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hawaiian archaeology 4 Volume 4, 1995 Society for Hawaiian Archaeology hawaiian archaeology Volume 4, 1995 Society for Hawaiian Archaeology Editor’s Note 3 Sara L. Collins Avifaunal Remains from the Kawailoa Site, O‘ahu Island (BPBM Site 50-OA-D6-62) 4 Frank R. Thomas Excavations at Maunalua Cave, Hawai‘i Kai, O‘ahu 17 Richard Pearson A Brief Report on Test Excavations at the Hawaiian Mission, Honolulu 27 Anne W. H. Garland An Archaeological Predictive Model for the Mission Houses Site in Honolulu and its Value 34 Matthew Spriggs Roadkill Archaeology on Läna‘i: A Historic House Site at Kahemano (State Site 1529) 45 Michael T. Pfeffer Distribution and Design of Pacific Octopus Lures: the Hawaiian Octopus Lure in Regional Context 47 hawaiian archaeology 4 Melinda S. Allen, Editor Production of this volume was made possible with the generous financial assistance of: Robert E. Black Memorial Fund B. P. Bishop Museum Archaeology, Inc. Paul H. Rosendahl, Ph.D., Inc. – Editor‘s Note This volume marks an important point in the history of Hawaiian Archaeology, as the Society brings to publication the last of its outstanding papers from the late 1980s. Volumes 2, 3, and 4 are witnesses to the commitment of our membership and board to producing a professional and timely journal. I am appreciative of the willingness of Anne Garland, Richard Pearson, Matthew Spriggs, and Frank Thomas to work with me on editorial details, despite the many years between submission and publication. The papers of Volume 4 reflect three trends in Hawaiian Archaeology. The paper by Collins is an exam- ple of the increasing interest in re-examining previously collected materials, while Thomas synthesizes information from a second previously excavated but poorly known site. Collins takes a fresh look at the avifauna from Kawailoa, O‘ahu, comparing them with finds from other archaeological and paleontolog- ical sites in the region. Notably, this is the first published account of this relatively early occupation site and Collins also summarizes important information on the radiocarbon sequence and non-bird fauna. Likewise, Thomas’ paper makes available stratigraphic, radiocarbon, and artifact data from Maunalua Cave, an important leeward O‘ahu site. Other studies of previously excavated materials are currently underway by University of Hawai‘i and Bishop Museum research teams. Like the contribution of Collins, these efforts underscore both the potential of these older collections to provide new information and the importance of carefully documenting and managing archaeological resources for future studies. The papers by Pearson, Garland, and Spriggs register an early, and recently accelerated, interest in his- torical archaeology, the period of Hawaiian history after A.D. 1778. The importance historical archaeolo- gy has assumed locally is also indicated by the enthusiastic response to the workshop and symposium organized by Susan Lebo for the 7th Annual Hawaiian Archaeology Conference. Finally, the paper by Michael Pfeffer, along with recent literature elsewhere, signals renewed interest in traditional material culture studies. Departing from earlier research, Pfeffer examines not only historical aspects of artifact form and distribution related to culture-contact but also functional features of mor- phology which relate to environmental conditions. He offers a regional perspective on the ingenious Pacific octopus lure, and suggests that important design changes in this tool may have occurred in the Hawaiian Islands. M.S.A. 3 Avifaunal Remains from the Kawailoa Site, O‘ahu Island (BPBM Site 50-OA-D6-62) Sara L. Collins State of Hawai‘i Historic Preservation Division A major theme of Pacific prehistory has centered on human agency in the disap- pearance of endemic bird species which once flourished on nearly all of the arch- ipelagos of Oceania. From the smallest and most remote islands, like Tikopia or Henderson (Steadman and Olson 1985; Steadman et al. 1990; Weisler et al. 1991), to the largest island archipelagos of Hawai‘i and New Zealand (Anderson 1989; Olson and James 1984), a growing number of studies have demonstrated the link between human settlement and the extinction or extirpation of avifauna. In the Hawaiian Islands, inferences drawn from research on avifaunal remains from paleontological sites have shaped thinking about the nature of human/bird relationships (Olson and James 1982, 1991). According to these views, the impact of the original Polynesian colonists was immediate and devastating, with the majority of extinctions taking place in the pre-Contact1 era (Olson and James 1984). To a lesser extent, excavations of archaeological sites in Hawai‘i have informed research on avian extinctions by providing additional data on presumed prey species of the Polynesians found in midden and, in some instances, radio- carbon dates of such deposits (James et al. 1987; Schilt 1984). It would seem that avifaunal remains from firmly dated archaeological sites would potentially yield the most significant and detailed information on the scope and pace of bird extinctions and extirpations in Hawai‘i. The goal of this paper is to refine our understanding of human/bird interactions in Hawai‘i by an examination of archaeological data obtained from several pre-Contact habitation sites in the Hawaiian Islands (Fig. 1). 