Risk Minimization and the Traditional Ahupua'a in Kahikinui, Island of Maui, Hawai'i

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD documenting the precocious development of the Hawaiian pre-Contact settlement system, c. A.D. 1450, in Kahikinui is here interpreted as a response to both social and environmental risk in leeward east Maui during the reign of chief Kaka`alaneo (Beckwith 1970:383). The existing system was expanded between A.D. 1575 and 1650 with the formalization of agricultural field boundaries. Spatial distribution of settlement after this time suggests the possible implementation of the ahupua`a, or traditional community land unit (Hommon 1986), during the unification of Maui by Chief Pi`ilani (Fornander 1996:94). The rapid abandonment of the mauka, or upland, field systems and settlement in the district soon after European contact in 1778 may therefore reflect the dissolving of chiefly control over the productive capacity of the ahupua`a, as well as the effects of disease on the human population and of cattle on the natural and cultural environment. PROJECT BACKGROUND The archaeological study presented here was based on the results of the 1995-1997 State of Hawai`i Historic Preservation Division (SHPD) inventory survey of cultural remains within the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) Kuleana Homestead development area in Kahikinui, Maui (Fig. 1). Although part of Hana District today, the moku, or ancient district, of Kahikinui included eight ahupua`a (Moffat and Fitzpatrick 1995), situated between Kanaio on the west and Nakula on the east (Erkelens 1995; Hammatt and Folk 1994). The district also extended originally from the seacoast to Pohaku-palaha on the north rim of the Haleakala volcano (Hunter 1997; Rosendahl 1978), at an elevation of 2470 m above sea level (masl). Six of these ahupua`a, totaling 9,230.6 ha, are today located within Hawaiian Home Lands and are being managed by Ka `Ohana O Kahikinui, an organization of DHHL beneficiaries. [Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The DHHL archaeological project area surveyed during 1995-1997 covered 809.4 ha located between approximately 640 masl and the Kahikinui Forest Reserve boundary at 1220 masl, with a narrow corridor of nine house lots extending down to 480 masl along the present jeep trail to the modern Pi`ilani Highway. This archaeological inventory survey resulted in the recording of 581 archaeological features grouped into 311 sites (Fig. 2). Ten additional sites defined as agricultural zones (lava or open-soil) were also identified. These sites are distributed across the three ahupua`a of Kipapa, Nakaohu, and Naka`aha within roughly half of the 104 Kuleana Homestead parcels, located below approximately 975 masl. A total of 179 sites (257 individual features) were subjected to subsurface excavations and analysis (291 test units), and these field data are available elsewhere (Dixon et al. 1997, 1998a) and in the four-volume SHPD technical report series (Dixon et al. 2000). [Figure 2 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ENVIRONMENTAL BACKGROUND Because of a lack of early historical documentation for Kahikinui, environmental zones at European contact have been hypothetically reconstructed based on recent climatic data from nearby `Ulupalakua Ranch to the west and Wai`opai Ranch to the east of the DHHL project area (Kirch & Van Gilder 1996). This reconstruction identifies six environmental regions in east Maui, which are roughly correlated in Figure 3 with previously identified elevation and rainfall statistics (originally reported in inches; Coulter 1931); the actual interface between these zones probably shifted through time due to prehistoric land use. [Figure 3 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Zone 1. Coastal This zone below about 60 masl receives no more than 250 mm (10 in.) of annual rainfall and was therefore not the locus of major agricultural pursuits in the past. Unusually wet winters, however, may have encouraged some seasonal or short-term planting in pockets of arable soil near habitations, canoe landings, and seasonal streambeds. …