After the Spanish-American War and the acquisition of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine... more After the Spanish-American War and the acquisition of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, plus the annexation of Hawai`i in 1898, U.S. banking capital was increasingly involved in financing sugarcane plantations and new industrial production methods at refineries in newly acquired tropical islands and at home in Louisiana. By 1891, the Audubon Sugar School situated in New Orleans had already become the mecca for American and overseas students to study state-of-the-art methods and theory behind successful sugar production and refining. In 1905 a young Japanese student Haruji Matsue entered the program, returning home in 1907 to begin a career that by WWII had brought tens of thousands of Okinawan farmers and Japanese laborers to the sugarcane plantations, refinery towns, and alcohol factories of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia.
Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 2022
Guåhan (Guam), part of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific, has an archaeological record s... more Guåhan (Guam), part of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific, has an archaeological record spanning almost four millennia. In this seminal academic paper on the use of lidar for archaeological investigation on Guåhan, we determined which known sites can be visually detected to explore the effectiveness of lidar in this context. Several archaeological site types and features from the Latte, Spanish, and Modern Periods were examined using high-resolution 2020 airborne lidar. We generated the most commonly used digital elevation models (DEMs), which are digital terrain models (DTMs) and digital surface models (DSMs), and visualised them as a hillshade. Lidar proved effective for identifying all the Modern Period sites and most of the Latte and Spanish Period sites, although some features remained obscure. Major challenges and limitations of using lidar on Guåhan were vegetation, site size, and visual ambiguities. While this study used conventional lidar derivatives, it exposed the potential to find more archaeological sites by applying more complex lidar processing techniques in the future. The benefits of lidar are of great interest to the local community, especially the Indigenous CHamoru, interested in non-destructive ways to assist their cultural heritage management.
This study focuses on the US Coast Guard LORAN station at Afetna Point in Saipan, Commonwealth of... more This study focuses on the US Coast Guard LORAN station at Afetna Point in Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, to discern what social impact the Cold War facility and servicemen had on the local community. Archaeological and archival investigations indicate that the facility was built a few months after the American WWII invasion of Japanese-held Saipan in June 1944. Oral histories gathered from senior members of the indigenous Chamorro community in the village of San Antonio revealed that the station and US Coast Guard service members played a complex and vital role in the social and economic life of the local community during the Cold War.
The first Austronesian settlers at the site of San Roque in Saipan and the southern Mariana Islan... more The first Austronesian settlers at the site of San Roque in Saipan and the southern Mariana Islands began arriving sometime after 1500 BC in what is called the Early Pre-Latte Period. A comparison of San Roque to contemporaneous island sites reveals differences in cooking and habitation features, ceramic vessels and decorative styles, marine shell tools and ornaments, and settlement patterns that were apparent within and between islands and sites until the middle of the first millennium BC. Changes in sea level and natural resource availability then appear to have accompanied changes in material culture, when some coastal sites were abandoned or moved seaward, while other inhabitants moved inland with a more terrestrial subsistence strategy shared elsewhere in Micronesia.
Early modern colonial globalization was the first producer of marginality and cultural erasure on... more Early modern colonial globalization was the first producer of marginality and cultural erasure on a world scale. The CHamorus of Guam and Marianas know this well since they were the first Pacific islanders to be turned into indigenous 'others' by European colonial powers. In a certain sense, investigating Guam is like investigating a huge terrain vague, or an interstice or in-between space that exists outside the cultural, social, and economic dynamics acknowledged by the Global North. However, it is within these margins where vibrant resistance to global cultural standardization settles and happens, as CHamorus also know. In this article, we will focus on CHamoru cultural resilience at lånchos (rural properties outside cities and villages), at reducciones (villages or towns where CHamorus were forcibly nucleated in the seventeenth century), and at the current use of colonial 'ruins' to promote indigenous cultural enhancement and community wellbeing.
This study first examines the historic context of immigrant and native laborers working at the ea... more This study first examines the historic context of immigrant and native laborers working at the early 20 th century Japanese sugarcane plantations in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) located in northern Micronesia. The focus then shifts to archaeological inquiry on the island of Tinian, where the material record of the labor class has been preserved and examined in sufficient detail to appreciate some of the contributions immigrant laborers made toward building a sense of their own community and "belonging" so far from home. While still remaining at the bottom of the social class structure of this new plantation economy, many immigrants were able to acquire through their own labor some of the economic measures of higher status and self-achievement long denied them at home.
International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2020
This study looks at archival records and photographs from the pre-WWII Japanese occupation of the... more This study looks at archival records and photographs from the pre-WWII Japanese occupation of the Micronesian island of Tinian to discuss the archaeological remnants of the Okinawan diaspora from the 1920s to 1940s in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) today.
