Kona Historical Society’s Hanohano ‘O Kona Lecture Series returns to the West Hawaii Civic Center from 5:30-7 p.m. Wednesday, featuring a lecture from Patrick V. Kirch, one of the leading experts in the field of archaeology in the Pacific, and the author of more than a dozen books about the subject, including “Feathered Gods and Fishhooks.”
Since 1995, Kirch has been studying the Kahikinui and Kaupo landscape of Maui, recording more than 3,800 archaeological sites. One focus of this research has been on the heiau system of these moku, where a total of 78 temples sites have now been recorded, and mapped in detail. The findings of this study were recently published by the University of Hawaii in the book, “Heiau, Aina, Lani: The Hawaiian Temple System in Ancient Kahikinui and Kaupo, Maui.”
Kirch is an archaeologist and anthropologist who has spent decades researching and studying the ancient cultures and peoples of the Pacific Islands. This work led him across the Pacific, from the Mussau Islands of Papua New Guinea where he excavated the early Talepakemalai site of the ancestors to Polynesians, the Lapita peoples, to remote Rapa Nui. In between he has carried out archaeological and anthropological studies in the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Futuna, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Mo’orea, Maupiti, Mangareva, and most extensively in Hawai’i.
For the past seven years, Kona Historical Society has offered this community lecture series, spotlighting local and state speakers on a wide variety of cultural and historical subjects.
Info: 323-3222 or visit www.konahistorical.org.