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James H. Coil and Patrick V. Kirch University of California at Berkeley Our poster summarizes a recent microfossil research project from the island of Maui in the Hawaiian Islands. During his dissertation research, Coil used archaeological survey, excavation, and trench digging, to investigate prehistoric agricultural sites across a relatively arid volcanic landscape called Kahikinui. More recently, however, a new type of site was discovered in the region, where evidence of prehistoric cultivation is not visible on the modern surface, but appears to have been preserved instead in distinctive modifications to areas with a unique pattern of subsurface geological features. These sites show a regular stratigraphic sequence of pyroclastic deposits, with an unweathered cinder layer between upper and lower beds of silty tephra (volcanic ash) sediments and soil. The cinder is interrupted by semi-regular gaps that appear to represent the results of digging stick cultivation and harvest practices, but which also appeared during fieldwork as, possibly, naturally-occurring features. At two such sites, we used phyotlith and microscopic charcoal count evidence in conjunction with other investigators' geochemical studies of soil nutrients, sediment flotation analysis for carbonized seed recovery, and ethnographic research, to help investigate the origin and meaning of these subsurface features. We further used the microfossil data to consider whether these "digging stick impressions" may contain records of changing vegetation patterns over time, or of actual cultivation practices such as multicropping or mulching. Though microfossil evidence alone could not be used to fully resolve our research questions involving these unique sites, patterns apparent in phytolith and microscopic charcoal analyses formed complementary lines of evidence to lead to a more in-depth interpretation of these previously "invisible" sites.
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