The Social Organization and Engineering of Agriculture at Maluaka in the South Kona Field System, Hawai`i Island

Summary

Two field seasons of excavation have been completed at Maluaka above Keauhou on Hawai`i Island. The project is a collaboration between Kamehameha Schools, which administers the site as an educational facility, and the University of Hawai`i at Hilo. We wish to describe the collaboration between academics, Hawaiians and the lineal descendent community interested in cultural practice and revitalization, as well as the integration of Hawaiian knowledge and archaeological science. The site has been plane table and alidaide mapped over several years. The 2016 work focused on platform and mound areas located at high promontories of the site. Excavations revealed fire pits excavated into pahoehoe lava and underground ventilated drainage canals. These activity areas, including high artifact density middens as deep as one meter, may have been supervisor stations (konohiki) stations for directing work crews and observing the landscape and its alignments. Presented are preliminary observations on the social organization, artifacts and engineering of the site plus some directions for future research.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14832