J G Kahn
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 18521 |
|---|---|
| NOME | J G Kahn |
| PRENOMES | J G |
| SOBRENOME | Kahn |
| ASSINATURA | KAHN J G |
| AFILIAÇÕES | William & Mary |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6687-3806 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 60 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 155 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 60 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1971 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 8 |
Morphological variability and temporal patterning in Rurutuan domestic architecture
This article questions how surface stone architecture and site proxemics can inform on the pre-contact use of house structures on Rurutu Island (Austral archipelago) and their relationship to residential social status and/or occupational specialization. After exploring available linguistic and ethnohistoric accounts to understand emic conceptions of Rurutuan houses, I turn to a survey of the archaeological data, using specific site characteristic…
Engaging culturally and linguistically diverse youth in semiotic analysis for community‐based inquiry
This manuscript examines multimodal storytelling as community inquiry for an urban high school class of 30 first‐ and second‐generation bi/multilingual immigrant students, most of whom maintained transnational connections. We share how these students, in an A.P. Research class, engaged in community‐based inquiry and utilized various multimodal artifacts from a university cultural heritage collection, including a field trip to the cultural heritag…
Ancient mitogenomes of Lapita pigs confirm continuity of the Pacific Clade in Remote Oceania
“Then You go to Snap”
Advances in East Polynesian zooarchaeology
This article both introduces our Special Issue on “Zooarchaeology and Human Ecodynamics in East Polynesia” and reviews recent research from East Polynesia at large. The seven articles and discussion essay derive from a symposium at the 14th International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ) conference in Cairns, Australia (2023). To contextualize these contributions, we review recent studies (2016–2024) from the region relating to human–animal relat…
People of the Sea, or of the Soil? How the Balance of Marine and Terrestrial Resource Availability Informs Maximum Population on Four Polynesian Islands
Most studies of the food resource potential of early Polynesian populations focus exclusively on agricultural potential, and specifically starchy staples, despite the importance of marine resources to the Polynesians. To more accurately estimate total precontact food resource availability, we characterized the terrestrial and near-shore marine environments of four Polynesian islands: Moʻorea, Maupiti, Mangareva and Taravai. We estimate the agricu…
Pig and dog use in the pre‐contact Society Island Chiefdoms
Pig and dog were highly valued animals in pre‐contact Polynesia. In this paper, I focus on pig and dog use in the resource rich, and hierarchically complex, pre‐contact Society Island chiefdoms. Utilizing ethnohistoric data and human‐centred use‐webs data, I provide a preliminary study of the diverse ways that pigs and dogs were used in pre‐contact Mā‘ohi life across 13 use categories. Ethnohistoric analyses indicate that pigs, and to some extent…
Tracking shifts in Society Islands marine subsistence through time
We discuss new data from Colonization Phase and Early Expansion/Development Phase assemblages in the pre‐contact Society Islands. We focus on analysis of marine faunal remains and fishing gear to infer diachronic shifts in subsistence practices at two well‐dated coastal sites. Both Colonization Phase (AD 950–1200) and Early Expansion Phase (AD 1200–1450) faunal assemblages are dominated by fish and mollusks as opposed to animal domesticates. Colo…
Inter-Island production variability and Pre-Contact carrying capacity estimates
Materializations of variable power strategies and inequalities in Polynesia
Polynesian societies have long framed discussions of chiefdoms. Often, these discussions treat Polynesia as a relatively homogenous region. Despite this, substantial variability in political forms developed in the region that came to affect the structure and nature of archaeologically attested past communities. Here we use two case studies to highlight these patterns: the Manuʻa group in West Polynesia and Moʻorea Island in East Polynesia. We dem…
Why are sustainable practices often elusive? The role of information flow in the management of networked human-environment interactions
