Kahikinui, Maui

The Kahikinui Archaeological Project is a multi-phase, long-term research endeavor initiated in 1994, under the overall direction of Prof. Patrick V. Kirch. The project is geographically situated in the ancient moku (district) of Kahikinui, on the southern, leeward side of Maui, Hawaiian Islands. The Kahikinui Archaeological Project seeks to explore and define the indigenous Hawaiian structures of economic, social, and political organization which had developed during the late Expansion and Proto-Historic Periods of pre-contact Hawaiian history (Kirch 1985), ca. A.D. 12001795. This research--critical to understanding the conditions that led to the local transformation of Hawaiian society--is of broad-ranging anthropological significance. Specifically, an investigation of proto-historic Hawaiian society helps to enhance our knowledge of the conditions and processes under which social formations cross a fundamental 'threshold' of organizational complexity.