"The late pre-European contact societies of the Hawaiian Islands and of Tonga have long been regarded as among the most complex and hierarchical among the Polynesian "chiefdoms." Recent ethnohistoric and archaeological research, however, suggests that these two societies should more properly be regarded as "archaic states." In this talk I review the evidence for the transformation of Hawaiian and Tongan polities from chiefdoms to states. Close attention to the archaeological records for Tonga and Hawai'i suggests that while both exhibited similar attributes of archaic states at the time of initial European contact, the conditions and causes leading to transformation varied substantially between the two cases."

The Michigan Anthropology Colloquia Series presents speakers on current topics in the field of anthropology.