Chapter Two -Finding the Tools Through Literature Analysis (PART TWO)
Moving from West to East
Meanwhile, closer to the cultural practices of the variety of the people who lived in Polynesia, the thinking in China is aspiring to focus more on the elites’ control over the subordinates. “[S]ymmetrical reciprocity is a powerful constraint on status differentiation based on wealth concentration” (Kim, 1994: 120). This does imply that there must have been an inherent surplus of food and goods, otherwise the elite would have had to work as hard as everyone else in the house or village to feed their people in a more egalitarian society (Kirch, 1984, Sahlins, 1970, 1972). Through the trading and selling of pigs, and the burial of same – along with other grave goods, in Neolithic North China, Seung-Og made the argument that the pig itself was a symbol of wealth and elitism, because they were so critical within the diets and within their rituals. Like the jade talismans or shell jewelry, the buried pig skulls are interpreted as prestige goods along with the representational pig figurines, which can also be found. Within the Shandong province, as an example, through the time periods Seung-Og had traced, the Early Dawenkou to the Longshan, whether high or low the wealth consumption of prestige goods was always running parallel to the amount of pig remains (Kim, 1994: 131). While these animal bones and pieces were not used for a utilitarian purpose such as a hammer, axe, or adze would, they still would have been the symbolic figures like Scandinavia’s Thor’s Hammer, and the Melanesian carved boar tusks (Kim, 1994).
The peoples living in Melanesia seemed to be influenced by the traditions of Neolithic China, based on the finding of pig skulls in what are considered to be prestige burials (Kim, 1994). This Lapita culture, which spread out throughout the Eastern Polynesian islands became influential on the cultures that would follow (Kirch & Green, 2001). If we follow the path traced by the Lapita pottery from Near Oceania through the South Pacific from c. 4000-800 BCE, there can be an argument made for traceable connections through language evolution and material culture (Carson, 2018: 11-15). Looking specifically at the burial goods could grant us another angle of options for the aspect of material culture, because that is what they would have either deemed important enough or easy enough to recreate to leave with the dead. Within these early burials, pottery has often been discovered and used for relative dating, and as discussed in Jim Allen’s paper, Melanesia has had a wider special trade network that grew increasingly complex over time and distance (Allen, 1985: 50-52). With craft specialization, like in the western side of Eurasia island region they would hone their skills, and because of intermediary coastal villages and towns in between larger colonies, goods would be valued and shipped to those who needed them. Even Allen uses the term ‘prestige goods’ for specialty items “such as armshells, shell ornaments, and ceremonial axes” (Allen, 1987: 51). Rather than the ‘utilitarian versions’ of the axes, the deciding factor that they were specially made for a ceremonial purpose is what makes the axe prestigious and more valuable, whatever the actual usefulness would have been.
In time, following a typical spreading family dynamic, as the societies continue to spread, the contact between them begins to cease [figure 10] from (Allen, 1985: 52). This trend seems to suggest that the earlier and middle era burials would have contained the most distinguished and varied grave goods before the connections withered because the cross-cultural advancement would have continued before the trade slowly ceased causing a differentiation between the groups who would have to learn how to make the goods they used to have shipped over. The people of one such smaller cultural group area in the Massim region scattered in Eastern Papua New Guinea and the islands nearby, are thought to have interacted with of the Lapita People who would has brought their culture, at the latest, around 2900 BP (Shaw 2017: 150) – approx. 2200 years before New Zealand was colonized by Polynesians. Following the Lapita, within the next 700 years, the mixing of ideas in the Massim region created a new sort of pottery design called EPP (Early Papuan Ware) and the carved shells from the island were the most predominantly-traded goods (Shaw, 2017: 150).
While these prestige goods, pottery and shell ornaments, are said to have altered through time, specialized to whichever island they were made, Shaw makes the point to mention that utilitarian tools had not been recorded as changing over time with geographically regional specificity (Shaw, 2017: 150). Using the goods that did change, e.g. pottery and shell design, which were found scattered burial sites across the Massim Region, Shaw compares the designs and radiocarbon date to reconnect the mainland and islands’ trade routes (Shaw, 2017: 151). Because shells are still held by the Massim people to be prestige goods, they can symbolically compare to the specially worked tools and tool symbology of the various cultures of whom I discussed earlier in this chapter. Under the idea of symbolic carvings on the shells of various islands beads made from oyster shells called bali made for necklaces were one of the highest valued exchange items and during the Kula exchange period were traded from Rossel Island for pottery as a type of currency, of which the islanders did not have as easily a ready access to (Shaw, 2017: 151). Over time these shells may not have only been used as a currency on the island where they were produced, because they are also found within the Rossel Island burials along with other shell material being used as jewelry and decoration or ornamentation.
