Settlement | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

September 24, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Settlement & Agricultural Development

Folks describe different ‘phases’ or ‘periods’ of human settlement and agricultural development in the Islands over time. Different people use different terms for each of these (some use varying timeframes, as well,) but they seem to generally fall into Settlement, Development, Expansion and ultimately Post-Contact.

Settlement – AD 1000-1400

It is believed that initial Polynesian discovery and settlement of the Hawaiian Islands occurred between approximately AD 1000 and 1200. (Kirch) This effectively started the ‘Settlement’ phase.

The rich valley bottoms which later they would clear, terrace, and irrigate for wet-taro cultivation, were in their pristine state, dense jungle, probably covered mostly with the hau shrub which, where it runs wild, produces a dense, tight jungle. For this jungle the first settlers had no use.

What taro tops they had, they planted along the banks of the streams, as taro is still planted along the banks of irrigation and drainage ditches. If they had sweet-potato shoots, these were planted in sandy soil near their huts.

It is more likely, however, that the first settlers had little or nothing to plant. The plants and more settlers were probably brought by canoes sent back to the homeland.

For generations, the small, slowly growing population clustered around shore sites near streams that supplied them with water. Such sites are best for inshore fishing.

Fishermen and their families living around the bays and the beaches, or at isolated localities along the coast where fishing was practicable, led a life that was materially simpler than that of planters who dwelt on the plains.

The food plants of Hawaiʻi can be divided into three groups: those known as staple foods (the principal starchy foods – kalo (taro,) ʻuala (sweet potato,) ʻulu (breadfruit,) etc;) those of less importance (to add nutrients and variety to the diet;) and those known as famine foods. (Krauss)

With such a small (but growing) population based on the family unit, society was not so complicated that it needed chiefs to govern or oversee the general population.

Kamakau states that there were no chiefs in the earliest period of settlement but that they came “several hundred years afterward … when men became numerous.”

Development – AD 1400-1650

As the ancient Hawaiian population grew, land use and resource management also evolved. The traditional land use in the Hawaiian Islands evolved from shifting cultivation into a stable form of agriculture.

Stabilization required a new form of land use and eventually the ahupua‘a form of land management was instituted (what we generally refer to as watersheds, today.) Ahupuaʻa served as a means of managing people.

In addition, this centralization of government allowed for development and maintenance of large projects, such as irrigation systems, large taro loʻi, large fish ponds, heiau and trails.

To feed more people, farming became more developed and intensified. Only in Hawaiʻi was there such an intensive effort to utilize practically every body of water, from seashore to upland forests, as a source of food, for either agriculture or aquaculture.

Hawaiians built rock-walled enclosures in near shore waters, to raise fish for their communities and families. It is believed these were first built around the fifteenth century.

The ancient Hawaiian fishpond is a sophisticated land and ocean resource management technique. Utilizing raw materials such as rocks, corals, vines and woods, the Hawaiians created great walls (kuapā) and gates (mākāhā) for these fishponds. (Kelly)

Another technological invention by Hawaiian Polynesians was the development of their extended stone-faced, terraced pondfields (lo‘i) and their accompanying irrigation systems (‘auwai) for the intensive cultivation of wetland taro (kalo.)

The terraces were irrigated with water brought in ditches from springs and streams high in the valleys, allowing extensive areas of the valleys to be cultivated. The irrigation ditches and pondfields were engineered to allow the cool water to circulate among the taro plants and from terrace to terrace, avoiding stagnation and overheating by the sun, which would rot the taro tubers.

An acre of irrigated lo‘I kalo produced as much as five times the amount of taro as an acre of dryland cultivation. Over a period of several years, irrigated pondfields could be as much as 10 or 15 times more productive than unirrigated taro gardens, as dryland gardens need to lie fallow for greater lengths of time thin irrigated gardens. (Kelly)

There was systematic cultivation of dryland crops in their appropriate vegetation zones as exemplified by the Field Systems (notable systems are seen in Kona, Kohala, Kaupō, Kalaupapa and Ka‘ū.) (Kelly)

This was a period of tremendous significance in Hawaiian pre-contact history since, during this time, (1) the population underwent a geometric rate of increase; (2) virtually all habitable and arable lands were occupied and territorially claimed; (3) the territorial pattern of chiefdom (moku) and subchiefdom units (ahupua‘a) appears to have been established …

… and (4) toward the end of this period the Hawaiian sociopolitical system was transformed from a simple, ancestral Polynesian chiefdom to a highly stratified society with virtual class differentiation between chiefs and commoners. (Kirch)

Expansion – AD 1650-Contact (1778)

A population peak (usually estimated at several hundred thousand) was reached around 1650 AD, more than 100 years before contact with Europeans.

