Research Catalog
The wet and the dry : irrigation and agricultural intensification in Polynesia
- Title
- The wet and the dry : irrigation and agricultural intensification in Polynesia / Patrick Vinton Kirch.
- Author
- Kirch, Patrick Vinton.
- Publication
- Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Items in the Library & Off-site
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Request in advance | S470.P75 K57 1994 | Off-site |
Details
- Description
- xxii, 385 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
- Summary
- Scholars and researchers have long believed that the ability to irrigate is crucial to the development of civilizations. In this book, archaeologist Patrick Kirch challenges this "hydraulic hypothesis" and provides a more accurate and detailed account of the role of "wet" and "dry" cultivation systems in the development of complex sociopolitical structures.
- Examining research on cultural adaptation and ecology in Western Polynesia and utilizing extensive data from a variety of important South Pacific sites, Kirch not only reveals how particular systems of production developed within the constraints imposed by environmental conditions, but also explores the tension that arises between contrasting productive systems with differential abilities to produce surplus.
- He shows that the near total neglect of short-fallow dryland cultivation, as well as arboriculture, or tree-cropping, has seriously distorted the picture that archaeologists and anthropologists have of agricultural intensification and its relation to complex social structures. This work, bound to become a classic, will be central to all future discussions of the ecology and politics of agricultural intensification.
- Subjects
- Traditional farming > Polynesia
- Shifting cultivation > Wallis and Futuna
- Ethnology > Wallis and Futuna
- Agricultural systems > Polynesia
- Irrigation farming > Wallis and Futuna
- Traditional farming > Wallis and Futuna
- Agricultural productivity > Polynesia
- Agricultural productivity > Wallis and Futuna
- Ethnology > Polynesia
- Agricultural systems > Wallis and Futuna
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 355-375) and index.
- Contents
- 1. Introduction -- 2. Ethnographic Orientations -- 3. The Agricultural Landscape -- 4. Crops -- 5. The Dry: Shifting Cultivation -- 6. The Wet: Taro Irrigation -- 7. Nuku: An Agro-Economic System in Sigave -- 8. The Political Economy of Production -- 9. Archaeological Perspectives on Futunan Irrigation and Land Use -- 10. Hawaii -- 11. Mangaia -- 12. Tikopia -- 13. Agricultural Change as History and Process -- Appendix: A Note on Field Methods: Futuna-Alofi, 1974 -- Glossary of Futunan Terms.
- ISBN
- 0226437493 (cloth : alk. paper)
- LCCN
- 94014257
- OCLC
- 30157412
- ocm30157412
- Owning Institutions
- Columbia University Libraries