{"id":104339,"date":"2019-10-07T15:17:53","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T01:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=104339"},"modified":"2019-10-24T08:23:25","modified_gmt":"2019-10-24T18:23:25","slug":"kirch-polynesian-archaeology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2019\/10\/07\/kirch-polynesian-archaeology\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing decades of rich Pacific archaeological expertise"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"Patrick
Patrick V. Kirch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Editor’s note, October 24—<\/strong>Kirch will be honored with the first-ever Society for Hawaiian Archaeology<\/a> (SHA<\/abbr>) Lifetime Achievement Award during the SHA<\/abbr> conference, October 25-27, at the Kona Imin Center. <\/p>\n

A giant in the field of Polynesian archaeology—born and raised in M\u0101noa, educated at Yale University, taught for three decades at the University of California, Berkeley—has returned home to pass on his knowledge of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s rich past to future generations.<\/p>\n

Patrick V. Kirch<\/strong>, who has joined the College of Social Sciences<\/a> as an anthropology professor, recently gave a public lecture on his new book, Heiau, ʻĀina<\/span>, Lani: The Hawaiian Temple System in Ancient Kahikinui and Kaup\u014d, Maui<\/em><\/a>, at the Bishop Museum\u2019s Atherton Halau.<\/p>\n

“My goals at the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa, and for the islands, are to push the boundaries of research in Hawaiian and Polynesian archaeology, build programs that create rich learning opportunities for our students, and to work with local communities to preserve archaeological sites and promote cultural heritage,” he said.<\/p>\n

Kirch\u2019s longstanding relationship with Bishop Museum dates back to his youth as a 13-year-old Punahou student. He first volunteered in the museum\u2019s malacology program, but soon joined the museum\u2019s archaeologists on summer projects on Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> and Maui islands. These experiences inspired Kirch to study Polynesian anthropology and archaeology.<\/p>\n

Students of Kirch, who leads a class in Hawaiian archaeology this fall, may be unaware of his eminence as a scholar, researcher and storyteller. The author of about 20 books and hundreds of scholarly articles, Kirch was elected to membership of the highly regarded National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n

“We are so fortunate that Dr. Kirch has brought his lifelong expertise and love for teaching to our campus, college and Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>,\u201d said College of Social Sciences Dean Denise Konan<\/strong>. “A giant in archaeology, he also seeks to build new bridges with community partners, like Bishop Museum, so as to provide living research opportunities for our students.”<\/p>\n

Kirch\u2019s latest book, published by UH<\/abbr> Press, chronicles a 17-year research odyssey as he, his students and research associates rediscovered the remains of more than 70 temples (heiau) in Kahikinui and Kaup\u014d in southeast Maui, one of the largest tracts of undeveloped land in the islands. The research has shown that the heiau were not only places of ritual and prayer, but also locations for astronomical observation, essential to maintaining the traditional Hawaiian calendar.<\/p>\n

\"archeologist
Kirch in 2005 at the Onemea archaeological site on Taravai Island in French Polynesia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More about Kirch<\/h2>\n

After completing his PhD<\/abbr> in anthropology at Yale, Kirch worked on the Bishop Museum staff for 10 years, carrying out research in the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>. In 1989, he joined the Berkeley faculty to continue his active research on Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> and Polynesia, training more than 16 doctoral students. Many of his former students have gone on to productive careers in Pacific and Hawaiian archaeology.<\/p>\n

After retiring from Berkeley and returning to the islands in 2019, he joined the College of Social Sciences and serves on the Bishop Museum board of directors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthropologist Patrick V. Kirch joins the UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa College of Social Sciences<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[395,301,9,339],"class_list":["post-104339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-archaeology","tag-college-of-social-sciences","tag-uh-manoa","tag-uh-press","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104339"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105195,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104339\/revisions\/105195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}