Archaeology Of Kaloko: A Generalized Model of a Hawaiian Community's Social Organization and Adaptation

Abstract

A major settlement pattern project involving survey and extensive excavation was undertaken during the summers of 1970 and 1971 in a small region called Kaloko, located in the North Kona district on the west coast of Hawai'i Island (Fig. 1). Descriptive preliminary analytical reports on the project and detailed analytical-theoretical reports reconstructing social organization are presented elsewhere (Renger 1970, 1974; Kelly 1971; Cordy 1974a, 1976a, 1978, 1981; Cordy and Kaschko 1980; Tainter 1973a, 19736, 1974, 1975, 1976; Tainter and Cordy 1977). Here our aim is to provide the initial steps for construct­ing a model of how Hawaiians in the Kaloko area were organized socially before contact (A.D. 1778) and how this social organization reflected adaptations to the natur­al and social environments, and to internal pressures. This analysis departs from typical Hawaiian ecological studies in that a greater emphasis is placed on recon­structing social organization and on conceptualizing the entire social-ecological network (social organization, pop­ulation, natural environment, and social environment).