| The anthropological study of human nutrition has created an important body of literature on human diet and food ways through a variety of approaches. In this thesis, the nutritional status and diet of a prehistoric Hawaiian skeletal population from Hawai'i Island have been evaluated through studies of skeletal biology and analyses of food remains from contemporaneous archaeological sites. The central tenet of this thesis is that a multi-factorial approach--in which cultural and genetic continuity, palaeopathology, palaeo-demography, midden analyses, environmental and social contexts are assessed--is the best way to study past human diet and nutritional status.;A review of the literature on nutritional anthropology, skeletal biology, and archeology demonstrates that a multi-factorial approach to the study of human diet probably yields the most effective results. Analyses of the skeletal biology and nutritional status of the prehistoric Hawaiians buried at Keopu indicate that these people were generally healthy through time and may represent the dead of several, related, extended families. Examination of biological and ecological parameters of diets probably consumed by the Hawaiian community that buried its dead at Keopu indicates that they had sufficient dietary resources to achieve and maintain a healthy nutritional status. Discussion of the socio-cultural context of a traditional Hawaiian community, as seen through the ethnohistoric and ethnological literature, shows that, despite a complex system of dietary restrictions and differential access to some resources, all members of a Hawaiian community would have had diets of sufficient quality and quantity. |