On islands like this, there is a notable decrease in lithics use as the raw material costs much more to be able to transport and work. With this change of environment, the inhabitants had to continue to adapt their technology, and began making tools, such as grinders, adzes, scrapers, and choppers out of shell (Shaw, 2017: 160-161). According to Shaw, the two adze blade fragments found in Malakai were made from Tridacna and Conus shells in 1330-1290 cal. BP and >310 cal. BP respectively. Although the Conus shell found here was younger than the other it links to the morphology of other shell adzes that were produced over a span of 2000-years possibly starting in the Early Lapita, from 3300 cal. BP (Shaw, 2017: 160). Unfortunately, because shells seemingly became a currency in its own right, we can see a drop off in using them as burial goods, even when they are carved to work as tools. This suggests that at that point in time, the goods were too useful to leave in a grave, and depending on the species of shell, that they may have been more difficult to collect and work.
Moving to the Marshall Islands in the Micronesian cultural area, we can once again observe how a constrained environment changes the fashion in which tools and other goods are made. This does create a bias in which we must be aware, because only the wealthiest are receiving burials in general; the probability is higher that the goods found within will be items of prestige, as it would have been easier for them to get more of the raw material. If we focus on the need for farming space on these thin islands with thick centrally located vegetation the burials had to be individualized, and often located near the house, away from working land. Both men and women would have been put through the same burial customs. The chiefs were wrapped in sleeping mats and laid under the grave mound, which would later be levelled off, while commoners were wrapped in mats, weighed down with stones, placed on a raft, and sent to sea (Weisler, 2000). In either case there does not appear to be much in the way of grave goods; some were found to have jewellery: arm rings being the most common, a nose ring, beads, charms, and a pendent, with fewer containing tools: bird bone needles, bone and shell fishhooks, a coral abrader, trolling lures, and one adze tool, made of the Tridacna maxima shell, found within these graves signalling that tools like this were more rare (Spennemann, 1999, Weisler, 2000: 119). This also could be showing that, in terms of the adze, because of the surrounding sea and thus a higher ocean food source, agriculture may not have been as important to be flourishing all over the island and thus would require less work to farm and fewer tools to complete the task. As Weisler relayed, there are few dates for the artifacts that have been found on the Majuro Atoll and the surrounding Marshall Islands; he was, however, able to compare the shell arm rings and trolling lures to others found in Solomon Islands burials, indicating a certain level of trade in between them all (Weisler, 2000: 131-133).
As the Roy Mata burial site in Retoka shows, Vanuatu contains nuances from various cultural traditions that reflect in its contemporary and future Pacific Island cultures. Located closer to the culture area of Eastern Polynesia yet still retaining the Lapita cultural traditions, of which keep it tied to the Western side of the Pacific Islands, Vanuatu, has various mortuary sites which date back 3000 years (Valentin, 2011). With the Roy Mata burial not having the identifiers of being Lapita makes it more unusual according to Pietrusewsky, because it is noted that “the Lapita-associated remains are often incomplete and poorly preserved, and rarely represent more than a single individual” (Pietrusewsky, 1996: 344, Fitzpatrick, 2002: 728). The early Lapita burials scattered around Vanuatu, both buried and within caves, were different than the ones further to the West. They had neither a standardized position nor a particular facing cardinal direction for the body, the earliest had no grave goods at all while some later ones had some ornamentation of beads and bracelets made of pig tusk, as in Polynesian tradition, and had either other humans or animals buried alongside the powerful leaders (Garanger, 1972, Shutler et al., 2002; Spriggs, 1997: 218, Valentin, 2011: 61). Only the burials from the early Lapita at Teouma contained decorated pottery as a grave good (Valentin, 2010: 217). This lack of any tool kit being found may have been highly influenced by the time and circumstance in which they were buried. Over the 3000 years of Vanuatu mortuary history the Lapita people colonized, standardized, and expanded upon the nearby islands and island chains. While we do not have a full chronology of the islands we know from ethnographic data of the time, “that mortuary ritual had become increasingly an arena for the display of wealth and socio-political power during a period of renewed outside contacts with Fiji and Western Polynesia” (Valentin, 2011: 62). Roy Mata’s burial, being a society of Polynesian people, abandoned the use of pottery as grave goods, and included more intact and elaborate grave goods than the older Lapita cemetery sites (Spriggs, 2003: 207-209, Valentin et al., 2011: 49-52, Bedford et al., 2011: 28-34).
