Did Sāmoa have intensive agriculture in the past? New findings from LiDAR

UTU: Sāmoa archaeology and cultural heritage database

“…The scope and complexity of these channels were previously unknown to archaeologists. CSS LiDAR shows similar, though smaller, drainage systems in other areas of Sāmoa such as the Falefa Valley (as previously mentioned by Davidson (1974) as well as at Solosolo, Tafatafa, and Salani (Jackmond et al, 2019;Shapiro, 2020) on Upolu and at Sili on Savaii (Utu database). This system of channels has called into question the long held assumptions that Sāmoan cultivation practices were on small family farms (Carson, 2006;Green, 2002) as it suggests a larger scale system of construction and maintenance would have been required, with implications for earlier forms of political leadership (Jackmond et al, 2019;Shapiro, 2020).…”

“…New data entered into Utu (Jackmond et al., 2019) shows there can be little doubt that in centuries prior to the 19th century inland settlement was far more extensive in Sāmoa than previously supposed and that Sāmoa may have had a much larger population before European contact than the missionary estimates of about 50,000 for the entire archipelago in the mid‐19th century (McArthur, 1967). This raises the question of why, after 2500 or more years of human habitation, did Sāmoa have such a small population when first observed by Europeans?…”

“…While the LiDAR data was still being entered into Utu, CSS began conducting wide ranging settlement pattern surveys of selected portions of Sāmoa, the first to have been conducted in the last 40 years. These surveys consisted of two extensive LiDAR‐guided field research programs one in Palauli, Savai‘i (Jackmond et al., 2018) and the other on the eastern end of Upolu (Jackmond et al., 2019). The data from these surveys was also entered into Utu.…”

Tempo and Trajectory of the Built Landscape on Ta‘ū Island, Manu‘a Group, American Sāmoa: Integrating Extensive Radiocarbon Dating With Joint Posterior Modeling

“…The morphology of this durable architecture 2 is variable across the archipelago. In the western islands, mounds, stone walls, raised-rim depressions, and ditches dominate the landscape, along with terraces on the hillslopes of valleys (Davidson 1974a;Holmer 1980;Martinsson-Wallin 2016;Sand et al 2018;Jackmond et al 2019). In the eastern islands, terracing is common in the interior uplands with more limited distributions of stone walls, ditching, earthen depressions, and few mounds (Clark and Herdrich 1993;Pearl 2004;Quintus 2011Quintus , 2015Quintus et al 2017).…”

“…These constructed landscapes speak to the extent and nature of land use in the past. The acquisition and analysis of lidar (light detection and ranging) datasets has provided a clearer image of the scale of landscape alteration and built environment, particularly of tropical environments that rapidly revert to dense forested ecosystems (McCoy et al 2011;Quintus et al 2015aQuintus et al , 2017Freeland et al 2016;Bedford et al 2018;Cochrane and Mills 2018;Jackmond et al 2018Jackmond et al , 2019Comer et al 2019). In each case of application, the magnitude of land use documented has exceeded that which was once thought.…”