Soils, Agriculture, and Society in Precontact Hawai`i
Abstract
Before European contact, Hawai`i supported large human populations in complex societies that were based on multiple pathways of intensive agriculture. We show that soils within a long-abandoned 60-square-kilometer dryland agricultural complex are substantially richer in bases and phosphorus than are those just outside it, and that this enrichment predated the establishment of intensive agriculture. Climate and soil fertility combined to constrain large dryland agricultural systems and the societies they supported to well-defined portions of just the younger islands within the Hawaiian archipelago; societies on the older islands were based on irrigated wetland agriculture. Similar processes may have influenced the dynamics of agricultural intensification across the tropics.
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Although lowland soils with moderate rainfall are richer in available nutrients than wetter high-elevation soils, nearly all Rapa Nui soils are nutrient-depleted compared with soils where precontact Hawaiian farmers intensified production.
“Although soils of the lowland areas with moderate rainfall are richer in biologically available nutrients than are wetter, higher elevation soils (45), all but the richest Rapa Nui soils are nutrient depleted in comparison with the soils where precontact Hawaiian farmers intensified agricultural production (48).”
From Variation in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) land use indicates production and population peaks prior to European contact (2015) · cites this paper as [48]
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References 31 · Cited by 180
- Authors
- Vitousek, P. M., Ladefoged, T. N., Kirch, P. V., Hartshorn, A. S., Graves, M. W., Hotchkiss, S. C., Tuljapurkar, S., & Chadwick, O. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (US)
- Corresponding author
- Vitousek, P. M.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2004-06-11
- Volume
- 304
- Issue
- 5677
- Pages
- 1665-1669
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W2048500526
- Cited by
- 180
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 67.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ResearchSpace (University of Auckland) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Geography, Planning and Development › Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil and Environmental Studies
- Keywords
- soil fertility, rainfed agriculture, wetland agriculture, agricultural intensification, phosphorus, soil base cations, island age, irrigated agriculture, tropical agriculture
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