Polynesian burial sites
Pietrusewsky continues, “[a]lthough the dates for the Lapita cultural complex fall between 3600 and 2500 years BP, most of the Lapita-associated skeletons are from the terminal phases (c. 2500 years BP) of this cultural complex, while others post-date it” (Pietrusewsky, 1996: 344, Fitzpatrick, 2002: 728) such as the island chains of Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji, though both Tonga and Samoa are classified as part of Polynesia and not Melanesia. As part of this cultural group Fiji is right on the boundary between Melanesia and Polynesia and is most often associated with the post-Lapita period. Once the major islands in Western Fiji had been colonized around c. 3000 BP, archaeologists note that it only would have taken around 150 to 300 years to settle on the surrounding islands which still all fall around the time of the Late Lapita with the post-Lapita and early Polynesian traditions beginning a few generations later (Sand & Addison, 2008: 2). This follows the chronology of dispersal of cultural trade mentioned by Allen, because as the people continued to voyage to, and colonize islands further away from their homeland trade and long-distance interaction all but ended (Allen, 1985: 51-52).
Fijian burials and the goods included are a part of the scientific debate of the typological and chronological differences between Post-Lapita or West Lapita and early Polynesian cultural traits, and whether the latter developed straight from the former or in a more diverse conglomeration from the influence of people from many separate areas (Sand & Addison, 2008: 2, Kirch & Green, 2001). While the earliest grave sites on the Eastern Islands of Fiji contained distinctive Lapita pottery, as time progressed towards the Post-Lapita period the pottery decoration became much less intricate and then stopped appearing as grave goods altogether (Kumar et al., 2004). The eastern Fijian island of Moturiki [figures 11 & 12], lying 15 km south of Naigani, is thought to hold the earliest Lapita site based on the evidence of importing and trade of the exotic tempers and early design motifs on the pottery sherds from the Solomon Islands and PNG (Kumar et al., 2004: 16). The major burial to have been discovered in Moturiki was who they would called Mana, a female of over 40 years, from 2600 to 2900 years BP (c. 650 - 950 BCE) placing her in the Lapita Period (Kumar, 2004: 20-21, Clark, 2009). While the end of the Lapita period is marked by the lack of dentate pottery, around 2700 BP, Mana’s burial remains did retain the cultural Lapita burial traditions of some dentate-stamped pottery sherds and shells and bones for possible ornamentation, if not naturally deposited (Nunn, 2017: 99-102).
Mana’s burial is highly distinctive from the Late Lapita sites, dated to approximately 2600 BP, on the main island of Viti Levu only around 12 km offshore. Burials on Viti Levu, in the Sigatoka Sand Dunes, are within a few hundred years of the oldest burial on Moturiki and still contain pottery. These sherds are instead recognized as part of Plainware phase (2600-1600 BP) because they do not have the dentate-stamping or other patterning that typically characterizes the Lapita cultural period (Burley & Dickerson, 2004: 12-13 & Burley, 2005). These practices continue evolving into the ‘proto-Polynesian’ and Eastern Polynesian traditions as what is beyond the Polynesian culture line is crossed and began to include tools and more ornamentation once again (Burley, 2005).
Tonga and Samoa, as the furthest east islands of Remote Oceania [figure 13], are groupings which have similar linguistics, dating, burial tradition to each other, shown in the artifacts as evidence of trade between the two colonies, and to the late Eastern Fijian sites. They also have evidence of post-Lapita and early Polynesian traditions, via this alteration in the ceramics, but not the changing types of burial goods because “[t]here are no extant Ancestral Polynesian temples or shrines, nor do we have funerary remains that might yield clues to ritual practice” (Kirch & Green, 2001: 237). It is not until the post-Ancestral Polynesian Societies’ burial traditions are practiced that we begin to have well-documented remains and mortuary rituals. The later sites, whether on Tonga or Samoa or Eastern Fiji, often had the similar practices that strongly hint at the elevation of status and chiefdoms as a sign of kingship. Demonstrated through the trading of status and utilitarian goods across the islands and the building of stone lines, earthen or stone mounds, and platform structures for some of the more specially constructed chiefly burials became more widespread around 1000 BP in the middle of a formative phase, which ends up quite different than the rest of Polynesia (Golson, 1957 within Green & Davidson, 1969, Burley, 1998).
