In pre-European times, Hawaiian farmers created impressive agricultural landscapes, especially irrigated lo‘i for taro cultivation. Were these agroecosystems sustainable over centuries of continuous use? Returning to Hālawa Valley, Molokaʻi, where he began his career more than fifty years ago, Professor Patrick Kirch and his joint University of Hawaiʻi-Bishop Museum research team set out to answer this question in 2020 - 2022. Combining archaeological excavations with sophisticated soil and microbotanical analyses, the team unraveled the complex history of how intensive agriculture developed in the valley over seven centuries. In the process, they also learned how the valley’s ritual landscape of heiau developed and found a previously unknown major stone adze quarry. Join Prof. Kirch as he recounts these recent discoveries and their significance.
Patrick Vinton Kirch is currently Professor of Anthropology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, he received his PhD from Yale in 1975. For more than 50 years, Kirch has conducted archaeological investigations through the Pacific Islands and Hawai‘i. He is the author of numerous books and scholarly publications, including the award-winning A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai‘i. Kirch served on the Bishop Museum’s Board of Directors from 2017-2025, and is currently a Director Emeritus.
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