Analyzing the spatial and temporal properties of information flow with a multi-century perspective could illuminate the sustainability of human resource-use strategies. This paper uses historical and archaeological datasets to assess how spatial, temporal, cognitive, and cultural limitations impact the generation and flow of information about ecosystems within past societies, and thus lead to tradeoffs in sustainable practices. While it is well u…
Provenance, production, and distribution of basalt and volcanic glass artifacts in Leeward Kohala, Hawaiʻi Island
We examined 2947 basalt and volcanic glass artifacts from 38 sites in leeward Kohala. Nondestructive energy‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence provided initial geochemical characterizations. Wavelength‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence (WDXRF) and thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) analyses were completed on samples from ambiguously sourced groups. No more than 13.9% of the probable and definite adze‐related debitage originated in leeward Kohala.…
Soils, agriculture, and land use in island socio‐ecosystems
The availability of nutrient‐rich soils capable of supporting intensive cultivation was a key factor in the relative vulnerability and resilience of traditional Polynesian societies, whose economies were based on agricultural production. We tested the hypothesis that geological age was a key controlling factor in determining the nutrient status of island soils, extensively sampling soils on two islands and a small archipelago in southeastern Poly…
Digging Deep
Understanding the social and ecological contexts of past agricultural systems in complex societies requires expansive and nuanced data sets that recognize the role of all players in the production system. Such data sets are not often available and thus, there is a tendency to generalize across polities and ecosystems and to homogenize place- and time-specific variation. Here, we bring together ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological data …
The ScMo‐350 site, Haumi, Moʻorea (Society Islands)
In the Society Islands, multi‐phase coastal sites with successive occupations spanning several centuries have been difficult to find and have been poorly studied, resulting in a vague understanding of this archipelago's founding cultural complex and its adaptations to specific island environments through time. Discovery and excavation of ScMo‐350, a well‐stratified coastal site in Haumi, Moʻorea, Society Islands, provides robust sample sizes for …
Houses of power
I provide a spatiotemporal analysis of Māohi communal and specialized houses to access transformations in social relationships at the supra-household level in the late pre-contact Society Island chiefdoms. In analyzing Late Expansion/Development Phase (AD 1450–1650) and Classic Phase (AD 1650–1774) Māohi society, I argue that communal- and specialized-house sites, including those for ritualized craft activities and those for housing ritual practi…
The Archaeology of the ‘Opunohu Valley, Society Islands, Eastern Polynesia
Monumental Architecture in Precontact Polynesia
Trade and Exchange in Precontact East Polynesia
The Māʻohi Hinterlands
I draw upon current research highlighting the agentive role that hinterland zones could have on both local and regional dynamics. In my case study on the Society Islands, I consider hinterland variability at multiple scales, that of the local, community, and regional or meta-regional scale. Synthesis of historic texts and oral traditions provide an emic view into how the Maʻohi themselves conceptualized their social landscapes. I develop a multi-…
Functional Classification of Hawaiian Curved-Edge Adzes and Gouges
As part of a project to describe and classify functionally more than 800 Hawaiian stone adzes held in the ethnographic and archaeological collections at Bishop Museum in Honolulu, 24 tools with curved edges were identified and described. The curved-edge tools include adzes and gouges, which can be unambiguously distinguished from one another using a combination of weight and length index. Many of the curved-edge adzes have large cutting edge widt…
Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia
Hinterland studies demonstrate the capacity to highlight nuance in regional and temporal variation in the Polynesian past. This Special Issue highlights a group of papers which focus on recent topics and themes drawn from case studies situated in different parts of the Polynesian region. In this article, we summarize the history of hinterland studies, introduce the articles and themes from the Special Issue, and, finally, consider the future of h…
Monumental Architecture in Precontact Polynesia