Included within the grouping of traded goods are specifically shaped adzes. Both Samoan and Tongan adzes have their own characteristics and appear on their own islands alongside the artifact record in the time of Post-Lapita and Polynesian plain ware ceramics (2650-1550 BP), which already suggests a regional and temporal diversification from Fiji, but also suggests more adaptation to specific functional needs on each particular island before becoming later generalized across multiple colonized islands (Green & Davidson, 1969 & Burley, 1998). While there are burials found on islands in Samoa, many burials were singular graves underneath houses, nearby an ancient coastal settlement, or scattered in a nearby cave, but these are not definitively dated (Martinsson-Wallin, 2007). Unfortunately, the tools and other grave goods do not appear in the early or middle era burials, suggesting that either they did not widely use the tools, even though there is evidence of the contrary, burial goods were not as important a cultural phenomenon. The specialized basalt and metamorphic stone tools were too costly to make for them to be disposed so quickly, but we haven’t yet found the evidence that is still in the ground, or any combination of one or more of these options.
On the other side of the economic spectrum, however, there are the royal tombs that stand out in Tonga. One such tomb site, Lapaha, had the resources locally to create their own high-quality production line adzes, and could continue to trade for exotic material from the nearby islands in Somoa and the Society Island chain. The range of adze forms were prevalent in the grave; some metamorphic pebbles were made to look like the tools and flakes from an exotic area. A large (3.3 m) adze from a Society Island source dated to around A.D. 1550-1700, a hundred years after long distance Polynesian trade had stopped, was found along with pieces from the local Tutuila adze quarry within Samoa. It was namely with this high quality basalt rock and the craft specialization of those working and living nearby that Tutuila and the leaders of the area were able to accumulate their wealth, power, and influence, and thus, were able to dispose of it when they passed on (Clark et al., 2016).
The Cook Islands [figure 14], another home to early examples of the West Polynesian culture (2500-2100 BP) and the later transitional phase towards Eastern Polynesian culture, is where we can start finding burials with tools purposely buried alongside the human remains. This island region also contains sites of true Polynesian burial rituals and grave goods like the adze types usually found in transitional and western Polynesian societies. The largest island in the Cook Islands, called Rarotonga, is characterized by the geology of the high sloping volcano that formed it, giving it an “alteration of phonolithic and basaltic lava flows, producing fine grained stone suitable for adze making” (McAlister & Allen, 2017). While undated burials have been found in the coastal cemetery sites on the islands of Rarotonga, Mitiaro, and Mangaia these shallow burials do not include any types of grave goods (Walter, 1996: 78) and will not be covered. Burial sites on the Cook Islands include the Te Ana Rima Rau, Te Ana O Raka, Te Ana O Kuekue, and the Vaiari cave systems on the island of Atiu. The map in figure 13 below, from Clark, 2016, shows the many islands of the Southern Group, including Atiu, in relation to each other. While they are physically not far apart, the apparent burial cultures that we have been able to find are quite distinctive. On Atiu [figure 15] there are many cave systems, the entrances of which tend to be vertical drops, with multiple scattered burials can be found throughout. The largest example is in the Rima Rau cave, with over 600 skeletal remains identified, many naturally scattered against walls, but others still at least partially buried in purposeful positions, suggesting that some of the people received full burial rituals (Clark et al., 2016: 85).
Continuing on the discussion of Atiu, alongside Te Ana O Raka, said to be a chieftain’s family burial place, and Te Ana-o-Kuekue, not many artifacts were found alongside the bodies except for a dugout canoe in each, which stands in contrast to the combination of three burial caves of Vaiari (Steadman, 1991: 328, Kirch, 2017; 102-110). Vaiari’s burial caves not only contained between 30 and 50 scattered bodies in a more crowded space, one five-meter-long main chamber with a second that was inaccessible to archaeologists, but also canoe hulls, food remains, clothing, and tool-use artifacts (McAlister & Allen, 2017, Steadman et al., 2000). Most of the adzes, the pounder, the chisel, and the file made from coral are all broken or worn in some way. Aligning with the fact that the bones of the dozens of people had been swept around by the flooding of rain water, pieces have been broken, adzes un-hafted and blunted, and it has not been deciphered as to whether these effect were pre- or post-burial (Kirch, 2017; 102-110). These examples, however, are further evidence of a sort of social positioning building through time in the Cook Islands. The leaders and their families are buried in certain locations and later in time they have the means to be able to bury canoe-hull and the repositories inside, similar to a limited number of the wealthiest Viking leaders when they sent the long boats out to sea, demonstrating that they had little to no expectation for a lack of food, goods, the raw materials nor the time to make anything.
