The Lapita Peoples: Ancestors of the Oceanic World

I am an archaeologist and anthropologist who has spent all of his adult life researching and studying the ancient cultures and peoples of the Pacific Islands. This work has taken me across the Pacific, from the Mussau Islands of Papua New Guinea where I discovered and excavated the early Talepakemalai site of the Lapita peoples (ancestors of the Polynesians), to remote Rapa Nui (Easter Island). In between I have carried out archaeological and anthropological studies in the Solomon Islands (Tikopia, Anuta, Vanikoro), Tonga, Futuna, Samoa, the Cook Islands (Mangaia), Society Islands (Mo'orea, Maupiti), Mangareva, and most extensively in my native Hawai'i. My many adventures and explorations in these islands are chronicled in Unearthing the Polynesian Past (University of Hawai'i Press, 2015).

Born and raised in Hawai'i, I graduated from Punahou School (class of 1968) and then pursued my education at the University of Pennsylvania and at Yale University (PhD 1975). From 1975 to 1984 I was on the research staff of Honolulu's Bishop Museum. In 1984 I became the Director of the Burke Museum at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1989 I joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where I became the Class of 1954 Professor of Anthropology and Integrative Biology. At Berkeley, I established the Oceanic Archaeology Laboratory (OAL). I have been honored by election to the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. The University of French Polynesia awarded me an honorary doctorate in 2016.

Over the years I have published many academic and scholarly books and treatises on Pacific Islands archaeology and anthropology. However, I have also written books intended for a general audience, rather than just for specialists. On the Road of the Winds, first published by the University of California Press in 2000, is an overview of what archaeologists have learned about the ancient history of the Pacific. A completely updated and revised edition of On the Road of the Winds was released in fall 2017; the book contains many new illustrations of sites and archaeological findings across the Pacific. A Shark Going Inland is my Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai'i (Univ. California Press 2012) combines a personal account of my four decades of archaeological research into the Hawaiian past with the perspective of traditional Hawaiian oral histories (mo'olelo). I wrote this book for anyone who has been curious about the deep history of this unique archipelago, and it has been very well received by readers. Finally, my many years of research into the deep history of the Kahikinui region of Maui Island is related in Kua'aina Kahiko: Life and Land in Ancient Kahikinui, Maui (University of Hawai'i Press, 2014).

I officially retired from the University of California, Berkeley in 2014, although I continued to mentor graduate students and carry out research. In the fall of 2018 the University of Hawai'i, Manoa, extended an offer to join their faculty, as a Professor in the Department of Anthropology. I saw this as an opportunity to return to the islands where I was born and raised, and to teach and mentor the next generation in Hawai'i. Accepting UH's offer, I joined the Manoa faculty in January 2019, and am currently teaching courses in Hawaiian Archaeology, Pacific Islands Archaeology, and the Historical Ecology of Hawai'i. My latest book, Heiau, 'Aina, Lani: The Hawaiian Temple System in Ancient Kahikinui and Kaupo, Maui, was pubished by the University of Hawai'i Press in 2019. I am currently carrying out a new research project investigating the deep-time history of traditional agriculture in Hawai'i, with fieldwork focused on the Halawa Valley of eastern Moloka'i Island.