The Archaeology of the ‘Opunohu Valley, Society Islands, Eastern Polynesia
Trade and Exchange in Precontact East Polynesia
Cultivating an Ecological and Social Balance
Anthropological views of past human-environmental interactions are influenced by the data sets used and the subjects of study. In this article, we seek a balanced view of ancient human-environmental interactions in the Society Islands. We explore the social and ecological contexts of agricultural production by incorporating archaeological and ethnographic data as well as the motivations and actions of Ma'ohi elites and commoners. Both elites and …
A cost surface model of volcanic glass quarrying and exchange in Hawai‘i
Mid- to late Holocene landscape change and anthropogenic transformations on Mo‘orea, Society Islands
Archaeology’s ability to generate long-term datasets of natural and human landscape change positions the discipline as an inter-disciplinary bridge between the social and natural sciences. Using a multi-proxy approach combining archaeological data with palaeoenvironmental indicators embedded in coastal sediments, we outline millennial timescales of lowland landscape evolution in the Society Islands. Geomorphic and cultural histories for four coas…
Refining the Society Islands cultural sequence
The Society Islands are critical to chronology building in East Polynesia, as the archipelago served as a potential first landfall for voyagers moving out of the West Polynesia homeland. Yet determining the particulars of migration sequences and settlement chronology in the Society Islands, like the rest of East Polynesia, has been challenging. Here, we report on a dating and re-dating program of four coastal sites on the island of Mo'orea, Windw…
Agriculture, Domestic Production, and Site Function
Ethnographie préhistorique d'une « société à maisons » dans la vallée de 'Opunohu (Mo'orea, îles de la Société)
Cet article concerne les résultats d'une étude archéologique de structures d'habitat (maisonnées) entrepris dans la vallée de 'Opunohu à Mo'orea (îles de la Société, Polynésie française). Nous y appliquons le concept de « sociétés à maisons » de Claude Lévi- Strauss qui permet d'interpréter sans toutes leurs nuances les complexités de l'organisation sociale dans cette chefferie, avant l'arrivée des Européens. La fouille minutieuse d'un hameau dat…
Identifying residences of ritual practitioners in the archaeological record as a proxy for social complexity
Anthropological Archaeology in 2012
In 2012, archaeologists continued to grapple with large questions concerning process and structure and how they shaped the nature of humanity. The movement of populations, ideas, and material culture stands out prominently, including mobility's role in promoting social change and how forms of travel and communication, such as pilgrimages or long-distance trade, promoted social interaction. Research concerning the structure of ancient economies ac…
The functionality of feasting at late prehistoric residential and ceremonial sites in the Society Islands
Much of the research into East Polynesian ceremonial sites focuses on temple-altar (marae-ahu) complexes as sacred sites where varied religious rituals and rites of passage were performed. Yet ethnohistoric documents and the Tahitian lexicon suggest a broader role for Ma'ohi (indigenous Tahitian) ceremonial architecture as the foci of individual and corporate ceremonies of a religious, economic and political nature. Utilising a spatio-temporal pe…
A spatio‐temporal analysis of ‘Oro cult marae in the’ Opunohu Valley, Mo'orea, Society Islands
A new war cult dedicated to the god 'Oro emerged in late prehistory in the Society Islands and was linked to shifts in temple architecture, religious rituals, and sacred regalia. Legends suggest that this war cult developed in the Leeward Islands and was translocated to the Windward group prior to European contact. This article summarizes ethnohistoric data for the 'Oro war cult, including its relationship to new temple styles in the Windward gro…
The ScMo‐350 site, Haumi, Moʻorea (Society Islands)
In the Society Islands, multi‐phase coastal sites with successive occupations spanning several centuries have been difficult to find and have been poorly studied, resulting in a vague understanding of this archipelago's founding cultural complex and its adaptations to specific island environments through time. Discovery and excavation of ScMo‐350, a well‐stratified coastal site in Haumi, Moʻorea, Society Islands, provides robust sample sizes for …
Paired geochemical and technological analyses of basalt adze debitage at the Hālawa Dune Site, Molokaʻi Island, Hawaiʻi
