Intensification in the Pacific: A Critique of the Archaeological Criteria and Their Application

Abstract

Recent questioning of unexamined assumptions in Boserup's agricultural development sequence inspires a critical review of the archaeological criteria for intensification. The concept of intensification has been widely used in Pacific archaeological sequences and has been linked to both population growth and sociopolitical competition within limited land areas. However, intensification is difficult to demonstrate in prehistoric contexts with the rigour required by human geographers and economists. Simple reliance on archaeological features which have required high labour input risks confusing the state of intensity of a particular system with the process of intensification. Identification of intensification demands a chronological comparison of labour input and productivity in successive periods. In the Pacific, archaeological evidence of forest fires and erosion close to first colonization is often interpreted as marking a prior stage of non‐intensive swidden agriculture. The subsequent appearance of high‐labour‐input devices such as irrigated pondfields is treated as proof that intensification has occurred. But these criteria are not exclusive markers of non‐intensive swiddening or later intensification. Pacific crop production systems, which are horticultural rather than agricultural, have always included intensive components. Any additional intensification which has appeared (and disappeared) may be more closely linked to fine‐grained ecological adaptations than to social pressures.

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