Reaching the Society Islands in the central point of Eastern Polynesia around 1000 AD, became a base for the people to continue trading and continue colonizing the furthest islands of the Polynesian archipelago: the Marquesas Islands, the Hawai’ian Island chain, and New Zealand (Hunt & Lipo, 2017). Maupiti is one island with an earlier site within the Society Islands that demonstrates the complete cultural evolution from Lapita to Western and then to Eastern Polynesian traditions, with the same ingenuity, which led the migrating peoples to continuously adapt to the environments in which they live. As Maupiti is the westernmost island group in the Society Island [figures 16a and 16b] it follows that the burials on these islands would have been the oldest, if the people were exploring toward the east. Similar to the chiefly burials on Vanuatu, the major burial found in 1961 had many specifically placed artifacts and if we add the other burials found in the 1963 season the body position and orientation varied, but all graves contained some forms of grave goods (Emory & Sinoto, 1964).
Figure 16 - A. Map of the Society Islands B. Map of Maupiti Island with location on burial site on the islet Pae'ao (Emory and SInoto, 1964: 145).
The authors of ‘Eastern Polynesian Burial At Maupiti’ make the argument that the specific artifacts that were found at the site, such as fishhooks, pendants, and various forms of un-elaborated adzes are reflective of a more “Archaic” cultural tradition which had ended soon after the Society Islands were initially settled around 1,500 years BP (Emory & Sinoto, 1964: 159-160; Hunt & Lipo, 2016).
Mangareva, Pitcairn and The Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia are all demonstrative of another further expansion through the Eastern Pacific [figure 17]. While the dating of colonization is imprecise for these middle islands through the Y-shaped expansions, the range of settlement dates for Hawai’i, Rapa Nui/Easter Island, and New Zealand all match at A.D. 700-900 after the Society Islands around 1200-1400 years BP, which was found to agree with the dating of the earliest graves on those islands (Rolett, 1998: 55-57, Green & Weisler, 2002: 235-236). The nearest island group of these is Mangareva [map in figure 17 below], which contains a number of cultural deposits close to each other. Kamaka, the furthest island south of the main island Mangareva [figure 18], has examples of these sites, designated GK-1, GK-2, and GK-3, the latter of which is locally known as Te Pito no Pokiri. The site GK-3 contains artificial pavement, a limestone slab platform, walls, and four burials all working their way in the direction of the coastal water line [figure 19]. While this burial site only has dates going back to A.D. 1600 this burial tradition is still pre-European contact and thus is reflective of the burial practices of the Mangareva peoples. Also to be recognized is that the two surrounding sites GK-1 and 2, along with the two other burials, are very close to the shelters that contain tool artifacts such as fishhooks, harpoons, and adzes dating back to A.D. 1200 on this island group, but between 200 to 400 years earlier in the Marquesas Island sites, leading Green to work out that he had not found the earliest evidence for this island and placed the settlement date between A.D. 600-800 (Anderson et al., 2003, Green & Weisler, 2002: 237). The tools themselves are dated to the period where long distance trade is still occurring between the island groups that make up the central Polynesian islands, which in itself leads to a generalization for items that are being shipped, so they could be used in various environments; but as we have seen on smaller island and atoll locations, the tools are more often not being placed in the graves, as they are likely too valuable to leave behind.
