230 Thorium Dating of Toolstone Procurement Strategies, Production Scale and Ritual Practices at The Mauna Kea Adze Quarry Complex, Hawai'i

Authors

  • Patrick C. McCoy
  • Richard Nees Pacific Consulting Services, Inc.
  • Marshall I. Weisler University Of Queensland
  • Zhao Jian-Xin Centre for Microscopy & Microanalysis, University of Queensland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15286/jps.121.4.407-420

Abstract

230 Thorium dates on unweathered pieces of branch coral from the Mauna Kea Adze Quarry Complex suggest that a significant part of this quarry, the largest in the Hawaiian Islands, was in use by the mid-14th to mid-15th centuries AD. The dates also point to the high probability of labor intensive mining of subsurface toolstone by this date, in addition to the much easier strategy of procuring toolstone from the surface. While there is abundant evidence that adze manufacture on Mauna Kea, like the making of a Hawaiian canoe, was an "affair of religion," branch coral was rarely used in the several different forms of ritualisation that have been documented in the quarry. Possible reasons for this are briefly explored in this short paper, which is one more contribution to refining the chronology of this highly significant and important archaeological complex.

Author Biographies

Patrick C. McCoy

Patrick C. McCoy is Senior Archaeologist at Pacific Consulting Services, Inc. in Honolulu, Hawai'i. He has worked in different areas of the Pacific and the Pacific Northwest for more than four decades. He is now semi-retired and lives on the central coast of Oregon.

Richard Nees, Pacific Consulting Services, Inc.

Richard Nees is an Archaeologist with Pacific Consulting Services, Inc. He has over 20 years of research experience in Hawai'i, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and Japan. His work on Mauna Kea began in 2005 and continues.

Marshall I. Weisler, University Of Queensland

Marshall I. Weisler is Professor and Head of Archaeology at the University of Queensland, Australia. He has worked throughout the Pacific for more than three decades and is interested in addressing a broad range of archaeological questions through the use of scientific techniques.

Zhao Jian-Xin, Centre for Microscopy & Microanalysis, University of Queensland

Professor Jian-xin Zhao (PhD Australian National University 1993, MSc University of Adelaide 1989, BSc Nanjing University 1985) is the Director of the Radiogenic Isotope Geochemistry Laboratory at the University of Queensland. He has more than 20 years research experience in geochronology and isotope geochemistry and is an international expert in U-series dating and its applications.

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Published

2013-01-18

Issue

Section

Shorter Communications