Surface Architecture

Hawaiian Archaeology ANTH 464

Surface Architecture at Kaiholena, Hawai`i

Hawaiian architects and stone masons were highly skilled. Many of their abandoned structures are still standing today. What do they look like? How were they built?

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Location of Kaiholena

Aloha, and welcome to another lecture in ANTH 464, Hawaiian Archaeology. My name is Tom Dye.

The Hawaiian archaeological record is characterized by surface architecture, more so than the archaeological record in other parts of the world. Old Hawaiian stone masons were busy builders. They left behind an impressive built landscape of temples, houses, agricultural facilities, and other structures.

This lecture describes some of the surface architecture at Kaiholena on Hawai`i Island. The lecture is designed to give you an appreciation for the work of stone masons in old Hawai`i and to give you some insight into the dynamics of the built environment.

Archaeology’s strength is its ability to document change over time. This lecture focuses on the surface architectural remains of habitation structures and asks what archaeologists might learn about the life histories of habitation foundations.

Aerial Image of Coastal Kaiholena

Kaiholena in Winter

Kaiholena in Summer, Showing Deflation

Trail to the Coastal Village

Men’s House Architecture at Kaiholena

The men’s house was a focal point of activity in the village. It was designed to look impressive from the bay.

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Plan Map of Men’s House

Men’s House Looking Makai

North Wall of Men’s House

Complex Site 22268

Site 22268 is a large structure near the men’s house. It has been modified and re-used.

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Plan Map of Site 22268

Overview of Site 22268

View Inside Main Enclosure at Site 22268

Interior Wall at Site 22268

Here is a close-up of the interior wall. Look closely at where the interior wall joins the mauka wall of the enclosure at the right hand side of the photograph. Here, you can clearly see that the interior wall was built after the enclosure wall because it abuts the face of the enclosure wall. Also note how poorly the interior wall is constructed. The rocks appear to be jumbled and disordered.

Note, too, how many of the boulders in the interior wall are flat waterworn stones. It appears that this late wall was built with stones that originally paved the interior of the enclosure. The enclosure appears to have had two periods of use: first, a time when the interior of the enclosure was one space, paved with waterworn boulders; later, a time when the paving was recycled to build walls that subdivided the interior space.

It seems clear that the function of this structure changed over time.

Makai Wall at Site 22268

Kaiholena Village Heiau

The village heiau is located inland of the men’s house and Site 22268.

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Plan Map of Heiau

Two-tiered Platform at the Heiau

Site 22119

Excavation at Site 22119 yielded evidence that the stone masonry structure was built in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century.

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Plan Map of Site 22119

As part of our work at Kaiholena we were able to estimate the construction dates of three habitation structures. At the time, the estimates were a bit surprising, but since that time several other habitation sites have been dated in the same way, yielding similar results.

This site is located behind a small sand beach, which is immediately to the left of the structures on the map. The structure itself is built at the interface of sand and volcanic soil. Behind the structure is a low rise of red dirt that looks a lot like the landscape shown on slide 5.

At the southern end of the site is an enclosure with a burial platform in its interior. Farther north is where we chose to excavate at the enclosure through which the Profile B-B’ runs. Our excavation was inside the enclosure against the mauka wall.

Enclosure with Burial Platform

Excavation Location at Site 22119

This photograph shows the enclosure we chose to excavate.

You can see that the makai end in the foreground is broken down, probably because waves have attacked it during high seas.

Our excavation was located next to the scale, against the interior face of the mauka wall. Our excavation strategy was to get underneath the large basal boulder just to the left of the scale. Once we had the basal boulder exposed and could determine exactly which part of it was resting on the surface when the structure was built, we dug under that part of the boulder and found material we could date.

Because our excavation took care to collect material that had to have been in the ground when the basal boulder was placed, we knew that we had something definitely older than the structure. That is, we could be certain that the construction date was younger than the age of the material we dated.

