The patterning of volcanic glass transfer across eastern Oʻahu Island, Hawaiʻi

Abstract

Exchange systems are constituted by multiple materials moving in different patterns. Factions in societies negotiate access to these materials based on their social and practical utility, as well as whether and how society honors property rights claims to a resource. In Hawaiʻi, there has been a primary focus on the movement of staples and wealth that fueled political economies with less attention placed on materials largely outside those political economies. Volcanic glass is one item that is hypothesized to have moved in a decentralized manner as a common pool resource, though these interpretations are based on data largely from a single island and source. Here, we build on this research by evaluating and interpreting evidence of volcanic glass exchange on the island of Oʻahu. We show that the composition of assemblages can be best predicted by the distance from archaeological locations (destinations) to multiple sources (origins). Furthermore, the density of sources proximal to archaeological locations influences assemblage composition. For Oʻahu, we find no evidence that leaders claimed property rights in volcanic glass at the scale of our analysis.