When Ferdinand Magellan first anchored off the island of Guam in 1521, the inhabitants of the sma... more When Ferdinand Magellan first anchored off the island of Guam in 1521, the inhabitants of the small Chamorro village at Afetna Point on the southwest coast of Saipan were likely unaware. Archaeological investigations of the traditional village yielded Latte Period burials, ceramics, stone and shell tools, microfossils from food remains, and charcoal from cooking features dating between A.D. 1450 and 1700.
After the Spanish-American War and the acquisition of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine... more After the Spanish-American War and the acquisition of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, plus the annexation of Hawai`i in 1898, U.S. banking capital was increasingly involved in financing sugarcane plantations and new industrial production methods at refineries in newly acquired tropical islands and at home in Louisiana. By 1891, the Audubon Sugar School situated in New Orleans had already become the mecca for American and overseas students to study state-of-the-art methods and theory behind successful sugar production and refining. In 1905 a young Japanese student Haruji Matsue entered the program, returning home in 1907 to begin a career that by WWII had brought tens of thousands of Okinawan farmers and Japanese laborers to the sugarcane plantations, refinery towns, and alcohol factories of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia.
Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 2022
Guåhan (Guam), part of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific, has an archaeological record s... more Guåhan (Guam), part of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific, has an archaeological record spanning almost four millennia. In this seminal academic paper on the use of lidar for archaeological investigation on Guåhan, we determined which known sites can be visually detected to explore the effectiveness of lidar in this context. Several archaeological site types and features from the Latte, Spanish, and Modern Periods were examined using high-resolution 2020 airborne lidar. We generated the most commonly used digital elevation models (DEMs), which are digital terrain models (DTMs) and digital surface models (DSMs), and visualised them as a hillshade. Lidar proved effective for identifying all the Modern Period sites and most of the Latte and Spanish Period sites, although some features remained obscure. Major challenges and limitations of using lidar on Guåhan were vegetation, site size, and visual ambiguities. While this study used conventional lidar derivatives, it exposed the potential to find more archaeological sites by applying more complex lidar processing techniques in the future. The benefits of lidar are of great interest to the local community, especially the Indigenous CHamoru, interested in non-destructive ways to assist their cultural heritage management.
This study focuses on the US Coast Guard LORAN station at Afetna Point in Saipan, Commonwealth of... more This study focuses on the US Coast Guard LORAN station at Afetna Point in Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, to discern what social impact the Cold War facility and servicemen had on the local community. Archaeological and archival investigations indicate that the facility was built a few months after the American WWII invasion of Japanese-held Saipan in June 1944. Oral histories gathered from senior members of the indigenous Chamorro community in the village of San Antonio revealed that the station and US Coast Guard service members played a complex and vital role in the social and economic life of the local community during the Cold War.
The first Austronesian settlers at the site of San Roque in Saipan and the southern Mariana Islan... more The first Austronesian settlers at the site of San Roque in Saipan and the southern Mariana Islands began arriving sometime after 1500 BC in what is called the Early Pre-Latte Period. A comparison of San Roque to contemporaneous island sites reveals differences in cooking and habitation features, ceramic vessels and decorative styles, marine shell tools and ornaments, and settlement patterns that were apparent within and between islands and sites until the middle of the first millennium BC. Changes in sea level and natural resource availability then appear to have accompanied changes in material culture, when some coastal sites were abandoned or moved seaward, while other inhabitants moved inland with a more terrestrial subsistence strategy shared elsewhere in Micronesia.
Early modern colonial globalization was the first producer of marginality and cultural erasure on... more Early modern colonial globalization was the first producer of marginality and cultural erasure on a world scale. The CHamorus of Guam and Marianas know this well since they were the first Pacific islanders to be turned into indigenous 'others' by European colonial powers. In a certain sense, investigating Guam is like investigating a huge terrain vague, or an interstice or in-between space that exists outside the cultural, social, and economic dynamics acknowledged by the Global North. However, it is within these margins where vibrant resistance to global cultural standardization settles and happens, as CHamorus also know. In this article, we will focus on CHamoru cultural resilience at lånchos (rural properties outside cities and villages), at reducciones (villages or towns where CHamorus were forcibly nucleated in the seventeenth century), and at the current use of colonial 'ruins' to promote indigenous cultural enhancement and community wellbeing.
This study first examines the historic context of immigrant and native laborers working at the ea... more This study first examines the historic context of immigrant and native laborers working at the early 20 th century Japanese sugarcane plantations in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) located in northern Micronesia. The focus then shifts to archaeological inquiry on the island of Tinian, where the material record of the labor class has been preserved and examined in sufficient detail to appreciate some of the contributions immigrant laborers made toward building a sense of their own community and "belonging" so far from home. While still remaining at the bottom of the social class structure of this new plantation economy, many immigrants were able to acquire through their own labor some of the economic measures of higher status and self-achievement long denied them at home.
