Kohala Hills - Hawaii

In collaboration withresearch by Thegn Ladefogen and Michael Graves, who are leading the Hawaii Archaeological Research Project (HARP), I examined the formation processes of earthen embankments associated with root crop agriculture on the leeward side of the Island of Hawaii. The embankments are made primarily of sediment scraped from the areas between them and capped with boulder-sized lava. The benefits of such construction is being investigated primarily by Ladefogen and Graves, as part of an NSF Biocomplexity grant.