In the Marquesas’ island of Ua Huka, [figure 20] more recent archaeological investigation has taken place with three major sites: Hatuana, Hokatu, and the Manihina sand dune. The Manihina site specifically contains not only a habitation site, but also burials with grave goods. Within the Manihina Valley human skeletons were found a few stratigraphic layers above the evidence of potentially re-using habitation in the form of a large paved area, telling archaeologists that where people had once been living had been covered multiple times over the years and later used as a cemetery. This in particular may not be indicative of anything, but this site does show that there were rituals which had to be followed, “exposure and decomposition of bodies before burial, taking of skulls and some bones, position of burial, association with artifacts or animals… and it seems that some bodies were wrapped, probably in tapa” (Conte, 2002: 264). These tool use artifacts found in this mixed-use house and burial site run the gamut of fishhooks, sinkers, and adzes, everything that would have been useful to the inhabitants, one of which was dated to 480 ± 100 BP or between A.D. 1480-1680, to rework and reuse (Conte, 2002: 261).
Hawai’ian Islands
The furthest point north that the Eastern Polynesian culture reaches to is the Hawai’ian Island chain which is located at the top of the zone in the map in figure 21. In this location the range of habitational ecosystems grows and the ability for specialization leads to a burial culture that expanded on the previous island practices. The tool kit here started out generalized, as we can identify in much of the finds from early sites around Polynesia and the raw material had been brought vast distances, but over time the local materials were being worked with and the tools that were being made were being shaped for particular functions by the local specialists (Emory, 1968, Sinoto, 1979, Kirch, 1985, Leach & Leach, 1979, Allen, 2010). While the people in Hawai’i did create their own style of adze, it could still be seen as similar to the others that are found in the other remote areas of Polynesia, both inside and outside burials.
The island of O’ahu has some of the oldest sites, one being known as Bellow’s Dune [located on the map in figure 22 above], though four sites exist from the time range of the settlement, from AD 600 to between 1100 and 1200 (Kirch, 1970: 233, Tuggle & Spriggs, 2000: 166). The Halawa Dune Site has oval and round houses and adzes found, with similar examples of both found in the Marquesas, Samoa, Tonga, the Society Islands, New Zealand, etc. suggests connections from the Melanesian influences while adapting to the local environment (Kirch, 1970: 233-234).
Like in the wealthy areas of Samoa and the Society Islands, the high-quality stone from a few quarry sites in Hawai’i led to the leaders having many prestige items in their burials. As people spread across the larger Hawai’ian islands, there were many places where people could have been buried. The ruling class had their prestige and could ensure that their family members were buried in caves/lava tubes around the islands, underneath monumental works, or inside heiau (platforms) while the commoners had to find areas away from their farming land to bury their relatives, such as in the sand dunes or under the bases of their homes (Cordy, 1974, Kirch, 1985). Depending on where the commoners lived, they would have a craft or skill in which they would specialize, giving all items made by those people and the younger generation they teach a specific method, leading to a particular style. And with the trade between the Hawai’ian Islands at first and on each individual island later, the system would have become self-contained and self-sufficient, and with the excess and possibility of wealth and status personal artifacts would become much more common amongst the majority of burials (Kirch, 1985, Tuggle & Spriggs, 2001, Clarkson, 2015).
Focusing on the cave and lava tube burials, the remains and goods often dated to AD 1250 – 1750, while the sites with dune burials could be dated back to around AD 650 – 1300 (Kirch, 1982: 462). We can find scores of human remains within Kalahuipua’a Cave on the largest island, Hawai’i. Part of this area was particularly for the community members with less wealth, as there were not as many grave goods. In another section, Forbes’ cave, high status graves were found as well, with bodies laid out inside canoes alongside portable wooden sculptures. In another cave along a cliff face of Waimea Valley, O’ahu a large group from a wealthy family was buried with wooden canoe hulls, food bowls, mats, and cloth, seemingly suggesting that ritual would be telling the living members to send things that the deceased would need for a nautical journey (Kirch, 1985: 238-239).
As for the more recent sand dune burials, grave goods are not typical, though they do occur, like in the Bellow’s Dune Site. An example of this being within two female and one out of 355 individuals (Kirch, 1997: 240). The women were given jewelry as ornamentation, just like in the male grave in the Keöpü, North Kona, Hawai’i, burial site. In these particular few there was jewelry worn and the men were buried with a cache of fishing tools such as: hooks, sinkers, and tools for manufacturing more, making the grave goods fit more specifically to the individual (Han & Collins, 1983 cited in Kirch, 1997). Burials could be further specified when the burials lay underneath the family home, a common practice throughout the history of Polynesia. Examples of these are found in the Bellow’s Dune site as well, and the Halawa Valley site [figure 23] on Moloka’i, which also contains hearths with layers of material that has been dated from between AD 600 to 1800 (Kirch, 1997: 240, Kirch, 1971: 230). Local adze manufacturing quarry sites along with the abundance of people living near the ocean meant that they could retrieve the rock, shells, and animal bones to be shaped into various tools.
