Modeling life expectancy and surplus production of dynamic pre-contact territories in leeward Kohala, Hawai‘i Thegn N. Ladefoged a, * , Charlotte T. Lee b , Michael W. Graves c a Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand b Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA c Department of Anthropology, MSC01 1040, 1, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001, USA Received 12 August 2007; revision received 14 November 2007 Available online 8 January 2008 Abstract Hawaiian territoriality evolved in response to the ecodynamics of changing populations set within shifting socio-political structures. Modeling agricultural surplus production and life expectancy of various prehistoric and protohistoric territorial configurations in the leeward Kohala dryland field system identifies the costs and benefits associated with dynamic territorial units. The results of the modeling indicate that if people lived autonomous lives within their territories the 18-km long landscape containing the field system would have been optimally divided into 14 territories. The archaeological and ethnohistorical data suggest that at European contact the area was divided into 32 generally smaller territorial units. This configuration, while lowering average life expectancy and increasing levels of spa- tial variability in surplus production, maximized average yearly surplus and reduced its temporal variability. Dividing the field system into 32 units provided opportunities for elite managers to monitor production and control the redistribution of resources. The modeling and archaeological data suggest selection occurred differentially among social units, with certain segments of society having enhanced fitness in terms of agricultural resources at the expense of others, while maximizing the potential for surplus generation and possible redistribution. Ó 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Hawai‘i; Ecodynamic modeling; Demography; Socio-political transformations; Agroecosystem dynamics; Territoriality; Climatic variability Hawaiian concepts and applications of territoriality changed throughout the islands’ prehistory. Kirch and Green (2002, p. 213) suggest the founding populations of the archipelago were probably organized along genealogical lines and various groups would have quickly established links with particular areas of the islands. While it is unclear how these earliest territories were defined, it is often argued that prime areas were claimed (see Cordy, 1981; Ladefoged and Graves, 2006; Tuggle and Tomanari-Tuggle, 1980) and, at least at some level, defended. Many of the original tradi- tional districts or moku of Hawai‘i were likely established at this time. A considerable body of archaeological and ethno- historical literature suggests that major changes in Hawai‘i occurred beginning in the 14th and 15th centuries AD with the establishment of the historically documented ahupua‘a community and land tenure system (Cordy and Kaschko, 1980; Hommon, 1986; Kirch, 1985; Cordy, 2000). Every moku contained a number of these named, smaller units. In the ideal, ahupua‘a territorial units represented tradi- tional communities whose lands extended inland from the coast, dividing islands into wedge shaped pieces that pro- vided access to a broad range of ecozones. There were, how- ever, exceptions to this pattern with some ahupua‘a having significantly different shapes and sizes. It is clear that some ahupua‘a territories were subdivided over time, with the cre- ation of smaller and smaller named units (Ladefoged and Graves, 2006). It is also clear that other, smaller named units within ahupua‘a existed and that some of these may have emerged as distinct communities with time. 0278-4165/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2007.11.001 * Corresponding author. Fax: +64 9 373 7441. E-mail addresses: t.ladefoged@auckland.ac.nz (T.N. Ladefoged), charlotte.lee@stanford.edu (C.T. Lee), mwgraves@unm.edu (M.W. Graves). www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 27 (2008) 93–110