We analysed 1593 basalt artefacts from the Hālawa Dune Site, on the easternmost part of Molokaʻi Island, for a combination of geochemical and technological attributes to expose different reduction strategies related to basalt adze production and rejuvenation. West Molokaʻi is well known as a location where many outcrops were quarried to make adzes, but the island's east side has not been widely perceived as a location where adzes were produced in…
Digging Deep
Understanding the social and ecological contexts of past agricultural systems in complex societies requires expansive and nuanced data sets that recognize the role of all players in the production system. Such data sets are not often available and thus, there is a tendency to generalize across polities and ecosystems and to homogenize place- and time-specific variation. Here, we bring together ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological data …
Pig and dog use in the pre‐contact Society Island Chiefdoms
Pig and dog were highly valued animals in pre‐contact Polynesia. In this paper, I focus on pig and dog use in the resource rich, and hierarchically complex, pre‐contact Society Island chiefdoms. Utilizing ethnohistoric data and human‐centred use‐webs data, I provide a preliminary study of the diverse ways that pigs and dogs were used in pre‐contact Mā‘ohi life across 13 use categories. Ethnohistoric analyses indicate that pigs, and to some extent…
Why are sustainable practices often elusive? The role of information flow in the management of networked human-environment interactions
Analyzing the spatial and temporal properties of information flow with a multi-century perspective could illuminate the sustainability of human resource-use strategies. This paper uses historical and archaeological datasets to assess how spatial, temporal, cognitive, and cultural limitations impact the generation and flow of information about ecosystems within past societies, and thus lead to tradeoffs in sustainable practices. While it is well u…
Provenance, production, and distribution of basalt and volcanic glass artifacts in Leeward Kohala, Hawaiʻi Island
We examined 2947 basalt and volcanic glass artifacts from 38 sites in leeward Kohala. Nondestructive energy‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence provided initial geochemical characterizations. Wavelength‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence (WDXRF) and thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) analyses were completed on samples from ambiguously sourced groups. No more than 13.9% of the probable and definite adze‐related debitage originated in leeward Kohala.…
Tracking shifts in Society Islands marine subsistence through time
We discuss new data from Colonization Phase and Early Expansion/Development Phase assemblages in the pre‐contact Society Islands. We focus on analysis of marine faunal remains and fishing gear to infer diachronic shifts in subsistence practices at two well‐dated coastal sites. Both Colonization Phase (AD 950–1200) and Early Expansion Phase (AD 1200–1450) faunal assemblages are dominated by fish and mollusks as opposed to animal domesticates. Colo…
Soils, agriculture, and land use in island socio‐ecosystems
The availability of nutrient‐rich soils capable of supporting intensive cultivation was a key factor in the relative vulnerability and resilience of traditional Polynesian societies, whose economies were based on agricultural production. We tested the hypothesis that geological age was a key controlling factor in determining the nutrient status of island soils, extensively sampling soils on two islands and a small archipelago in southeastern Poly…
Understanding variability in the hinterlands
Recent archaeological excavations in Miloli‘i Valley, Kaua‘i are discussed to provide data from an isolated and marginal hinterland, far removed from the island's political centres. We develop a chronological sequence of site construction and use and discuss the nature of pre‐contact Hawaiian settlement and subsistence. We also outline elements of human–environment interactions from the settlement period to the protohistoric era, and provide tent…
Re-dating of the Kuli'ou'ou Rockshelter, O'ahu, Hawai'i
Kuli'ou'ou Rockshelter (Site O1) in the Hawaiian Islands has a certain status as the first archaeological site in the Pacific Islands to be directly dated via the then newly introduced radiocarbon method. The original date of 946 ± 180 before 1950, from the base of the rockshelter's cultural deposit, greatly influenced archaeologists' views of regional cultural sequences in Eastern Polynesia. We present the results of six new AMS 14C dates run on…