Mauna Kea adze quarry complex has been described by Handy as a “consecrated industry” or a manufacturing activity in which ritual plays a massive role [figure 24] (Handy, 1927: 282). Mauna Kea’s was a late site, with four of the small rock shelters dating to AD. 1424 – 1657 (McCoy, 1976: 138). Adze manufacturing is a specialized craft, a particularly honed skill everywhere in the world, and this is especially seen in Hawai’i. In the Mauna Kea quarry, there is not only debitage, material created from manufacturing lithic tools, and unfinished adzes and cores scattered around the site, but also rock shelters and specially made shrines, both with perishable food and non-perishable goods, and finally nearby burials (McCoy et al., 2012: 415-416). Those buried nearby are believed to have been the craft specialists and their families, who lived near the adze quarry. They were buried underneath the floors of their own houses and were found with a few of the adzes that had been carved (Kirch, 1985: 304). As the basalt quarry itself is at a high altitude (3,355 – 3,780 meters above sea level) and is not easy to get to quickly, there would have been a permanent base for people on the summit to continue working every day the harsh weather conditions would allow, and then transport finished pieces to the canoes down the mountain (Kirch, 1985: 179-180). Few finished adzes from this area have been found across the islands, whether in either house sites or burials, and are representative of later works. The ones in the burials are particularly similar, representing a continuation of the standardization in form and use during the Polynesian developmental phase between AD 110-1300, with the most recent sites here earlier than the 1800s (Kirch, 1985: 20, 184 & Millis, 2014).
The colonization of the Hawai’ian Islands aligns with the standardized Polynesian traditions, affecting the building of tools, houses, and communities. Most of the adzes that are found fit into this timeline of AD 600 - 1750, with the pieces made from high quality basalt being from the middle to the latter dates (Kirch, 1997, Millis, 2014, McCoy, 2017).
Summary
The adze, a commonly utilized tool, has been found in Polynesian burials because of the communities’ ascribing symbolic meanings of status due to the tool’s ability to shape the Earth for human control. To summarize, the ornamentation of these tools and their placement within the burials created a normalized pattern for the generations to follow. As shown with examples from the world over, ornamentation and their various grave goods are linked to the communities’ perceptions of the deceased. While the person who is dead does not have a say in what is buried with them, the family or community do control what they show-off, and therefore how their family will be perceived by all other community members. The social relationships between the specialists and the community, and the relationships between the specialists and their family are at the heart of this practice. Not everyone could go out and make an adze, in the Pacific Island region the spirit of the adze making was for the peoples’ ancestors. This knowledge and specialization that was passed down the family line was the basis of the burial practice. Families wanted all to know that this person, part of their community was a part of the tradition, that they could shape the Earth to fit them instead of the other way around, while still being inexorably linked.
This would grant ‘status’ to the person with whom the tool was buried and to the tool itself. Like the hammer and axe from the Nordic and Western European cultural traditions, the adze has proven itself to be a robust tool for altering items as needed. Unlike a hammer, from a hammer stone, the idea for shaping the environment had to have come before the tool was “invented”. Because a hammer involves only hitting one thing with another to move or break the initial object, while an adze or axe involves shaping material to later use that particular shape to create something else. This symbology is continuously placed on Thor’s Hammer, Mjölnir, and a higher number of axes of mythology, one owned by the Norse god Forseti (even though the axe is also sometimes attributed to Thor as well) for example, and the Sumerian God Enlil’s creation of a mattock (combination of adze and pick-axe) demonstrates the later ritual importance of these tools for creation and defense (Krogmann,1964, Hooke 2004).
From this, I will be continuing with various societies’ oral histories and the more mythological based data that will be increasingly analyzed within the next chapter. I will also demonstrate that the organizational methods of this paper are contingent on the collecting of research and the presentation of each aspect as the following. First, I will locate burial sites around the world wherein tools appear as grave goods. Second, I will research the societies’ culture that used those tools, through the examination of the mythology for stories about or featuring the tool. Third, compare the use of the tools in relation to the deity who wields it. Fourth, I will discover the connections archaeologists made between the tools’ power and its interpreted role in nature.
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