An Overview of Site 50-30-01-195, Nu'alolo Kai, Kaua' i: Features, Excavations, Stratigraphy, and Xhronology, of Historic and Prehistoric Occupation

Abstract

In the late 1950s, Bishop Musewn archaeologists undertook a series of excavations at a site complex in Nu'alolo Kai, along the remote Na Pali coast of Kaua' i. Their work followed on the discovery by archaeologists (Emory and Sinoto 1961) that sites in Hawai' i could contain stratified deposits of cultural materials. Archaeologists associated with the Museum began a systematic program of field investigations on O'ahu and Hawai'i Island, documenting a longer and possibly more complex history of colonization and settlement throughout the islands than had been expected. Earlier, Bennett (1931: 149) identified a site complex beneath the cliff line at Nu' alolo Kai. This site surpassed ex'pectations with cultural deposits nearly 2 m deep and a well preserved array of cultural materials uncommon in Hawaiian archaeological sites. A report of these excavations was prepared by Lloyd Soehren (n.d.) and later revised by William Kikuchi (Soehren and Kikuchi n.d.), but neither was published, prior to a project begun by University of Hawai'i archaeologists in the early 1990s to develop a comprehensive computerized inventory of cultural materials from the site, including previously undocumented artifacts. We have commenced a program of publishing contemporary archaeological research focused on this site so that its significance can be more widely appreciated by archaeologists and the general public.