long hiatus...

  • Paleo-sediment Coring Studies in Micronesia: A Review and Critique (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rosalind Hunter-Anderson.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paleo-sediment coring studies by archaeologists, pioneered in Micronesia by Steve Athens and colleagues, including myself, in the 1980s, are reviewed and assessed for their contributions to archaeological science in the western Pacific within a CRM context. It is suggested that while data generated...

  • A Synthesis of Windward Oahu Archaeology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alex Morrison.

    This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Steve Athens legacy has provided archaeologists working within a historic preservation context a reminder of the numerous opportunities available to conduct research within a cultural resource management setting. This paper argues that not only does historic preservation provide a plethora of funding...