It was at this population peak, or shortly before, that Hawaiians began to inhabit less favorable coastline areas and barren zones between the coast and upland agricultural sites and to develop extensive dryland agricultural systems in marginal regions. (Cuddihy)

Large-scale irrigation works and permanent field systems were developed during the expansion period. Settlements were intruding into increasingly marginal environments, including the interiors of leeward valleys and the higher elevation slopes. Population densities in the fertile windward valleys increased, although densities in tablelands and elsewhere were much lower.

Cultivation was characterized by a variety of non-irrigated root and tree crops grown for subsistence, each farmer having gardens in one or more vegetation zones. Each crop was cultivated in the zone in which it grew best.

Reverend William Ellis described the area behind Kailua town in Kona above the breadfruit and mountain apple trees as, “The path now lay through a beautiful part of the country, quite a garden compared with that through which they had passed on first leaving the town.”

“It was generally divided into small fields, about fifteen rods square fenced with low stone walls, built with fragments of lava gathered from the surface of the enclosures. These fields were planted with bananas, sweet potatoes, mountain taro, paper mulberry plants, melons, and sugar-cane, which flourished luxuriantly in every direction.”

There was extensive development of at least the mauka portion of the kula sub-zone, for sweet potatoes, wauke and probably also gourds. This development was accompanied rarely by permanent habitation and more often by temporary and seasonal habitation along the kula gardens.

Animal enclosures, probably for pigs, may date to this phase. The upland zones were under complete development by this time. Suitable caves were modified for refuge during times of warfare or social conflict. Caves located in the midst of garden features were intensively used for temporary shelter and work spaces. (Terry)

Post Contact – After 1778

At the time of Captain Cook’s arrival (1778-1779), the Hawaiian Islands were divided into four chiefdoms: (1) the island of Hawaiʻi under the rule of Kalaniʻōpuʻu, who also had possession of the Hāna district of east Maui; (2) Maui (except the Hāna district,) Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolawe, ruled by Kahekili; (3) Oʻahu, under the rule of Kahahana; and (4) Kauaʻi and Niʻihau, Kamakahelei was ruler.

Island rulers, Aliʻi or Mōʻī, typically ascended to power through familial succession and warfare. In those wars, Hawaiians were killing Hawaiians; sometimes the rivalries pitted members of the same family against each other.

“It is supposed that some six thousand of the followers of this chieftain (Kamehameha,) and twice that number of his opposers, fell in battle during his career, and by famine and distress occasioned by his wars and devastations from 1780 to 1796.” (Bingham)

In addition to deaths in wars, epidemics of infections added to the decline in Hawaiʻi’s population from approximately 300,000 at the time of Captain Cook’s arrival in 1778 to 135,000 in 1820 and 53,900 in 1876.

Vancouver was appalled by the impoverished circumstances of the people and the barren and uncultivated appearance of their lands. “The deplorable condition to which they had been reduced by an eleven years war” and the advent of “the half famished trading vessels” convinced him that he should pursue his peace negotiations for “the general happiness, of the inhabitants of all the islands.” (Vancouver, Voyage 2)

“By this time nearly a generation of the race had passed away, subsequently to their discovery by Cook. How much of their strength had been exhausted by wars and the support of armies, and how much by new and terrible diseases, it is not easy to estimate. The population was greatly diminished, and the residue unimproved in morals.” (Bingham)

The cultivation of kula lands gradually decreased in extent and intensity, nevertheless remaining important to a decreasing population. Some kula lands were being converted to grazing beginning in the 1840s.

The first commercially-viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Co., was started at Kōloa on Kaua‘i. On July 29, 1835, Ladd & Company obtained a 50-year lease on nearly 1,000-acres of land and established a plantation and mill site in Kōloa.

