Posted on: Tuesday, February 24, 2004
EDITORIAL
Kaho'olawe discovery reminder of Island riches
In Hawai'i, as in other locales where history has not been entirely paved over by shopping malls and parking lots, you never know what ancient relics lie underfoot.
Some of the most desolate parts of the Islands can be veritable treasure troves, which behooves us to tread more carefully and consider how the land was used in centuries past.
A case in point is the seared, uninhabited isle of Kaho'o-lawe, which was used after World War II for live-fire naval shelling, practice bombing runs and combined air, sea and amphibious operations.
Amid a major restoration effort, archaeologists have discovered hundreds of historical treasures, including a habitation complex on the south slope of the Lua Makika mountain and a major petroglyph field.
Turns out, there's a greater concentration of archaeological artifacts on Kaho'olawe than any other Hawaiian island, with the possible exception of Ni'ihau, according to Hal Hammatt of Cultural Surveys Hawai'i, the Navy's archaeology contractor.
The discovery reinforces the importance of the Kaho'olawe Island Reserve Commission's effort to transform the 45-square-mile island into a cultural reserve.
Another archaeologically rich region is the Big Island's South Kona coast, where development of the Hokuli'a luxury home and golf retreat has been halted amid a legal dispute. Here, too, are hundreds of archaeological sites, including burial grounds, that are the remnants of an agricultural lifestyle and culture that no longer exists.
And further north, in Kohala, are the archaeological remains of a vast dryland field system, a sociologically important system abandoned after European contact because not enough Hawaiians survived to perpetuate this labor-intensive form of agriculture.
As the Kaho'olawe bounty of artifacts suggests, there's so much more rolling around under the dirt than we know. And hopefully, the more we learn about the history of these Islands, the more lightly we'll tread.
