Stone Adze Economies in Post - Contact Hawa i ' i

Identifying and interpreting stone adze economies in Hawai'i offers valuable in... sights on the technological consequences of contact between non...Western so... cieties and Europeans. Western contact occurred relatively late in the Hawaiian archipelago (Figure 7.1) compared to much of the Old and New Worlds (e.g., Cobb and Ruggiero, chapter 2; Odell, chapter 3), and indigenous metal working did not develop until after the arrival of Europeans in A.D. 1778. After European contact and colonization, a reorganization of indigenous Hawaiian stone adze technology ensued, along with a wide array of profound economic and socio .. political changes. Adzes were an integral component of traditional Hawaiian society and served a variety of functions (Figure 7.2). These stone tools were used for felling trees, making canoes and building houses, carving religious images, and perhaps to display mana or rank (see Leach 1993:39). Use..wear analyses of Hawaiian adzes indicate that perhaps they were also used to till soil for the preparation and maintenance of agricultural plots (Dockall 2000). Pre...contact adzes were made with a variety of materials including hardwood, coconut husk, and marine shell, although stone adzes (ko'i pohaku) are most commonly preserved in the ar.. chaeological record. Because of their durability and relative abundance in the archaeological record of the Hawaiian islands, stone adzes have been used by archaeologists to construct culture...historical sequences (e.g., Emory 1968; Kirch 1972; cf. Cleghorn 1992), to examine technology and craft specialization (e.g., Cleghorn 1986; Lass 1994), and to identify patterns of interaction and ex.. change (e.g., Cleghorn et al. 1985; Weisler and Sinton 1997). Although archaeologists have long acknowledged the value of stone adzes to early Polynesian societies (e.g., Brigham 1902; Buck et al. 1930; Cleghorn 1986; Duff 1959; Emory 1968), they rarely study the use of stone tools in post.. STONE ADZE ECONOMIES IN POST .. CONTACT HAWAI'1