Archaeological Art on Mo'orea, French Polynesia: an Overview

Abstract

Aside from Roger C. Green's pioneering settlement pattern archaeology carried out in the Opunahu Valley in the early 1960s (Green 1961a; 1961b; Green et al. 1967; Green and Decantes n.d.), followed by Dana Lepofsky's (1994) work on prehistoric agricultural intensification in the same valley in 1991, no systematic survey has been undertaken on Mo'orea. Generally, archaeological inquiry has been limited to documentation and analysis of the elite architecture that is visible on the surface (e.g., Emory n.d., 1933; Decantes 1993; Wallin 1993).