Archaeological studies going back decades have been undertaken on the area that is the site of the Kona Vistas project. Aside from the numerous pre-historic and historic sites documented, there have been several burial sites discovered.
Over the last 40 years, how those burials have been dealt with reflects the increasing sensitivity of the archaeologists who conducted those studies as well as the agencies legally responsible for them.
In 1984, during one of the first archaeological surveys of the Gamlon property, a burial site was found in the area now proposed for multi-family housing. The site was quite elaborate, involving the construction of an underground cupboard in which the bones of two bodies were found. As described by Cultural Surveys Hawaiʻi, “an enclosure was constructed with roughly stacked boulders on three sides and a double alignment of vertical slabs on the other.” The enclosure was “occupied and used for everyday work activities and food consumption,” the report states. At the base of the site “a stone-lined crypt was constructed. Two human skeletons were interred in the crypt,” one a child about six years of age, the other a young woman, between 18 and 25 years old. The skeleton of the child was complete. Both the young woman and the child were buried at the same time, the report said.
An unusual aspect of the burial was the fact that the long bones of the arms and legs of the woman had been removed and “her separated hands and feet were placed on her pelvis.”
Making the burial even more anomalous was the fact that there was a hole in the back of the woman’s skull caused not by an external blow, but by decay originating in the interior of the cranium. This, the archaeologists wrote, “is characteristic of the effects of tertiary syphilis.”
“The significant aspect of this site is that if the adult female did actually carry syphilis and this disease is considered to have been introduced to Hawaiʻi by Captain Cook in 1778, then the burial and overlying occupation must date to the post-contact period,” the archaeological report states. “However, with the large amount of material excavated and screened from this site, not one object indicating a post-contact age was found. Either the site dates from the earliest known contact before foreign objects were dispersed or syphilis was present in Hawaiʻi before Cook’s landing.”
As to the disposition of the remains, there is this account in a letter from Scientific Consultant Services to Kona Three’s Robert Wheelock:
“SCS Senior Archaeologist Glenn Escott contacted Gregg Kashiwa by phone on April 19, 2016, to ask about the final disposition of the iwi… He [Kashiwa] recounted that the iwi were first transported to the University of Hawaiʻi Hilo for laboratory analysis. UH-Hilo later contacted Mr. Kashiwa and requested that he pick the iwi up. Mr. Kashiwa arranged to reinter the iwi at Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historic Park. He was met by an NHP employee who directed him to an open area in the south corner of the park. He was instructed to put the iwi in the ground and cover them with rocks.”
Escott followed up with a call to Adam Johnson, an archaeologist at the park, to ask if there was any record of the reinterment. According to Escott, Johnson said that he was unable to locate any official correspondence regarding the reinterment, but that such records were not regularly kept at that time.
In 1990, the Legislature established island burial councils to advise on the treatment of remains discovered in the course of land development.
Three years later, an archaeological survey of the entire Gamrex property, including the single-family portion, discovered three sets of remains. The island burial council apparently approved reburial on a site “located in the southeast corner of the [single-family] subdivision near Kilohana Street,” according to correspondence between the planning consultant, Gregg Kashiwa, and Don Hibbard, then head of SHPD. Kashiwa informed Hibbard that, per the burial council’s decision, “A six-foot deep hole will be excavated of sufficient size to accommodate a 4’x4’x4’ box (of the type used for electrical connections) with no bottom and a cover. The remains will be buried on or about April 1, 1993. The hole will be backfilled over the cover of the box to ground level after reburial.”
On April 5, Hibbard replied to Kashiwa, letting him know that on the evening of April 1, “the three sets of Hawaiian remains recovered from the … property were respectfully reinterred.”
Most recently, a five-acre site that is set into the border between the multi-family and single-family areas of the Kona Vistas development was surveyed by SCS. The site had not been included in development plans as it was owned in the 1980s by Hawaiʻi Preparatory Academy. Much later, it was sold to Kona Vistas, which then resold it to a property owner to the east.
During that archaeological survey, a single burial site was found in a lava tube, with the date of burial ranging from pre-contact to early post-contact. In 2019, SCS prepared a preservation plan for that site, in which the remains were determined to be either of a young person of small stature or a sub-adult.
The preservation plan calls for the burial to remain in place. In accordance with current practices and rules, public notices were published in newspapers to alert cultural descendants of the discovery. J. Curtis Tyler III and Nicole Lui responded. Lui, who visited the site, asked that three lauhala mats be placed in the lava tube over the iwi kupuna and that a nearby large rock be used to seal the makai opening of the tube, with the mauka opening sealed by filling with rocks.
A permanent rock wall is to be built around the site at a distance of 20 feet from the outside perimeter of the burial portion of the lava tube. Should any construction occur before that happens, an orange construction fence is to be placed a minimum of 30 feet from the site, with a qualified archaeological monitor to be present during any construction within 50 feet of the site. Pedestrian access is to be allowed.
Finally, signs are to be erected, stating:
WAHI KAPU
This site is historically and culturally significant to the Hawaiian people.
KAPU – DO NOT ENTER
Historic sites are protected under state law. Violation could result in a $20,000 fine.
(Chapter 6E-11, Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes)
DLNR-SHPD (808) 692-8015
— Patricia Tummons
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