McAlister Andrew, Allen Melinda S
Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Te Pūnaha Matatini, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
PLoS One. 2017 Dec 27;12(12):e0188207. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188207. eCollection 2017.
Exchange activities, formal or otherwise, serve a variety of purposes and were prominent in many Pacific Island societies, both during island settlement and in late prehistory. Recent Polynesian studies highlight the role of exchange in the region's most hierarchical polities where it contributed to wealth economies, emergent leadership, and status rivalry in late prehistory. Building on this research, we hypothesized that exchange in low hierarchy chiefdoms (kin-based polities where there are distinctions between commoners and elites but ranking within the latter is lacking, weak, or ephemeral) would differ in frequency and function from that associated with strongly hierarchical polities. We address this hypothesis through geochemical, morphological, and distributional analyses of stone tools on Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands. Non-destructive Energy-Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) and destructive Wavelength-Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (WDXRF) analyses of 278 complete and broken tools (adzes, chisels, preforms) from four valleys identify use of stone from at least seven sources on three islands: five on Nuku Hiva and one each on Eiao and Ua Pou. A functional analysis demonstrates that no tool form is limited to a particular source, while inter-valley distributions reveal that the proportions of non-local or extra-valley tools (43 to 94%, mean = 77%) approximate or exceed results from other archipelagoes, including those from elite and ritual sites of Polynesian archaic states. Intra-valley patterns also are unexpected, with non-local stone tools being recovered from both elite and commoner residential areas in near-equal proportions. Our findings unambiguously demonstrate the importance of exchange in late prehistoric Marquesan society, at varied social and geographic scales. We propose the observed patterns are the result of elites using non-local tools as political currency, aimed at reinforcing status, cementing client-patron relations, and building extra-valley alliances, consistent with prestige societies elsewhere and early historic accounts from the Marquesan Islands.
无论是正式的还是非正式的交换活动，都有着多种目的，并且在许多太平洋岛屿社会中都很突出，无论是在岛屿定居时期还是史前晚期。最近对波利尼西亚的研究强调了交换在该地区等级制度最为森严的政体中的作用，在史前晚期，交换促进了财富经济、新兴领导力以及地位竞争。基于这项研究，我们推测，在低等级酋邦（以亲属关系为基础的政体，平民和精英之间存在区别，但精英内部缺乏、存在微弱或短暂的等级划分）中，交换在频率和功能上会与等级森严的政体有所不同。我们通过对马克萨斯群岛努库希瓦岛的石器进行地球化学、形态学和分布分析来验证这一假设。对来自四个山谷的278件完整和破损的工具（斧头、凿子、坯件）进行无损能量色散X射线荧光（EDXRF）分析和有损波长色散X射线荧光（WDXRF）分析，确定这些工具使用了来自三个岛屿至少七个来源的石头：五个在努库希瓦岛，一个在埃奥岛，一个在瓦乌岛。功能分析表明，没有一种工具形式仅限于特定来源，而山谷间分布显示，非本地或山谷外工具的比例（43%至94%，平均为77%）接近或超过其他群岛的结果，包括来自波利尼西亚古代国家的精英和仪式场所的结果。山谷内的模式也出人意料，非本地石器在精英和平民居住区的发现比例几乎相等。我们的研究结果明确表明，在史前晚期的马克萨斯社会中，交换在不同的社会和地理尺度上都很重要。我们认为，观察到的模式是精英们将非本地工具用作政治货币的结果，目的是提升地位、巩固主客关系以及建立山谷外联盟，这与其他地方的声望社会以及马克萨斯群岛的早期历史记载一致。
