Households, Specialization, and Social Production in Society Islands Chiefdoms

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Patrick Kirch and Dr. Jennifer Kahn, assisted by an international team of scholars will conduct two field seasons of archaeological work in the Society Islands of Central Eastern Polynesia. The team brings together specialists based in U.S., Australian, French, New Zealand, and French Polynesian universities to investigate emerging social and political complexity, and centralization of elite power, in the chiefdom societies of the Society Island archipelago. The project focuses on archaeological sites in the 'Opunohu Valley, a major productive and agricultural zone on the island of Mo'orea; the valley also served as a residential center, loci for elite ritual activities, and seat of chiefly political power. The late prehistoric period (AD 1400-1800) in the Society Islands was a time of major social transformation, whereby political and economic power was increasingly controlled by high status chiefs and other elites. These transformations greatly affected the nature and intensity of agricultural subsistence, surplus production, and ritual activities. These changes presumably had lasting effects on daily life and inter-personal interactions, creating a wider divide between the lives of commoners and those of high status and economically privileged elites. Historic sources document that the Society Islands are an exemplar of a complex chiefdom (similar to Tonga and Hawaii) in which social inequality, hierarchy, and status differences were notably pronounced, however some fluidity in social status was retained, similar to less complex chiefdoms. The study will thus provides an unparalleled opportunity to combine documentary and archaeological research to investigate a major anthropological problem: the development of social complexity, hierarchy, and status differences in chiefdom societies (the precursors to states). The goal is to develop an understanding of the particular avenues leading to the development of inequality, and rank and status differences, and how these processes, in turn, affected social relations, access to resources, and the production of daily goods and surplus items at the local, community, and regional levels. The scale of research requires that basic data, principally in residential areas and monumental temples, be gathered to develop a chronological and settlement pattern sequence. Sites will be mapped and excavated to reconstruct social differentiation, the household economy, and ritual practices. Specific tasks are: 1) to survey and map major residential and religious site complexes in two traditional polities; 2) to conduct large-scale excavations at house structures and smaller excavations at temple complexes and specialized elite sites; 3) to complete spatial and functional analysis of recovered sub-surface features (cooking areas, food storage features); 4) to analyze the recovered stone tools and to source the raw materials from which they were produced; and 5) to integrate the survey date with the excavation data. The intellectual merit of the research is that of testing models of emerging socio-political complexity and the development of rank and status inequality, two highly contentious issues confronting current anthropological archaeology. Broader impacts include contributing significant information on a complex Polynesian chiefdom, the Society Islands, that has previously lacked any major investigative work. The work will provide a sustentative increase in knowledge allowing for major revisions in the scientific understanding of chiefdoms societies, generally acknowledged as precursors to the state. French Polynesian, Australian, and U.S. students will participate in the project to enhance their training and increase their knowledge of archaeological techniques and Polynesian prehistory.