Stone tools represent one of the most commonly preserved
stylized artifacts in Polynesian sites, and adzes in particular have been used
since the turn of the century to assess relationships among island settlements.
Initially typological in nature (Duff 1959; Figueroa and Sanchez 1965; Emory
1968), these studies have increasingly looked at the process of stone tool
manufacture, especially for adzes (Leach and Leach 1980; Leach and Witter 1987,
McCoy 1990), and at the petrographic and chemical characteristics of the stone
itself as markers of resource use patterns (Cleghorn et al. 1985; Ayres
and Beardsley 1988; Ayres et al. 1997; Weisler 1990, 1993, 1997;
Beardsley et al. 1991, 1996; n.d.; Lass 1994). Finished tools as well as
the various byproducts of their manufacture all represent important indicators
of the procurement and distribution systems of interest to archaeologists.

The Rapanui (Easter Island) Stone Adz Project

Rapanui's significance in anthropological study of cultural
evolution and adaptation is also closely linked to and archaeologically
reflected in the unusual elaboration of stone working on the island. Its fame is
largely tied to the production and transportation of stone statues; however,
understanding the basic stone tools used in day to day life is necessary to
resolve questions about many facets of prehistoric technology, production, and
social and political organization, as well as the manufacture of the stone
images.

Hard basaltic rock from quarries on Rapanui used to
manufacture adzes and axes for shaping wood and stone in the traditional
technology represents the focal point of this research. Tool-quality stone
samples, debitage, chips from adz bits, and broken adzes, are available from
archaeological sites around the island for comparison to the lithic source
material in quarries. In addition to adzes, high quality stone also was used
sometimes for producing stone fishooks and knives. We are developing data on a
sample set of stone tool manufacturing materials from selected archaeological
sites and stone quarries. This study includes a set selected for detailed
geochemical analysis. We plan to analyze additional samples for refining the
data base and for documenting artifact distributional patterns.

THE ISSUES

This paper explores issues of the social and economic
organization of lithic procurement. Such organization affects how we interpret
regional exchange networks, socially bounded territories, and elite
redistributive efforts. High quality, flakable basalt used for carefully shaped
adzes, chisels and other tools represents an important material resource in
regional procurement and distribution. Knowledge of source locations and
chemical composition data, though incomplete, are becoming more widely available
for Pacific Island contexts.

Spatial and technofunctional analyses of lithic materials are
in their infancy for Rapanui, but we expect they will be a major avenue to
understanding past life on the island.

Neither obsidian or fine grained basalt is known
ethnographically to be an integral resource in maintaining the status hierarchy;
that is, their use by the elite in redistribution is not documented. It remains
for archaeology to develop a coherent and comprehensive model for resource use
that will allow us to establish if this was the case for prehistoric Rapanui
society.

A Kin-Based Geographic Model shows a distribution that
is primarily a function of acquisition and exchange networks based on family or
simple reciprocal ties. In this model households acquired stone through exchange
networks similar to those through which other nonlocal, patchy resources were
acquired. On Rapanui, these diverse resources would include obsidian, white
trachyte, red scoria, coral, as well as perhaps localized plant resources such
as totora reed. This distributional pattern is not necessarily based on a
formal redistributive process or ranked status hierarchy.

The Centralized Redistribution model is one where the
movement of stone is facilitated and controlled by an elite or group. This is
characteristic of chiefdoms and of the use of scarce resources.

THE PRIMARY SOURCE DATA

The quarry site complex, Rua Tokitoki Quarry, is located
inland from La Perouse Bay on Rapanui's north coast and is in the eastern, Hotu
Iti section of the island. The site or series of exposures covers an area of
approximately 0.4 square kilometers and ranges in elevation from approximately
40 to 75 m. Outcrops and a number of pits, apparently for extraction of fine
quality stone, and extensive debitage piles are visible.

The pits providing access to buried lava are as much as 8-10 m
across, 2-3 m deep and are surrounded by the flakes and other refuse from
flaking hard lava to produce tool blanks. Based on the number and size of quarry
areas and the debitage from production, it is likely that thousands of stone
adzes were prepared here.

Sociopolitical Context

The La Perouse quarry complex falls within the traditional
Tupahotu "tribal" area within the larger entity called Hotu Iti (Routledge
1919) and also the "Matanui" group (Hotus et al. 1988). Our
hypothesis is that the Tupahotu were directly involved in adz and other tool
production and that they served as the source producers of these tools designed
to be exchanged with other groups on the island. This hypothesis can be tested
as more distributional data become available on the spatial patterns of the
tool-quality rock found as adzes or as debitage.

ANALYTICAL RESULTS

Twelve groupings containing multiple samples were
distinguished based on the macroscopic and microscopic examinations of 100
samples taken from 11 sites found in 9 survey quadrangles (Quad). These ranged
from very coarse material (Group 4) with distinctive petrographic features to
very fine materials with black/dark groundmass that differ only slightly from
one group or subgroup to another (See Table 1). Of these, Group 2 includes the
quarry materials sampled from Rua Tokitoki and identifies the important
geographical spread of this distinctive and prime adz quarry material. Groups 6
and 9 have the widest geographical distribution. The small set of Quad 3 samples
from the island's southwest corner shows the most distinctive set of
materials--50% of the samples belong to GRP 9--and none are from Rua Tokitoki.

