This field season was intent on verifying on the ground what we thought we had found in exploratory reconnaissance of two years ago in the jungles of Upper Tofol Valley. At the time, we had located what was thought to be Finol Tokosra, the site of the 'king's revenge' where the people of Tofol had ambushed the tyrant king of Leluh and killed him by throwing his canoes, his men and him into a large pit and stoning them to death. The oral histories continue and say the burial pit was hastily filled and then the people of Tofol smashed their village and ran away to the south in fear of a reprisal attack by the king's people in Leluh.
This season we excavated the Upper Tofol site thought to be Finol Tokosra, seeking datable material like charcoal and any other kind of feature or evidence that may help to verify the oral history. Our excavations were supplemented by visits to another site on the island, the site of Saklem, where I had found a statue in 2005. The Saklem visits were to verify that the feature really was a statue; if it was, it would be the first of its kind reported for the region as all the previous archaeological literature beginning with the Germans in 1910 suggest that Micronesia (Kosrae in particular) had no statue making industries. I also wanted to provide a break from excavations for my crew, provide them with another view of the island's archaeological record, and use the opportunity to develop their mapping skills.
The Upper Tofol site is a large village that contains a unique assemblage of archaeological features, including several housing compounds and house foundations, multiple levels with stairways joining the two, a paved spring and another spring-fed pool (probbably a bathing area), a sakau sitting stone, and, it turns out, a vast stone working industry that includes the full range of production from making the tools to carve and sculpt stone, to transporting raw materials (mainly river boulders), to reducing the boulders, to transforming them into figures of all kinds and dimensions, to spent and discarded tools, and smashed pieces of sculpted stone. In addition to the stone carving production, there is also a decorative industry that included the production of 'lap' a red paint used on the sculptures ('lap' is also used to decorate canoes, houses and anything of importance) and the production of a red ceramic used to decorate what appear to be significant items but from which no pottery was produced. In addition to the stone carving industry, our excavations also uncovered a burial pit at the base of which were stone valuables (small exotic stones that were carved), a stone figurine of a manta ray, and a ceremonial war club made of stone and decorated with red ceramic.
Analysis of the recovered materials is currently underway.
My crew this season included (back row, photo below) Houver Alik (my pattern man who can discern patterns in architectural remains as well as recognize even the subtlest scupted stone), Atchuo George (the youngest member of our crew who could easily separate charcoal covered in mud from other materials), Ronny George (my soils man who did all the soil descriptions for the excavation); (front row, photo below) Hosea Alouka (a hard worker who appreciated the aesthetics of the decorated sculptures), Joseph Jonithon (my instrument man who headed the mapping work), and Hamlet Jim (the crew supervisor who could easily translate and explain my instructions to the crew). We were joined periodically by Nathan Fitch, Peace Corps volunteer with the Kosrae Office of History and Culture Preservation, and Bruce Brandt, proprietor of the Kosrae Village Resort where I lived during the field season.
