Hawaii as a model system for human ecodynamics

The human ecodynamics approach in archaeology privileges landscape as a core concept, asserting that there can be no environment or ecosystem detached from humans and their behavior. Drawing on recent research of a multidisciplinary biocomplexity project, I explore in. this article the Hawaiian archipelago as a model system for studying human ecodynamics. Natural patterns of biogeochemical and climate gradient. constrained the development of intensive agroecosystems over 1,000 years. An early phase of exponential population growth was linked with agricultural intensification of terraced irrigation systems, primarily on the older islands. After C.E. 1400, expansion of population onto the leeward slopes of the young islands of Maui and Hawai'i was accompanied by intensification of dryland agricultural field systems. These changes were in turn linked to significant transformations of social and political formations, including restructuring of the system of land tenure and descent group organization, and the imposition of a system of surplus extraction organized around a ritual hierarchy of temples.