From Hohokam Archaeology to Narratives of the Ancient Hawaiian ‘State’

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Interpreting the political economies of early complex societies that lacked texts is a profoundly difficult challenge for anthropological archaeology. Such models compel archaeologists to examine material evidence of agricultural intensification, community organization, craft specialization, monumental construction, and mortuary practices. In this comparative study, I consider such evidence to examine the political economies of ancient societies in two regions: the Arizona desert and the Hawaiian archipelago. A comparison of archaeology in the two regions confirms that Southwestern scholars have underestimated the degree of social stratification among the Hohokam -- if we accept claims that ancient ‘states’ developed in the Hawaiian Islands. This finding underscores the limitations of using conventional archaeological correlates to characterize ancient societies elsewhere in the world.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23156