Households, Marae, and Occupational Specialization

Fall 2008

Households, Marae, and Occupational Specialization: New Views on Social Complexity in the Late Prehistoric Society Islands Chiefdoms

Jennifer Kahn
Anthropology Dept., Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum

3:00 pm • 2 October 2008 • Saunders 345

In this talk, I present multi-scalar archaeological research that I have been carrying out in the ‘Opunohu Valley, Mo’orea (Windward Society Islands). The work attempts to define the socio-political and economic structures through which this society evolved into one of Polynesia’s most stratified and economically specialized chiefdoms. My research tests models of emerging social and political complexity and increasing centralization of elite power with material evidence recovered t the household, community, and regional scales. I foreground an approach emphasizing the house society theoretical perspective and the linkage between production and social organization.

Jennifer Kahn is Assistant Anthropologist and Research Archaeologist at the Bishop Museum. Her research focuses on the development of social complexity in prehistoric Polynesian chiefdoms. Her publications appear in the journals Radiocarbon, Journal of Archaeological Research, Journal of the Polynesian Society, and Journal de la Société des Océanistes and the edited volume The Growth and Collapse of Pacific Island Societies.

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Cosponsored with the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum and Center for Pacific Islands Studies For further information, please contact Anthropology at anthprog@hawaii.edu

Event Sponsor
Anthropology Dept-UH/Manoa, Manoa Campus

More Information
Marti Kerton, 956-7153, anthprog@hawaii.edu, www.anthropology.hawaii.edu