Intensification Revisited

Intensive dryland farming on the leeward slopes of Haleakala, Maui, Hawaiian Islands: archaeological, archaeobotanical, and geochemical perspectives

“…Using a combination of archaeological, archaeobotanical and geochemical approaches, we provide evidence that this particular landscape patch was intensively gardened and that gardening left discernible morphological and chemical 'fingerprints'. These findings inform on-going debate concerning processes of agricultural intensification in pre-modern agrarian systems (Boserup 1965;Brookfield 1972Brookfield , 1984Kirch 1994, in press;Morrison 1994;Leach 1999). …”

“…In the case of 'landesque capital' intensive systems (Brookfield 1984), especially irrigation, permanent modifications to the landscape such as terracing and canals leave an archaeologically detectable record. However, when shifting cultivation systems are intensified through reduction in fallow length, as in the 'cropping cycle' mode of intensification identified by Kirch (1994;Kirch in press), detecting a temporal trajectory of intensification is often more difficult.…”

Archaeological markers of agricultural risk management

“…Intensification is a complex term that implies a number of specific agricultural strategies designed to raise production per unit of land (Allen, 2004;Boserup, 1965Boserup, , 1981Brookfield, 1972Brookfield, , 1984Brookfield, , 2001Guillet, 1987;Johnston, 2003;Kirch, 2006), although in this paper I expand the term somewhat to include strategies that require additional labor to produce additional food, even when that involves increasing the area of land under cultivation. In this section, I consider two types of agricultural intensification that can be employed to manage subsistence risk: overproduction and irrigation.…”

Opportunities and constraints for intensive agriculture in the Hawaiian archipelago prior to European contact

“…This type of agriculture was widely practiced throughout the Pacific (see Kirch and Lepofsky, 1993;Kuhlken, 2002 for reviews), although it was carried out on a larger scale in Hawai'i than elsewhere in Polynesia (Kirch, 1994). Irrigated pondfields represent a form of ''landesque capital'' intensification; initially substantial inputs of labor were required to build and maintain agricultural infrastructure (in this case stream diversions, irrigation ditches, and the pondfields themselves), but once that infrastructure was in place cultivation could yield very substantial surpluses over the requirements of agricultural labor (Brookfield, 1972(Brookfield, , 1984Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987).…”