International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2020
This study looks at archival records and photographs from the pre-WWII Japanese occupation of the... more This study looks at archival records and photographs from the pre-WWII Japanese occupation of the Micronesian island of Tinian to discuss the archaeological remnants of the Okinawan diaspora from the 1920s to 1940s in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) today.
When Ferdinand Magellan first anchored off the island of Guam in 1521, the inhabitants of the sma... more When Ferdinand Magellan first anchored off the island of Guam in 1521, the inhabitants of the small Chamorro village at Afetna Point on the southwest coast of Saipan were likely unaware. Archaeological investigations of the traditional village yielded Latte Period burials, ceramics, stone and shell tools, microfossils from food remains, and charcoal from cooking features dating between A.D. 1450 and 1700.
Archaeological Test Excavations in Support of the Kubasaki School Replacement Project, Camp Foste... more Archaeological Test Excavations in Support of the Kubasaki School Replacement Project, Camp Foster, Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler, Okinawa, Japan, Prepared for USMC, FE Division, Environmental Branch, Camp Smedley D. Butler, Unit 35006, Okinawa, Japan and Department of the Navy, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Pacific, Pearl Harbor, Hawai‘i, TEC Inc., 2014
The historical record of Early Modern Spanish Colonialism on Guam is reasonably well detailed whe... more The historical record of Early Modern Spanish Colonialism on Guam is reasonably well detailed when using primary and secondary literature to reconstruct significant events, policies, and personalities that affected the general population from 1521 to 1700; albeit biased from the perspective of the only witnesses who could leave a written record at the time – early maritime chroniclers, later Jesuit priests, and eventual Colonial administrators. The historical record of what exactly was exchanged between Spanish clergy or government officials, Philippine or Mexican military, and Chamorro inhabitants is far less explicit in the literature. This vacuum, if indeed it can be filled by archaeological inquiry, is the topic of this paper.
The Spanish Empire was a complex web of places and peoples. Through an expansive range of essays that look at Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, this volume brings a broad range of regions into conversation. The contributors focus on nuanced, comparative exploration of the processes and practices of creating, maintaining, and transforming cultural place making within pluralistic Spanish colonial communities.
The Global Spanish Empire argues that patterned variability is necessary in reconstructing Indigenous cultural persistence in colonial settings. The volume’s eleven case studies include regions often neglected in the archaeology of Spanish colonialism. The time span under investigation is extensive as well, transcending the entirety of the Spanish Empire, from early impacts in West Africa to Texas during the 1800s. The contributors examine the making of a social place within a social or physical landscape. They discuss the appearance of hybrid material culture, the incorporation of foreign goods into local material traditions, the continuation of local traditions, and archaeological evidence of opportunistic social climbing. In some cases, these changes in material culture are ways to maintain aspects of traditional culture rather than signifiers of new cultural practices.
The Global Spanish Empire tackles broad questions about Indigenous cultural persistence, pluralism, and place making using a global comparative perspective grounded in the shared experience of Spanish colonialism.
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village at Afetna Point on the southwest coast of Saipan were likely unaware. Archaeological investigations
of the traditional village yielded Latte Period burials, ceramics, stone and shell tools, microfossils from
food remains, and charcoal from cooking features dating between A.D. 1450 and 1700.
village at Afetna Point on the southwest coast of Saipan were likely unaware. Archaeological investigations
of the traditional village yielded Latte Period burials, ceramics, stone and shell tools, microfossils from
food remains, and charcoal from cooking features dating between A.D. 1450 and 1700.
The Spanish Empire was a complex web of places and peoples. Through an expansive range of essays that look at Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, this volume brings a broad range of regions into conversation. The contributors focus on nuanced, comparative exploration of the processes and practices of creating, maintaining, and transforming cultural place making within pluralistic Spanish colonial communities.
The Global Spanish Empire argues that patterned variability is necessary in reconstructing Indigenous cultural persistence in colonial settings. The volume’s eleven case studies include regions often neglected in the archaeology of Spanish colonialism. The time span under investigation is extensive as well, transcending the entirety of the Spanish Empire, from early impacts in West Africa to Texas during the 1800s. The contributors examine the making of a social place within a social or physical landscape. They discuss the appearance of hybrid material culture, the incorporation of foreign goods into local material traditions, the continuation of local traditions, and archaeological evidence of opportunistic social climbing. In some cases, these changes in material culture are ways to maintain aspects of traditional culture rather than signifiers of new cultural practices.
The Global Spanish Empire tackles broad questions about Indigenous cultural persistence, pluralism, and place making using a global comparative perspective grounded in the shared experience of Spanish colonialism.