A Re-examination of Robert Suggs’ Marquesan Fishhook Collection from Nuku Hiva

Abstract

Fishhooks are among the most widely distributed and frequently excavated artifacts in Eastern Polynesia. Their analysis contributes to understanding such wide-ranging topics as Polynesian migration and inter-island contact, subsistence and resource utilization and depression, and the establishment of relative chronologies. Emory, Bonk, and Sinoto conducted the first systematic analysis of Polynesian fishhooks in 1959. Continued work by Sinoto laid the groundwork for East Polynesian fishhook studies and their utility in comparative analysis and chronological applications. This paper reviews previous Polynesian fishhook arrangements and suggests possible variables for the construction of a function-oriented classification. A selection of these variables are applied to the collection of fishhooks excavated by Robert Suggs on Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands, revealing a more nuanced picture of spatiotemporal trends in fishhook size and morphology than previously established.