Les oeuvres de Philon d'Alexandrie. 13. De confusione linguarum
Ethnographie préhistorique d'une « société à maisons » dans la vallée de 'Opunohu (Mo'orea, îles de la Société)
Cet article concerne les résultats d'une étude archéologique de structures d'habitat (maisonnées) entrepris dans la vallée de 'Opunohu à Mo'orea (îles de la Société, Polynésie française). Nous y appliquons le concept de « sociétés à maisons » de Claude Lévi- Strauss qui permet d'interpréter sans toutes leurs nuances les complexités de l'organisation sociale dans cette chefferie, avant l'arrivée des Européens. La fouille minutieuse d'un hameau dat…
Education status among orphans and non-orphans in communities affected by Aids in Tanzania and Burkina Faso
The AIDS pandemic has created an estimated 15 million orphans who may face elevated risk of poor health and social outcomes. This paper compares orphans and non-orphans regarding educational status and delay using data collected in three low-income communities affected by AIDS in Tanzania and Burkina Faso. Orphans were significantly more likely not to attend school than were non-orphans and also to be delayed when in school, though, after control…
Vaka Moana
Central East Polynesia
A spatio‐temporal analysis of ‘Oro cult marae in the’ Opunohu Valley, Mo'orea, Society Islands
A new war cult dedicated to the god 'Oro emerged in late prehistory in the Society Islands and was linked to shifts in temple architecture, religious rituals, and sacred regalia. Legends suggest that this war cult developed in the Leeward Islands and was translocated to the Windward group prior to European contact. This article summarizes ethnohistoric data for the 'Oro war cult, including its relationship to new temple styles in the Windward gro…
Multi-phase Construction Sequences and Aggregate Site Complexes of the Prehistoric Windward Society Islands (French Polynesia)
In the Society Islands, concentrations of temple sites, as are found in aggregate site complexes, are considered material equivalents of kin-congregations where lineages proliferated and segmented through time. Such site complexes are ubiquitous in the Windward Society Islands; however, few have been studied in detail, leaving the precise timing of their construction and use unknown. Excavations at ‘Opunohu Valley aggregate complexes in the 1960s…
Monumentality and the materialization of ideology in Central Eastern Polynesia
In ranked societies ideology is used strategically by elites to institutionalize social hierarchies and political status. We investigate how the materialization of religion served to promote elite power in the late prehistoric Society Islands. Field explorations focused on the largest aggregate marae (temple) complex in the 'Opunohu Valley, ScMo‐124–125 and included detailed architectural mapping and excavations at nineteen structures, with a tot…
A cost surface model of volcanic glass quarrying and exchange in Hawai‘i
Cultivating an Ecological and Social Balance
Anthropological views of past human-environmental interactions are influenced by the data sets used and the subjects of study. In this article, we seek a balanced view of ancient human-environmental interactions in the Society Islands. We explore the social and ecological contexts of agricultural production by incorporating archaeological and ethnographic data as well as the motivations and actions of Ma'ohi elites and commoners. Both elites and …
Coastal Occupation at the GS-1 Site, Cook’s Bay, Mo‘orea, Society Islands
Excavations at the GS-1 site uncovered buried stratigraphic deposits of some depth. Site stratigraphy and artifact content suggests the area was first used as a coastal habitation prior to being covered by substantial colluvial deposits and in historic times, modern fill. Wood charcoal samples recovered from the site were identified to short lived species for AMS radiocarbon dating. The wood charcoal identifications were also used to identify ind…
X-ray fluorescence analysis and intra-island exchange in the Society Island archipelago (Central Eastern Polynesia)
Residential Landscapes and House Societies of the Late Prehistoric Society Islands
We extend the ‘house society’ perspective to one of the most complex Eastern Polynesian chiefdoms, the Society Islands. Employing a landscape approach, we argue that competing elites used the flexibility of the ‘house society’ structure and its landed estates to promulgate and manipulate status differences. Our study documents how the social hierarchy and its ideological underpinnings were materialized in archaeologically visible ways, including …
Identification of Carbonized Breadfruit ( Artocarpus altilis ) Skin
