Unearthing the Polynesian Past with Dr. Patrick V. Kirch

Bishop Museum Podcasts

For more than half a century, Hawai'i-born and raised archaeologist Patrick Vinton Kirch has explored the Pacific, on expeditions that took him to a score of islands from the Bismarck Archipelago to Easter Island. As a Punahou student, Kirch apprenticed with famed Bishop Museum archaeologist Kenneth Emory at digs on Hawai'i and Maui. In 1971, Kirch joined a Bishop Museum expedition to remote Anuta Island, where a traditional Polynesian culture still flourished. Joining the Bishop Museum staff in 1975, Kirch led expeditions to the famed Polynesian Outlier of Tikopia, and to Niuatoputapu, a former outpost of the Tongan maritime empire. In Hawai‘i, Kirch traced the islands’ history in the Anahulu valley and across the ancient district of Kahikinui, Maui. In this retrospective talk, Kirch looks back over a half-century of Polynesian archaeology, reflecting on how the questions we ask about the past have changed over the decades, how archaeological methods have advanced, and how our knowledge of the Polynesian past has greatly expanded.