Historical Reconstruction Reveals Recovery in Hawaiian Coral Reefs

Coral reef ecosystems are declining worldwide, yet regional differences in the trajectories, timing and extent of degradation highlight the need for in-depth regional case studies to understand the factors that contribute to either ecosystem sustainability or decline. We reconstructed social-ecological interactions in Hawaiian coral reef environments over 700 years using detailed datasets on ecological conditions, proximate anthropogenic stressor regimes and social change. Here we report previously undetected recovery periods in Hawaiian coral reefs, including a historical recovery in the MHI (∼AD 1400–1820) and an ongoing recovery in the NWHI (∼AD 1950–2009+). These recovery periods appear to be attributed to a complex set of changes in underlying social systems, which served to release reefs from direct anthropogenic stressor regimes. Recovery at the ecosystem level is associated with reductions in stressors over long time periods (decades+) and large spatial scales (>103 km2). Our results challenge conventional assumptions and reported findings that human impacts to ecosystems are cumulative and lead only to long-term trajectories of environmental decline. In contrast, recovery periods reveal that human societies have interacted sustainably with coral reef environments over long time periods, and that degraded ecosystems may still retain the adaptive capacity and resilience to recover from human impacts

Advances in Polynesian prehistory: A review and assessment of the past decade (1993-2004)

The pace of archaeological research in Polynesia has intensified in recent years, resulting in more than 500 new literature citations over the past decade. Fieldwork has continued in such previously well-studied archipelagoes as Tonga and Samoa in Western Polynesia, and Hawai'i and New Zealand in Eastern Polynesia, and has expanded into previously neglected islands including Niue, the Equatorial Islands, the Austral Islands, and Mangareva. The emergence of Ancestral Polynesian culture out of its Eastern Lapita predecessor is increasingly well understood, and the chronology of Polynesian dispersal and expansion into Eastern Polynesia has engaged several researchers. Aside from these fundamental issues of origins and chronology, major research themes over the past decade include (1) defining the nature, extent, and timing of long-distance interaction spheres, particularly in Eastern Polynesia; (2) the impacts of human colonization and settlement on island ecosystems; (3) variation in Polynesian economic systems and their transformations over time; and (4) sociopolitical change, especially as viewed through the lens of household or microscale archaeology. Also noteworthy is the rapidly evolving nature of interactions between archaeologists and native communities, a critical aspect of archaeological practice in the region