Using systematic flotation, we recovered small carbonized fragments of breadfruit skin (exocarp) from a house site dated to the late prehistoric period on the island of Mo'orea in the Society Islands archipelago (East Polynesia). Our find is the first record of the fruit of breadfruit from Oceanic archaeobotanical material. Utilizing direct ethnographic analogy, our analysis of the archaeological breadfruit remains, including their context and mo…
Anthropological Archaeology in 2012
In 2012, archaeologists continued to grapple with large questions concerning process and structure and how they shaped the nature of humanity. The movement of populations, ideas, and material culture stands out prominently, including mobility's role in promoting social change and how forms of travel and communication, such as pilgrimages or long-distance trade, promoted social interaction. Research concerning the structure of ancient economies ac…
Understanding the Hawaiian Past
Household Archaeology and ‘House Societies’ in the Hawaiian Archipelago
The house society model can serve as an important tool for testing models of increasing social complexity at the microscale in Polynesia. In this paper, I discuss the house society model in relation to household archaeology studies carried out in the Hawaiian archipelago. Hawaiian household archaeology studies commonly follow materialist approaches, which while touching upon ideational themes such as site proxemics, gender, or the kapu system (so…
Mid- to late Holocene landscape change and anthropogenic transformations on Mo‘orea, Society Islands
Archaeology’s ability to generate long-term datasets of natural and human landscape change positions the discipline as an inter-disciplinary bridge between the social and natural sciences. Using a multi-proxy approach combining archaeological data with palaeoenvironmental indicators embedded in coastal sediments, we outline millennial timescales of lowland landscape evolution in the Society Islands. Geomorphic and cultural histories for four coas…
Agriculture, Domestic Production, and Site Function
Re-dating of the Kuli'ou'ou Rockshelter, O'ahu, Hawai'i
Kuli'ou'ou Rockshelter (Site O1) in the Hawaiian Islands has a certain status as the first archaeological site in the Pacific Islands to be directly dated via the then newly introduced radiocarbon method. The original date of 946 ± 180 before 1950, from the base of the rockshelter's cultural deposit, greatly influenced archaeologists' views of regional cultural sequences in Eastern Polynesia. We present the results of six new AMS 14C dates run on…
Mid- to Late Prehistoric Landscape Change, Settlement Histories, and Agricultural Practices on Maupiti, Society Islands (Central Eastern Polynesia)
We report on excavations and dating results from Maupiti Island, the smallest high island in the Leeward group of the Society Islands. Our discussion focuses on archaeological and paleo-ethnobotanical data from three coastal sites and two interior sites, in addition to presenting preliminary results of an inland reconnaissance survey. The first goal was to outline the settlement history of Maupiti, including aspects of coastal and inland habitati…
A Note on Hawaiian Stone Axes
As part of a project to describe and classify more than 800 Hawaiian stone adzes held in the ethnographic and archaeological collections at Bishop Museum in Honolulu, 11 finely-finished, double-beveled stone tools, which resemble modern axe or hatchet blades, were identified and described. These 11 axes were surprising finds in the collection because double-beveled stone tools have been reported as absent in Hawai‘i and in the Duff typology are r…
Identifying residences of ritual practitioners in the archaeological record as a proxy for social complexity
Household Archaeology in Polynesia
Settlement Chronologies and Shifting Resource Exploitation in Ka‘ū District, Hawaiian Islands
Museum collections contribute valuable information for cultural heritage, biological conservation, and the application of innovative and new methodological approaches. Collections deriving from archaeological projects in Hawai‘i serve as a case in point. Here, we report on re-analysis of two Ka‘ū District collections from Hawai‘i Island (HA-B22-64 and -248) to demonstrate what can be learned when applying new research questions to old collections…
Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (51 obras) · Geography (44 obras) · Archaeology (43 obras) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (36 obras) · History (28 obras) · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs (19 obras) · Isotope Analysis in Ecology (18 obras) · Geology (14 obras) · Sociology (14 obras) · Prehistory (13 obras)