CONCLUSIONS

The basalt adz-quality materials on Rapanui have considerable
potential for provenance determination at the quarry level or at the
"Group" level. As with all fingerprinting efforts based on elemental
or other data, sampling and subpopulation boundary problems are significant
issues. This pilot study has not yet addressed intra-quarry variability at Rua
Tokitoki--this will require substantial additional field observation and
sampling--however, the Rua Tokitoki material is sufficiently distinctive that it
can be differentiated petrographically from other materials. While not all group
definitions are confirmed, in all, at least 15 distinct source materials have
been distinguished. The study does demonstrate that further study could
successfully differentiate several source areas for adz-quality stone and
identify a small number of geographical locations where distinct stone was
acquired.

Tool stone distribution is significant for any discussion of
lithic provenance issues related to use of stone for purposes other than flake
stone tools, including building, statuary, and varied uses of non-basaltic rock
such as volcanic glass, pumice, scoria, trachyte, and coral rock. Each of these
uses represents a somewhat different set of issues for provenance determination
and interpretation, but taken together we would expect to get overlapping
patterns of resource extraction and use that would provide a stronger basis for
hypotheses regarding social interaction and stone as commodity.

STONE ADZES

A set of stone adzes, including small versions, called
chisels, that represent woodworking tools from Easter Island. These tools were
hafted to an L-shaped handle to form the complete tool and reflect the
long-standing practice of carving on the island. These are primarily for shaping
wood, but some adzes and pick-like tools were used for carving and finishing
stone used in building and sculpture. The two longest specimens show side views;
the others illustrate the back or "base" view of the tool. Several
methods of manufacture are represented, in order of application, percussion
flaking, pecking, and grinding; fully finished tools (toki) are typically
ground. Types from left to right: 4D, 2A, 4D, 3H? (upper), 2A (lower left),
2A/3D (lower right). Specimens originally examined in the Father Sebastian
Englert Museum, Rapa Nui.

adzset2.jpg

STONE FISHHOOKS

Stone artifacts showing a sequence of stone fishhook
manufacture from initial roughout with the initial stages of drilling the center
to finished hook form. The finished hook (matau) in the lower right was
recovered from the sea and is coral encrusted (from Hanga Papara, Cat. 361).
Methods of manufacture include, in order of use, percussion flaking, drilling,
and grinding.

While it is unusual to use material as hard as stone to grind
out a fishhook, this technique is also known elsewhere in Polynesia.
Comparison--through element geochemistry, petrographic, and other analyses
underway--of raw material refuse, debitage, from adze, knife and fishhook
manufacture may aid in determining where islanders in the past obtained the high
quality stone they selected for producing these tools.

Specimens originally examined in the Father Sebastian Englert
Museum, Rapa Nui.

hook3d.jpg

smhook.jpg

STONE KNIVES

Distinctive stone knives from Easter Island. These tools are
carefully flaked into the correct form and then ground to finish the surface and
the cutting edge (on the left in the lower specimens). These implements are made
most often of thin, laminated volcanic stone. Specimens originally seen in the
Father Sebastian Englert Museum, Rapa Nui. Ayres types: K1b and a (first three
from left); K2 (tanged); and top, K3 (variant).

RUA TOKITOKI

The general location of the Rua TokiToki area basalt quarries
on Easter Island's north coast. Major geological boundaries are indicated by
shaded areas to reflect the complex geological history of this region and the
source of the lava from a small subsidiary vent on Maunga Terevaka's lower east
slope. This produced the distinctive stone used for adz production. Geological
data after Gonzalez-Ferran et al. (1968) and Baker 1967, 1993; Baker et al.
1974), Ayres et al. (1998, n.d.).

Microphotograph of thin section of adze stone material from a
workshop site (RR) on the South Coast. Un-aligned plagioclase of varied sizes
dominates along with augite, occasional very large plagioclase crystals and rare
olivine. This contrasts with the Rua Tokitoki material in composition and size
characteristics.

we3rr2.jpg

Plot showing relationship of the rare-earth element Lanthanum
(La) in parts per million (ppm) compared to percent sodium (Na20) in rock
quarried from the Rua Tokitoki area ("Quarry") and used for
manufacturing flake stone tools, stone adzes in particular. The distinctness of
the quarry area and stone from other sources on the island is indicated by the
spatial separation of the samples. Material from one occupation site, EI35-8,
shows another distinct source. (Gordon Goles and William S. Ayres).

1972 Easter Island's Position in
the Prehistory of Polynesia. Journal of the Polynesian Society 81(1):
57-69.

Figueroa, Gonzalo, and E. Sanchez

1965 Adzes from certain Islands of
Eastern Polynesia. In Reports of the Norwegian Expedition to Easter
Island and the East Pacific, Vol. 2.Miscellaneous Papers. edited
by T. Heyerdahl and E.N. Ferdon, Jr., pp. 169-224. Stockholm: School of
American Research and Kon Tiki Museum.