MONOGRAPH 37 Hawaiian Adze Production and Distribution Implications for.the Development of Chiefdoms Barbara Lass Institute of Archaeology University of California, Los Angeles 1994 UCLA Institute of Archaeology Editorial Board Jeanne E. Arnold, Marilyn Beaudry-Corbett, Elizabeth Carter, Timothy K. Earle, Ernestine S. Elster, Richard M. Leventhal, Sarah P. Morris, Glenn Russell, and James R. Sackett UCLA Institute of Archaeology Richard M. Leventhal, Director Marilyn Beaudry-Corbett, Director of Publications Edited by Rita Demsetz, Marilyn Gatto, Pat Campbell Healy, and Brenda Johnson-Grau Production by Angie Hiltz, Wendy Lau, Patricia Lin, and Linda Tang Cover illustration by Angie Hiltz Photograph and Illustration credits All photos were taken by the author. All figures were prepared by Naomi Santos, Department of Geography, University of Hawai'i at Hilo. Dr. Thomas Paradise, Department of Geography, assisted in the preparation of figures 4. 7 through 4.12. Library of Congress Cataloglng-ln-Publlcatlon Data Lass, Barbara Hawaiian adze production and distribution : implications for the development of chiefdoms I Barbara Lass. p. cm. -- (Monograph (University of California, Los Angeles. Institute of Archaeology) 37) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-917956-81-8 1. Poloh1 Site (Hawaii) 2. Adzes--Social aspects--Hawaii. 3. Adzes--Economic aspects--Hawaii. 4. Hawaiians--Antiquities. 5. Hawaiians--Economic conditions. 6. Hawaiians--Politics and government. 7. Chiefdoms--Hawaii 8. Hawaii--Antiquities. I. Title. II. Series. DU624.65.L37 1994 94-43093 306.3'09969--dc20 CIP Copyright © 1994 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA. Contents Acknowledgments v Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Hawaiian Chiefdoms and the Study of Cultural Complexity 3 Chapter 3 Redistribution in the Development of Hawaiian Chiefdoms 13 Chapter 4 Specialization in Hawaiian Adze Production 29 Chapter 5 Craft Specialization and Homogeneity in Finished Adzes 51 Chapter 6 Implications for the Development of Chiefdoms 65 Appendixes A: Chronological Placement of Sites 71 B: Collections and Sampling Strategy 73 C: Thin-Section Preparation by Jo Ann Sinton 77 D: Number of Artifacts of Various Raw Material Types by District, Locality, and Site 77 Bibliography 79 Index 89 Acknowledgments I am indebted to a great number of individuals, agen­ National Park Service and again Tom White, Chief cies, and institutions who assisted me in organizing Park Interpreter, for their assistance in arranging and carrying out my research on Hawaiian adzes and fieldwork in the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. in completing this publication. John Sinton of the Hawai'i Institute of Geophys­ Financial support for my research in Hawai'i was ics, University of Hawai'i-Manoa, helped me in the provided by a National Science Foundation Disser­ initial planning stages of my petrographic research tation Fellowship and by grants from the Depart­ and supervised the preparation and description of ment of Anthropology and the Graduate School at artifact thin-sections. I would like to thank him for the University of Minnesota. his time and continued interest in my work. I am At the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, the past chair also grateful to Mark Cavaleri, formerly of Macalester of the Department of Anthropology, Yoshiko Sinoto, College, St. Paul, Minnesota, and currently Senior as well as Toni Han and Paul Cleghorn (currently of Chemist at 3M, Inc., St. Paul, for his patience and Bio Systems Analysis, Kailua, Hawai'i), provided ac­ enthusiasm in assisting me with petrographic analy­ cess to the museum collections and assisted me in sis. their use. At the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, A number of advisors and colleagues have pro­ Bion Griffin assisted me in using collections, and I vided me with invaluable ideas, guidance, and sup­ thank Dave Tuggle for providing me with unpub­ port. I am grateful to my dissertation committee at lished information pertaining to some of the mate­ the University of Minnesota, which consisted of my rials curated at the University of Hawai'i. Martha advisor Christine Hastorf, currently of the Univer­ Yent, Hawai'i State Parks archaeologist, arranged sity of California at Berkeley, the late Elden Johnson access to artifacts curated by the state. At Lapakahi who served as coadvisor, and Eugene Ogan of the State Park, the park manager, Eddie Coit, spent sev­ Department of Anthropology. I also thank Eric eral hours helping me to locate and organize arti­ Sheppard, Department of Geography; H.E. Wright, fact collections. At Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, Jr., Professor Emeritus, Department of Geology; and Chief Park Interpreter Tom White helped me locate Paul