Lana'i Island's Arid Lowland Vegetation in Late Prehistory

Abstract

Native Hawaiian dryland forests, important from both ecological and cultural perspectives, are among the more poorly known Hawaiian vegetation types. Wood-charcoal assemblages from archaeological features offer one means for investigating not only the composition of these diverse forests, but also the timing and mechanisms of their demise. Representing short-duration events, and relatively localized catchments, wood-charcoal assemblages provide different information from time-averaged, regional-scale pollen records. Analysis of the wood-charcoal evidence from the traditional Hawaiian settlement of Kaunolu, southwestern Lana'i, suggests that arborescent dryland forest species once extended into the island's arid lowland regions. Moreover, many dryland forest taxa apparently persisted in this region until sometime after abandonment of the Kaunolu settlement in the mid-1800s. We suggest that although Native Hawaiians may have contributed to forest loss, ultimately some other mechanism, most likely exotic herbivores, transformed the southern coast of Lana'i into the arid grasslands seen today.