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

Abstract

Stone and earthen architecture is nearly ubiquitous in the archaeological record of Pacific islands. The construction of this architecture is tied to a range of socio-political processes, and the temporal patterning of these features is useful for understanding the rate at which populations grew, innovation occurred, and social inequality emerged. Unfortunately, this temporal patterning is poorly understood for many areas of the region, including the Sāmoan archipelago. Here, we describe a project directed toward establishing a robust chronology for the construction of these earthen and stone terraces and linear mounds on Ta‘ū Island. Using recent methodological improvements, we highlight the tempo at which different architectural types were constructed on the island and the implications for understanding demographic expansion and changing land tenure practices in the last 1500 years. This research suggests the construction of architecture was largely confined to the 2nd millennium AD with a small number of terraces plausibly built in the 1st millennium AD. This temporal patterning suggests that a reconfiguration of settlement patterns occurred within West Polynesia as people there moved into other regions of Oceania.

Evaluating Mask R‐CNN models to extract terracing across oceanic high islands: A case study from Sāmoa

“…Terracing is the dominant archaeological feature class in the uplands of these islands, which clearly relates to the constraints of living in a high island environment. Dating of terraces in American S amoa highlights the persistent utility of the technology, but also the use of terraces prior to the settlement of East Polynesia (see Carson, 2006;Quintus et al, 2020), indicating that terracing was part of the Polynesian transported landscape (after Kirch, 1982). Furthermore, the size of terracing on Tutuila is similar to that on Olosega, though mean terrace size is larger than on the other islands of Manu'a.…”

Early architecture in Tonga: implications for the development of Polynesian chiefdoms

“…As our results demonstrate, the next phase in understanding Pacific landscapes requires the critical addition of chronological data to the spatial architecture record (e.g. Quintus et al 2020) to examine Polynesian settlements and chiefdoms from the poorly understood first millennium AD through to the early European contact era. Due to the presence of fires on construction surfaces that were subsequently sealed by layers of earth fill, Mala'e Vakapuna is currently the best dated prehistoric structure in West Polynesia.…”

“…Numerous studies have investigated and attempted to date different types of durable architecture in West Polynesia, including monumental mounds (Wallin et al 2007;Clark et al 2008), fortifications (Best 1984;Frimagacci 2016;Clark et al 2017), stone terraces (Pearl 2004), linear mounds (Quintus et al 2020), circular mounds (Spennemann 1989a) and pigeon-snaring mounds (Burley 1996;Sand et al 2018;Quintus & Clark 2019). Two indicators frequently used to examine the onset of social complexity in West Polynesia are significant landscape change, as an indicator of agricultural intensification, and the construction of durable architecture.…”

“…The expansion of durable architecture in the region after 1000 AD has been linked with external migration, sustained population growth and the rapid development of traditional Polynesian leadership systems that organised and managed agricultural and residential space (Harris et al 2020;Quintus et al 2020). Researchers have long noted, however, that dating Pacific field monuments is difficult (Davidson 1979;Wallin et al 2007), raising the possibility that their construction began earlier, and therefore that population growth rates and Polynesian social complexity developed in situ over a longer interval.…”

A propósito del poblamiento aborigen en Gran Canaria. Demografía, dinámica social y ocupación del territorio

“…Todas ellas responden a materiales "de vida corta", sin aparentes problemas de contaminación o degradación y no cuestionadas en su publicación original. Por razones conocidas se ha prescindido de las fechas procedentes de contextos funerarios realizadas sobre carbón o madera sin determinación específica y, en particular, las procesadas en el laboratorio de Gakushuin por sus demostrados problemas de fiabilidad y precisión (Blakeslee, 1994;Mulrooney, 2013;DiNapoli et al, 2020;Quintus et al, 2020;para el caso concreto de Canarias: Velasco et al, 2020). Dados los objetivos planteados se podía haber seleccionado un número más elevado de fechas, incorporando también las correspondientes a contextos domésticos, lo que hubiera permitido sumar algo más de medio centenar de dataciones al estudio.…”