Household Labor Practices and Dryland Agroforestry in Upland Kula, Maui Island Michael J. Kolb, 1 Patty J. Conte, 2 Valerie Curtis, 3 and Jim Hayden 4 Keywords: Agriculture; Maui Island; human-environmental interaction; Bayesian model; pig husbandry; birding hunting; Hawai`i; Polynesia Abstract The relationship between agricultural systems and the development of complex societies in ancient Hawai`i has been debated for decades. To contribute to this debate, we examine a terrace complex representing an extended family agricultural land plot in the Kula dryland field system of East Maui, Hawaiian Islands. Botanical, faunal, soil, and architectural analysis data reveal a variety of household labor practices related to agroforestry circa AD 1400 – 1820. A pre-human open forest soil substrate was replaced with stone agricultural terracing which was in turn enclosed by upslope-downslope garden walls that parceled the terrace complex into distinct garden areas. These results lead us to conclude that a wide range of specialized upland activities were practiced, including food cultivation, forestry, pig husbandry, and bird-hunting. The net-sum of these local activities help underpin the formative process of larger regional-level agricultural systems which in turn can inform us about polity-level staple and wealth finance systems. Introduction An important area of study for ancient Oceania has been the relationship between agricultural systems and the development of complex societies. Rising social inequality, the formation of competing social groups, and the emergence of ideologies that reinforce political power, are all changes that are intrinsically linked to the processes of agricultural intensification in circumscribed island environments. The emergence of social complexity in ancient Hawai`i followed this trajectory, and the materialized infrastructure of stonework improvements in both wetland (irrigated) and dryland (rain-fed) ecosystems have been a crucial subject of research. This includes a focus upon surplus production and staple finance (e.g., Allen 1991; Dye 2014; Earle 1977; Graves et. al. 2011; Hommon 2013; Kirch 2010; Ladefoged and Graves 2008) and the environmental factors that drive these processes (e.g., Ladefoged et al. 2009; Lincoln and Vitousek 2006; Vitousek et al. 2014). 1 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Denver, USA 2 Naval Facilities Engineering System Command Headquarters, Washington D.C., USA 3 Air Force IMSC Detachment 2 (PACDET), Honolulu, USA 4 Department of Planning and Permitting, City and County of Honolulu, USA Accepted version" Journal of Field Archaeology https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2023.2263698 Accepted Version