Weiblen, Space Science Research Center. Paul and analyze artifacts curated at the park headquar­ Cleghorn, Ross Cordy, Tom Dye, Timothy Earle, ters. At Pu'uhonua o H6naunau, Superintendent Michael Graves, Bion Griffin, Pat McCoy, Matthew Jerry Shimada provided access to collections, and Spriggs, Marshall Weisler, and Scott Williams all Katherine Domingo assisted me in locating and ana­ showed an interest in my work and discussed im­ lyzing materials. I am grateful to Paul Rosendahl and portant ideas and problems with me. Alan Haun of Paul H. Rosendahl, Inc., Hilo, for al­ Finally, I would like to thank the many people lowing me to use their collections. I would also like who have helped me in less academic but equally to thank Robert Hammon, currently Pacific Area important ways to bring this long project to frui­ Archaeologist, National Park Service, for allowing me tion. I am grateful to my family- my parents Will­ to analyze artifacts originally obtained by Science iam and Marilyn Lass and my brother Bill Lass-for Management, Inc., and Hal Hammatt for providing their lasting support and confidence. I also thank artifacts curated by Cultural Surveys of Hawai'i. my many friends in Honolulu, Hawai'i, at Whitman I am grateful to Ross Cordy, Historic Sites Divi­ College in Walla Walla, Washington, and at the sion, Department of Land and Natural Resources, University of Hawai'i at Hilo for their interest and for helping me obtain state permits to conduct re­ encouragement. search at the Mauna Kea adze quarry and the PololO adze-manufacturing site. I would also like to thank Gary Somers, former Pacific Area Archaeologist, Barbara lass v Chapter 1 Introduction olynesian chiefdoms, including those of Study of stone adzes is also well suited for inves­ Hawai'i, have been the focus of classic re­ tigating the role of an important material resource P search on the development of chiefdoms and within the development of a complex chiefdom. cultural complexity. Sahlins (1958) and Service (1962, Stone adzes and the by-products of adze manufac­ 1975) used ethnographic and ethnohistoric data from ture are well preserved, and large numbers of previ­ Hawai'i and other parts of Polynesia to propose that · ously excavated adzes and adze fragments exist in the centralized control and redistribution of differ­ the collections of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum and entially occurring natural resources were crucial to other artifact repositories in Hawai'i. Furthermore, the development of societies with hereditary lead­ the loci of adze manufacture are preserved at sev­ ership and social stratification. Their work directed eral identified sites, and finished adzes can be traced attention to environmental diversity, specialized pro­ to these and other sources with the aid of petro­ duction, and resource redistribution as significant graphic and geochemical analyses. factors in the development of cultural complexity. Chapter 2 begins with a discussion of Service's However, there have been few explicit attempts to hypothesis that chiefdoms with social stratification test Service's original hypothesis with archaeologi­ and centralized redistribution develop in areas where cal data. This study of the production, distribution, necessary resources are differentially available so that and use of precontact stone adzes on the island of regional specialization in production and the cen­ Hawai'i uses archaeological evidence to examine the tralized redistribution of goods by a powerful politi­ role of a material resource in the development of cal leader are inevitable. Service's work inspired Hawaiian chiefdoms. many similar adaptationist approaches to the de­ The Hawaiian Islands are an ideal setting within velopment of cultural complexity, including politi­ which to address questions concerning cultural com­ cal approaches in which the deliberate efforts of lead­ plexity. There is rich ethnohistoric information on ers or would-be leaders to enhance or extend their Hawaiian chiefdoms, and extensive archaeological influence are emphasized. These approaches main­ research has been conducted in several parts of the tain that redistribution of necessary resources was Hawaiian Islands, including the island of Hawai'i not a central concern of leaders and did not con­ which is the focus of this study. Archaeological evi­ tribute to the development of cultural complexity. dence documents a trend toward increased cultural In both adaptationist and political explanations for complexity from initial colonization to the time of increases in cultural complexity, ethnohistoric in­ European contact, and research focused on Hawai­ formation on Hawaiian chiefdoms has been used ian culture is ideally suited to evaluating well-known extensively. However, neither approach. has been hypotheses about