At the industry’s peak in the 1930s, Hawaii’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar. That plummeted to 492,000 tons in 1995.

Although sugar dominated the Hawaiian economy, there was also great demand at the time for fresh Hawaiian pineapples, and later canned pineapple. By 1931, pineapple production exceeded 12 million cases as a result of both expansion and improvements in productivity; production of canned pineapple peaked in 1957.

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c. 1826 lithograph, William Ellis C., Big Island. Waipio Valley, Ahupua’a.

Fish_Ponds_at_Honoruru,_Oahu,_by_John_Murray,_after_Robert_Dampier-(WC)-1836

P-03-View of Country back of Kailua

Native_Hawaiian_man_pounding_taro_into_poi_with_two_children_by_his_sides-(WC)-c._1890s

Oahu-Kahaluu-kalo-terrace-wall-(WC)

Water from the ‘auwai going back to the kahawai-(KSBE)

Wailau-terraces_walls (Windy K McElroy)

Ruins of Ancient Loi Kalo (Taro Pond Fields in Lanai)-(lanaichc-org)-1912

Kona_Field_System-GoogleEarth

Kohala Field System-photo-Vitousek

Interior fish pond Waikiki Oahu-1905

Honolulu_Harbor_to_Diamond_Head-Wall-Reg1690 (1893)

Hawaii_Island_Fishpond_Gate-(WC)

Fishpond_in_east_Molokai-(WC)

July 16, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

When Was Hawai‘i Settled?

Various European explorers, traders, missionaries, and others – from Captain James Cook onwards – speculated about where the ancestors of the Hawaiians and other Polynesians came from, and about when they had made their migrations into and across the Pacific.

But the first to systematically compile a large body of empirical data relevant to these questions, and to lay out a formal argument and theory, was Abraham Fornander, primarily in his classic An Account of the Polynesian Race (1878–1885), but also in a posthumously published summary.

Fornander was not an archaeologist; he did not draw upon the material record of ancient sites or artifacts. Fornander, who became fluent in Hawaiian, regarded the Hawaiian traditions as historical accounts of real individuals.

He also realized that these accounts could be placed into a relative chronology using the genealogies of the chiefly lines which he also collected and analyzed. Fornander estimated Hawaiian settlement at around AD 450. Later, Emory, analyzing linguistics, proposed a date of around AD 1150.

Professional anthropology incorporating archaeology took hold in Polynesia in the early 20th century. Early on, archaeology lacked any direct methods for dating Polynesian sites or artifacts, and was largely relegated to the mapping of surface architecture. Oral traditions, along with detailed ethnographic comparisons, were the main sources for historical reconstruction.

Evidence for human settlement of an island or archipelago can come from two different sources: (1) direct artifactual evidence from human settlements such as sand dune occupations or rockshelters; and …

(2) indirect evidence in the form of proxy signals of anthropogenic disturbance, such as increases in charcoal fluxes in lake or swamp sediments, rapid changes in pollen frequencies in these sediments, or the appearance plants and animals that live near or benefit from association with humans (such as weeds, insects or rats.)

The invention of radiocarbon dating helped to spark a boom in Polynesian and Pacific archaeology. In the 1940s, Professor Willard F Libby and his associates developed radiocarbon dating – a method to measure the age of organic materials.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1960 was awarded to Libby “for his method to use carbon-14 for age determination in archaeology, geology, geophysics, and other branches of science”.

For radiocarbon dating to be possible, the material must once have been part of a living organism. This means that things like stone, metal and pottery cannot usually be directly dated by this means unless there is some organic material embedded or left as a residue.

Radiocarbon dating depended upon the discovery cosmic rays, which constantly bombard Earth and turn some carbon atoms in living tissue into radioactive isotope carbon-14. (University of Chicago)

The radiocarbon date tells us when the organism was alive (not when the material was used.) The dating process is always designed to try to extract the carbon from a sample which is most representative of the original organism.

The radiocarbon formed in the upper atmosphere is mostly in the form of carbon dioxide. This is taken up by plants through photosynthesis. Plant eating animals (herbivores and omnivores) get their carbon by eating plants. All animals in the food chain, including carnivores, get their carbon indirectly from plant material, even if it is by eating animals which themselves eat plants.

