Pathways in Hawaiian History

Abstract

Nearly all that we know of Hawai'i's precontact chronolo­gy is based on several hundred radiocarbon age determi­nations of samples collected during the past 30 years. Essential to the use and refinement of this chronology is the translation of the chronometric raw material, ex­pressed as mean radiocarbon years before present (B.P.) with a standard deviation, into calendrical years. One translation method, the calibration of radiocarbon data according to recently published tables representing a con­sensus of decades of calibration research, has already been accepted by most archaeologists in Hawai'i (cf. Clark and Kirch 1983; Hommon 1983; Schilt 1984).