Construction Date of Site 22119 Wall

This graph shows the estimate of when the wall was built, based on a Bayesian calibration of the radiocarbon date from underneath the wall. The x-axis shows calendar dates and the y-axis measures probability that the structure was constructed during a particular year.

Note that the probability scale runs from 0, which means that construction at that date is impossible, to 0.02, which means there is a 2% chance the structure was constructed in a particular year.

Using the tics on the x-axis as a guide we can see that the probability the enclosure was built in 1750 is about 0.5% and the probability that it was built in 1810 is about 1.5% Thus, a construction date of 1810 is 3 times more likely than a construction date in 1750.

The estimate is constrained on the recent end by the testimony of Rev. William Ellis who toured this section of coast in the 1820’s and reported that the villages south of Mahukona, like Kaiholena, were abandoned at that time. Based on this testimony the construction date must be older than the 1820’s.

The graph shows that the wall was most likely constructed not too long before the village was abandoned. It is possible, but unlikely, that it was constructed as early as the 1600’s, however it is much more likely to have been constructed in the 1700’s or early 1800’s.

The takeaway here is that the structure was not old when it was abandoned.

Site 22248

Site 22248 is a habitation structure typical of Kaiholena. Excavation showed that it was built in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century.

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Plan Map of Site 22248

Overview Photograph of Site 22248

Inside the Southern Enclosure of Site 22248

Construction Date of the Southern Enclosure

Site 22201

Site 22201 is another habitation structure dated to the eighteenth or early nineteenth century.

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Plan Map of Site 22201

Photograph of Cupboards at Site 22201

Construction Date of Site 22201

Evidence of Dynamic Settlement Pattern

The dated habitation structures at Kaiholena are relatively young. Is there evidence for earlier habitations? If so, what might an earlier habitation site look like?

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Use Life of Structures

The late construction date estimates for the Kaiholena habitation foundations was part of a wider investigation of the use life of habitation structures.

This flow chart attempts to chart the various paths a structure can take from the time it is constructed (at the bottom left) to the time it enters the archaeological record (at the right).

The first, and most direct path from construction to the archaeological record, path A1, is when a structure is built and immediately abandoned, without having been used.

More typically, after a structure is built it will be used and perhaps reconstructed or remodeled before it is abandoned.

An abandoned structure might be re-used, it might enter the archaeological record (path A2), the materials from the structure might be scavenged for use elsewhere, or the structure might be completely disassembled, or razed.

A structure that is scavenged, might be scavenged so thoroughly that it can be considered razed, or it might enter the archaeological record after being partially scavenged (path B).

A structure that is razed always enters the archaeological record (path C), presumably as a series of post molds and fire-pits that indicate the former presence of a structure.

The flow chart encourages archaeologists to consider the range of structures, from like-new to rag-tag remnants, that might be encountered in the archaeological record.

An Example from Kaiholena

Plane Table Map of Site 22204

Drafted Map of Site 22204

Long Wall at Site 22204

Cupboard in Wall at Site 22204

Overview of Site 22206

Map of Site 22206

Boulder Pavers at Site 22206

Which path did this structure follow on its way into the archaeological record?

One possibility is that it was simply a small out-building attached to the larger site 22204, and that its condition is partly a consequence of the fact that it was never much of structure when in use. This in fact was our initial hypothesis about the site.

This does not appear to be the case. It appears that the structure was once impressive. See the two large gray waterworn paving stones in this picture. The large one on the left is more than 60 cm in diameter, and the one behind it and to the right, which is partially covered with cobbles, is a similar size. Both of them were carried to the site from the coast a couple of hundred meters away.

To my mind, these are “2 man rocks” because it is hard to imagine a single person carrying one of them.

Their presence in the pavement of the site indicates that this structure, dilapidated today and at the time it entered the archaeological record, was once quite grand, with an impressive pavement that required great effort to build.

It seems clear to me that this structure was heavily scavenged after it was abandoned and before it entered the archaeological record.

Quiz

Check it out!

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Surface Architecture