Once an organism dies the carbon is no longer replaced. Because the radiocarbon is radioactive, it will slowly decay away. There will usually be a loss of stable carbon too but the proportion of radiocarbon to stable carbon will reduce. (University of Chicago and University of Oxford)

Over the following decades, radiocarbon dating technology and techniques improved. While significant improvements were made, but the greatest advance came in 1977 with Richard A Muller’s use of accelerator mass spectrometry (atoms are converted into a beam of fast moving ions. The mass of these ions is then measured by the application of magnetic and electric fields.)

Equally important to the refinements in laboratory methods was the realization by archaeologists that they needed to pay close attention to the kinds of samples they submitted for dating.

This was especially the case for wood charcoal, perhaps the most commonly dated material from Polynesian sites. In the early years of radiocarbon dating, when the crude laboratory methods required large sample sizes, there was a tendency to select the largest pieces of charcoal.

The entire contents of hearths or earth ovens (often including tens or even hundreds of individual charcoal fragments) were often submitted in bulk to the dating laboratory.

The problem was that such samples in many cases included old growth timber, which had an ‘in built’ age that was potentially much older than the time at which the wood was actually burnt in the hearth or oven.

The date returned by the radiocarbon lab may have been an accurate indication of the age of the timber, but not of the ‘target date’ of human use of the site.

The most important step in developing new protocols for radiocarbon sample selection was the taxonomic identification of wood charcoal based on anatomical characteristics by comparison to a reference collection of known woody plant species for the particular region or island.

So, what does the updated technology and techniques show as the time of Hawaiian settlement in the Islands?

Dating of a number of key Eastern Polynesian sites, using AMS radiocarbon methods on better controlled (identified) samples has lent considerable support that the central archipelagoes of Eastern Polynesia did not begin to be settled until after AD 800 or later.

The ‘proxy’ paleo-environmental evidence for human presence in Hawai‘i, which for now comes almost exclusively from O‘ahu and Kauai Islands, leaves no doubt that human activities were creating significant disturbances on both of these islands by AD 1200. This then sets an upper bound on Polynesian settlement. The earliest dates on human introduced rat bones on O‘ahu are consistent with Polynesian arrival around AD 1000.

Re-dating of the site at Bellows, Waimānalo, O‘ahu puts the occupation of that small area at between AD 1040–1219. Obviously, this range falls closely between the lower and upper bounds indicated by the Eastern Polynesian chronologies and the paleo-environmental evidence.

Based on what we know now, it is suggested here that initial Polynesian discovery and settlement of the Hawaiian Islands occurred between approximately AD 1000 and 1200. (The bulk of the information here is from Kirch.)

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Ancient-Voyaging-Canoe-Herb_Kane

October 26, 2014 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Eleventh Century

There was conflict in various parts of the world.

It was nearing the end of the Heian period in Japan. The battle of Kawasaki was the first major battle of the Early Nine Years’ War (Zenkunen War) (1051-1063.) (The fighting lasted for twelve years (or nine if you subtract short periods of ceasefire and peace.))

The war was fought between the forces of the powerful Abe clan of the far northeast of the main island of Honshū, led by Abe no Sadato, and those of the Minamoto clan, acting as agents of the Imperial Court, and led by Minamoto no Yoriyoshi and his son Yoshiie.

In 1062, Minamoto no Yoriyoshi, along with his son, led an assault on an Abe fortress on the Kuriyagawa. They diverted the water supply, stormed the earthworks and stockade, and set the fortress aflame. After two days of fighting, Sadato surrendered.

At about this time, the seiitaishogun or shōgun became de facto rulers of Japan through powerful regional clans with support from samurai (bushi) serving as the military nobility.

Europe was at war as well; on September 28, 1066, William (William the Conqueror) of Normandy (Northern France) landed in England on Britain’s southeast coast, with approximately 7,000 troops and cavalry.

He then marched to Hastings; on October 14, 1066 William defeated King Harold (England) at the Battle of Hastings. After further military efforts, William was crowned king (the first Norman King of England) on Christmas Day 1066.

