Archaeological Work in Waipi'o Valley, Hamakua District, Hawai'i Island

Abstract

Waipi'o Valley is a key place in the history of the Island of Hawai'i. It may have been an early settlement area. Oral history associates it with the rise of the Kingdom of Hawai'i, being the sole ruling center for the kingdom from the A.D. 1400s to 1600, and oral accounts indicate it was the ruling center for an earlier, smaller polity. This article presents archaeological work done in the early 1990s. It includes the first information on large upper valley irrigation complexes (one with a long raised canal), descriptions of the Hi'ilawe irrigation complex, the first radiocarbon dates from the Hi 'if awe fields (suggesting mid-1600s to 1700s construction) and from fields on the mid-valley floor (dating to the 1400s-1600s), and descriptions and mapping in the dune area with the first radiocarbon date from the dune's upper layers. It is hoped these findings will stimulate researchers to undertake investigations in Waipi'o before important remnants of its past are lost.