• Hawaiian temples: mushroomed up within 30 years
○ Previously thought: 250 years
• Oral Histories: 1600A.D.
○ Peaceful kingdom
○ Emergence of religious state
• However can not confirm
○ Bcz: limitation of carbon dating
• New work
○ radiometric technique
§ Date: branch coral from 7 temples
○ Range of 1565-1638A.D.
§ Harvest time: 1608-1638A.D.
□ Intensive temple-building
® Bcz: temple= center for control of production
□ Shift in sociopolotical structure
○ Concide with oral traditions
○ Double the size of Maui polity
§ Sociopolical transition
□ Happened in the span of a generation
First reading:
1. Previous view may be wrong
2. One hypothesis
3. Another way to find out
4. Find a way ( temple ) to prove it
Second reading:
1. Proto-historic hawaiian temples may have mushroomed up within 30 years, altering the understanding of pacific sociopolitical change
2. Regarding to the emergence of two opposing chiefdoms, Archaeologists had been unable to confirm due to carbon dating
3. Another way to testify the theory is via thorium-230. and the result of coral from living reefs proves the above "30 years theory"
4. The researching result coincides with local oral traditions. The temples provide tangible evidence. The transition may occurred in single generation of Hawaiians