At the end of the century, Europe saw the first of the Crusades, launched on November 27, 1095 by Pope Urban II; it was a military expedition by Roman Catholic Europe to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquests of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem in 1099. (Between 1095 and 1291 there were seven major crusades.)

Stuff was happening in the Pacific, as well.

Using stratigraphic archaeology and refinements in radiocarbon dating, recent studies suggest it was about this same time that “Polynesian explorers first made their remarkable voyage from central Eastern Polynesia Islands, across the doldrums and into the North Pacific, to discover Hawai‘i.” (Kirch)

“Most important from the perspective of Hawaiian settlement are the colonization dates for the Society Islands and the Marquesas, as these two archipelagoes have long been considered to be the immediate source regions for the first Polynesian voyagers to Hawai‘i. … In sum, the southeastern archipelagoes and islands of Eastern Polynesia have a set of radiocarbon chronologies now converging on the period from AD 900–1000.” (Kirch)

New research indicates human colonization of Eastern Polynesia took place much faster and more recently than previously thought. Polynesian ancestors settled in Samoa around 800 BC, colonized the central Society Islands between AD 1025 and 1120 and dispersed to New Zealand, Hawaiʻi and Rapa Nui and other locations between AD 1190 and 1290. (Hunt; PVS)

With improved radiocarbon dating techniques and equipment to more than 1,400-radiocarbon dated materials from 47 islands, the model considers factors such as when a tree died rather than just when the wood was burned and whether seeds were gnawed by rats, which were introduced by humans. (PVS)

“There is also no question that at least O‘ahu and Kaua‘i islands were already well settled, with local populations established in several localities, by AD 1200.” (Kirch)

Late and rapid dispersals explain remarkable similarities in artifacts such as fishhooks, adzes and ornaments across the region. The condensed timeframe suggests assumptions about the rates of linguistic evolution and human impact on pristine island ecosystems also need to be revised. (PVS)

While Europeans were sailing close to the coastlines of continents before developing navigational instruments that would allow them to venture onto the open ocean, voyagers from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa began to settle islands in an ocean area of over 10 million square miles.

The settlement took a thousand years and involved finding and fixing in mind the position of islands, sometimes less than a mile in diameter on which the highest landmark was a coconut tree. By the time European explorers entered the Pacific Ocean in the 16th century almost all the habitable islands had been settled for hundreds of years.

The voyaging was all the more remarkable in that it was done in canoes built with tools of stone, bone and coral. The canoes were navigated without instruments by expert seafarers who depended on their observations of the ocean and sky and traditional knowledge of the patterns of nature for clues to the direction and location of islands. (Kawaharada; PVS)

The canoe hulls were dug out from tree trunks with adzes or made from planks sewn together with a cordage of coconut fiber twisted into strands and braided for strength. Cracks and seams were sealed with coconut fibers and sap from breadfruit or other trees.

An outrigger was attached to a single hull for greater stability on the ocean; two hulls were lashed together with crossbeams and a deck added between the hulls to create double canoes capable of voyaging long distances.

The canoes were paddled when there was no wind and sailed when there was; the sails were woven from coconut or pandanus leaves. These vessels were seaworthy enough to make voyages of over 2,000 miles along the longest sea roads of Polynesia, such as the one between Hawai‘i and Tahiti.

And though these double-hulled canoes had less carrying capacity than the broad-beamed ships of the European explorers, the Polynesian canoes were faster: one of Captain Cook’s crew estimated a Tongan canoe could sail “three miles to our two.”

By the time Europeans arrived in Hawai‘i in the 18^th-century, voyaging between Hawai‘i and the rest of Polynesia had ceased for more than 400 years, perhaps the last voyager being Pā’ao or Moʻikeha in the 14^th-century. The reason for the cessation of voyaging is not known.

However, after the 14^th-century, the archaeological evidence reveals a dramatic expansion of population and food production in Hawai‘i. Perhaps the resources and energies of the Hawaiian people went into developing their ‘āina; and ties with families and gods on the islands to the south weakened. (Kawaharada; PVS) (Lots of information here from Kirch, Kawaharada and Polynesian Voyaging Society.)

The image shows an illustration of an ancient voyaging canoe. (Herb Kane) In addition, I have added other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

The image shows a Voyaging canoe. (Herb Kane) In addition, I have included more related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.