Warming to the Tempo of Change in Old Hawai`i

Author(s): Thomas Dye; Timothy Rieth

Year: 2017

Summary

Archaeologists sometimes claim that the refined chronologies

yielded by Bayesian calibration make it possible to distinguish between

Levi-Strauss's "hot" and "cold" societies. Historians of Hawai`i leave

little doubt that Hawai`i was a "hot" society in the early historic

period. A review and comparison of chronologies for the tempo of change

in pre-Contact Hawai`i distinguishes the "cold" society reconstituted by

ad hoc methods from the "hot" society reconstituted by the Bayesian

method. We make two claims: 1) the ad-hoc chronologies from Hawai`i are

incongruous with the historical record and 2) Bayesian chronologies

provide context and time-depth for the "hot" Hawaiian society described

by historians.

Cite this Record

Warming to the Tempo of Change in Old Hawai`i. Thomas Dye, Timothy Rieth. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, British Columbia. 2017 ( tDAR id: 430501)

Keywords

Geographic Keywords
Oceania

Spatial Coverage

min long: 111.973; min lat: -52.052 ; max long: -87.715; max lat: 53.331 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15403