4 5 collins Materials and Methods Field Methods and Preliminary Results In 1984, Bishop Museum Anthropology staff con- ducted excavations at site 50-Oa-D6-62, a habita- tion site at Kawailoa on the north shore of O‘ahu Island (Garland n.d., 1984a, 1984b), as shown in Fig- ure 1. Associated with a nearby fishing shrine or ko‘a, Site D6-62 covered an area of approximately 1,152 m2 and had a number of activity areas and unex- pectedly rich and extensive pre-Contact deposits. Features identified at Site D6-62 included a proba- ble cooking area, postmolds, refuse pits, and four human burials (Fig. 2). All excavated deposits were screened through 1/4 in and 1/8 in mesh, with each fraction bagged separately. Figure 1. Map of the Hawaiian Islands, showing location of Kawailoa Site and other archaeological The relatively complex sequence of occupations at localities discussed in text. the Kawailoa Site is represented by the two major cultural layers (called here Layer I and Layer Ib) and the numerous features identified during the excava- tion. The radiocarbon and volcanic glass age deter- minations obtained from fieldwork at Site D6-62 indicate considerable pre-Contact use of the site. As can be seen in Table 1, there appears to be an earlier component to the site, dating to between .. 1280 and 1460, and a later component, which extends from the seventeenth century .. into perhaps the early post-Contact era (circa .. 1800). The vol- canic glass age determinations, as seen in Table 2, corroborate the 14C age determinations, but provide a somewhat more continuous chronology, ranging from .. 1344 to 1674. Laboratory Methods Laboratory sorting and analysis of midden primarily focused on the feature contents, with the 1/4 in fau- nal bone sampled much more extensively than the 1/8 in fractions, although selected 1/8 in materials were examined. The 1/4 in faunal remains from the southeast quadrants of grid units BB10, CC9, and DD8 were also analyzed. It is estimated that approx- imately 5 to 10 % (by weight) of the total bone mid- den recovered from the Kawailoa Site has been examined to date. The results of bone midden analy- Figure 2. Base map of south parcel (TMK: 6-1-3:26), sis were originally recorded as weights in order to showing locations of archaeological sites and test compare findings with the results of shell midden excavations (from Athens and Shun 1982). analysis in which the shell is usually weighed. For 6 hawaiian archaeology Table 1 Radiocarbon Age Determinations from Site 50-Oa-D6-62 Results of Analyses Kawailoa, O‘ahu, Hawaiian Islands BPBM Provenience 14C Ages in Years Calibrated Range in HRC NO. .. ± 1 Sigmaa Years ..b (2 Sigma) Taxonomic Diversity Table 3 contains a list of the vertebrate faunal taxa HRC 392 T.P. 1/Layer 1 <150 .. <.. 1684 identified from the Kawailoa Site deposits, together HRC 393 T.P. 2/Layer 1 <370 .. <.. 1475 with the common names of the taxa, and Table 4 HRC 811 BB10/ Fe. 1 <170 .. <.. 1678 contains the total NISPs and MNIs for all taxa. In (hearth) general, nearly all vertebrate faunal bones could at least be assigned to zoological class; less than 1% of HRC 812 BB10/ Fe. 4 <180 .. <.. 1675 (postmold) the bone fragments were identified as “Medium Vertebrate,” which could represent bone from a fish, HRC 813 DD7/ Fe. 3 580 ± 80 .. .. 1280–1460 bird, or mammal. Similarly, less than 1% of the (oven) bone midden was probably derived from cartilagi- HRC 814 CC9/ Fe. 1 <150 .. <.. 1684 nous fishes (Sharks and Rays). Bony fish remains (firepit) formed the single largest component of the Kawailoa .. .. HRC 815 CC9/ Fe. 2 150 ± 80 1600–1955 vertebrate faunal midden—83%—while mam- (hearth) malian remains composed about 15% of the total. .. .. HRC 816 CC9/ Fe. 4 600 ± 80 1280–1450 Finally, nearly 2% of the bone was derived from (postmold) avian taxa. Table 5 presents some of these compara- HRC 817 CC9/ Fe. 5 140 ± 90 .. .. 1640–1955 tive statistics. (ash deposit) HRC 818 CC9/ Layer Ib 110 ± 80 .. .. 1670–1955 The NISPs for each zoological class of faunal remains can also be used as measures of diversity. While more HRC 819 DD8/ Fe. 4 210 ± 60 .. .. 1630–1890 (oven) than 6,700 fish bones were identified from these deposits, only about 3% were identified beyond the HRC 820 DD8/ Layer Ia <190 .. <.. 1672 level of class—to family, genus, or species. Approxi- a Dates given are uncalibrated, 13C-adjusted 14C ages (i.e., conventional radiocarbon mately 25% of the avifaunal remains were identified ages).