AN HISTORICAL REVIEW OF POLYNESIAN STONE ADZE STUDIES

Abstract

Polynesian stone adzes1 have been the subject of scholarly writings for about 100 years. The literature contains ethnographic accounts of manufacture and function, as well as a large corpus of ethnographic and archaeological adze classifications and, more recently, the beginnings of technological analyses and experimental investigations. The purpose of the following historical review is to trace the development of ideas regarding Polynesian adzes.2 It is important for students and scholars to understand how previous scholars treated their subject matter. Only by knowing where a discipline has been can one evaluate where it is headed. The following review is ordered topically, and chronologically where possible. It will become apparent that there has been a conceptual shift from viewing adzes as curious objects, to using them to posit culture historical relationships, to perceiving them as being the result of complex behavioural strategies and a part of the larger technological complex of aboriginal Polynesia.