Precise chronology of Polynesian temple construction and use for southeastern Maui, Hawaiian Islands determined by 230Th dating of corals

Kirch, Patrick V.; Mertz‐Kraus, Regina; Sharp, Warren D.

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2014.09.025

Cited by 19 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…6) have been reported for Maui Island (Kirch et al, 2015, Table 1). The dates provide a high resolution record of branch coral harvest associated with ritual offerings on temples from Kahikinui and Kaup o districts of Maui Island (Supporting Information).…”

Section: Branch Coral Harvest Eventsmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…The second project, in the dry Kahikinui lands on Maui Island, collected and dated pieces of branch coral from architectural fill contexts at 11 temples identified by the excavator as "architecturally integral" (Kirch et al, 2015). Here, there is a direct association between the reference event and the target event, which in both cases is construction of the architectural element from which the dated branch coral was collected.…”

Section: Temple Construction Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Kahikinui dating projects pioneered the 230 Th dating of branch coral from Hawaiian archaeological sites (Kirch and Sharp, 2005;Kirch et al, 2015). The lure of 230 Th dating is its precision; the standard deviation of age estimates is typically less than a decade and often less than five years.…”

Section: Implications For Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The lure of 230 Th dating is its precision; the standard deviation of age estimates is typically less than a decade and often less than five years. However, the interpretation of the initial 230 Th results by Kirch and Sharp (2005) was widely criticized because seven of the eight dated branch coral pieces were Fig. 6.…”

Section: Implications For Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Long-term rhythms in the development of Hawaiian social stratification

Dye

2016

Journal of Archaeological Science

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Section: Branch Coral Harvest Eventsmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Temple Construction Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Implications For Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Implications For Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Long-term rhythms in the development of Hawaiian social stratification

Dye

2016

Journal of Archaeological Science

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“…Gambier Is demonstrated how monumental religious structures are embedded within settlement landscapes, and have outlined the pace and timing of temple construction sequences and labor requirements (Graves and Cachola-Abad, 1996;Kolb, 1991Kolb, , 1994Kolb, , 2006Kirch et al, 2015;Mulrooney and Ladefoged, 2005;Sharp et al, 2010;Weisler et al, 2006). Others have focused on cosmological layouts in temple orientation (Kirch, 2004;McCoy, 2008) and their associations with particular deities or astronomical events or how their architectural elements speak to religious beliefs.…”

Section: Rapa Nuimentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying residences of ritual practitioners in the archaeological record as a proxy for social complexity

Kahn

2015

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

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a b s t r a c tDedicated ritual specialists often had indispensable roles in ancient religions and significant impacts on political histories. Few studies have developed methodologies for recovering direct evidence for ritual practitioners in the archaeological record. I argue that the study of religious practitioners must take a holistic micro-scale approach, documenting not only the places where ritual paraphernalia (sacra) were stored, but places where priests and their assistants lived and practiced intimate and communal rituals. I begin with a discussion of ethnohistoric and ethnographic data to model what priests did in ancient societies, and what the material correlates of their dwellings and activities might look like. I then present archaeological data from two late prehistoric house sites identified as priest dwellings from East Polynesian. Utilizing multiple lines of evidence, including portable artifacts, botanical specimens, site architecture, and site distribution patterns, I argue that there is close complementarity between the eth nohistoric-ethnographic model and the archaeological remains. That priests' houses houses are often situated within corporate ritual centers speaks to the import of such sites and their associated ceremonial activities in the strategic use ideology to institutionalize social hierarchies and political status, a pattern seen in many other ranked societies in Polynesia and other case studies world-wide.

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The sacred stone from the sea. Archaeological and ethnographic perspectives on the ritual value of coral across the Pacific

Molle¹,

Lagarde

Wright³

2023

Archaeology in Oceania

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The Pacific Islands offer a variety of marine environments providing peoples in the present and past with abundant coral materials, a "stone from the sea". Archaeologists have long recognised the importance of coral in ancient contexts, whether as gravel, natural branches, squared blocks or cut-and-dress slabs. Coral was also used to manufacture tools such as files or pounders and incorporated in monumental ceremonial architecture as a favoured construction material and foundation offerings. However, Pacific Islanders also employed coral material for other ritual applications that remain overlooked in the literature. In this article, we consider the multiple uses of coral in the archaeological and ethnographic records of three Pacific regions: Central-East Polynesia (CEP), New Caledonia and the Torres Strait Islands. This includes offering of coral branches, sometimes associated with cairns, paraphernalia and magic stones, also production of coral lime for body ornamentation. Using these case studies, we consider material selection, modes of deposition, archaeological and ethnographic contexts, associations with other features and artefacts, before interrogating the potential significance of these unrealised datasets. By doing so, we shed new light on the ritual value of coral and reflect on the symbolic nature and function of this material.

show abstract

Precise chronology of Polynesian temple construction and use for southeastern Maui, Hawaiian Islands determined by 230Th dating of corals

Cited by 19 publications

References 15 publications

Long-term rhythms in the development of Hawaiian social stratification

Long-term rhythms in the development of Hawaiian social stratification

Identifying residences of ritual practitioners in the archaeological record as a proxy for social complexity

The sacred stone from the sea. Archaeological and ethnographic perspectives on the ritual value of coral across the Pacific

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