Farms with a View: The Evolution of Agriculture at Kealakekua, Hawai‘i

Summary

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 and archaeologically intact area of what has become known as the Kona Field System. The investigations suggest the field system evolved in the 16th and 17th centuries as an elaboration of early localized, frontier gardening efforts in a difficult environment of shallow soils and exposed bedrock. The work was undertaken as compliance-driven projects but with Steve Athens’ encouragement and philosophy of research first, offers an alternative perspective on a long-standing topic of Hawaiian archaeology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24114