Mortuary Contexts and Social Structure at Nan Madol, Pohnpei

Abstract

Archaeological studies of mortuary practices contribute to discussions of prehistoric social structure. Relatively little work has focused on mortuary practices in Micronesia, particularly those associated with societies that built the monumental earthworks of Palau, the Latte sets in the Mariana Islands, and the monumental centers of Leluh on Kosrae and Nan Madol on Pohnpei. This study utilizes multiple lines of evidence to consider mortuary contexts and their relationship to social structure at the site of Nan Madol. The mortuary context is interpreted as reflecting ascribed status in a stratified hierarchical system consistent with traditional histories. The study provides a base line for future studies of Pohnpeian mortuary practices and adds to archaeological knowledge of complex societies in Micronesia and the Pacific.Data from burial practices and beliefs about death were of central importance to the early development of the study of human evolution, of the rise of ancient civilization, and of cultural and social institutions. (Huntington and Metcalf 1979:5) The study of mortuary practices has long been a focus in anthropology and archae-

Airborne LiDAR Reveals a Vast Archaeological Landscape at the Nan Madol World Heritage Site

“…Riesenberg considered the Saudeleur Dynasty "a highly developed socio-political system that permitted the planning of the structures, organization of manpower to build them and to raise and feed the mass of labor necessary for construction" ( [24], p. 5). Subsequent research has corroborated this interpretation, with many other researchers noting the high level of social complexity implied by the construction of Nan Madol [2,[4][5][6][7][8]10,14,15,22,23,26,27]. Riesenberg's comment about the necessity of feeding laborers anticipates the findings on Temwen Island reported here.…”

“…Archaeological investigations indicate that the bulk of Nan Madol's islets and structures were constructed from approximately 1200 to 1600 CE [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Oral histories support these dates and associate Nan Madol, at least in its later stages, with the Saudeleur Dynasty.…”

Time, Seawalls, and Money

“…Th ese early harbor and seawall complexes presaged a response that would become more and more common over the course of the next 2,000 years. Other attempts to modify and/or control the sea began to proliferate around the globe, ranging from seawalls in China from about 713 to 900 CE in the Quintang estuary and Hangzhou Bay respectively (Pranzini 2018; Wang et al 2012) to the monumental architecture of the artifi cial islets and seawall at Nan Madol in Pohnpei, which was constructed around 1000 CE (Ayres et al 2008;Seikel 2011). It was only a few centuries later, in the 1300s, that some of the earliest seawalls and shoreline works began in Venice, a coastal city that has come to be one of the most well-known symbols of coastal engineering in the twentieth and twenty-fi rst centuries.…”

A Partial Chronological Sequence of Human Habitation for Pingelap Atoll (Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia)

“…Monumental architecture has been a major focus of much archaeological research in the region, as it is important to understanding the socio-politics of the past. These monumental sites include Nan Madol (e.g., Athens 1980Athens , 1990Ayres 1993;Ayres and Scheller 2003;Ayres et al 2009Ayres et al , 2015Seikel 2011Seikel , 2016McCoy and Athens 2012;Ayres and Seikel 2014;McCoy et al 2015McCoy et al , 2016 and Lelu on Kosrae (e.g., Cordy 1982Cordy , 1985Cordy , 1993Ueki 1984;Richards et al 2015). However, smaller archaeological sites, representing the lives of non-elites, have also attracted some interest (e.g., Ayres and Mauricio 1999;Haun 1984;Mauricio 1993;Levin 2015Levin , 2016Levin , 2018Poteate et al 2016;.…”