{"id":3884,"date":"2015-05-20T20:06:55","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T00:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/?p=3884"},"modified":"2024-12-21T12:08:23","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T17:08:23","slug":"inside-kauais-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/inside-kauais-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Kauai\u2019s Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"m-cave\"<\/h2>\n

Ideal conditions within an ancient cave system are revealing a\u00a0rich history that reaches back to a time before humans settled the island\u00a0and extends to the present day<\/h2>\n

S<\/span>ome six million years ago, in\u00a0the middle of the North Pacific\u00a0Ocean, volcanic activity bubbling\u00a0up from deep beneath the\u00a0Earth\u2019s crust formed Kauai, the most\u00a0ancient of Hawaii\u2019s major islands.\u00a0Over time, volcanoes dotting the\u00a0island spewed magma that cooled and\u00a0turned to igneous rock, forming steep\u00a0mountains. Rainwater flowed down\u00a0the mountains, and, as that runoff\u00a0reached the Mahaulepu Valley on the\u00a0island\u2019s southeast coast, it encountered\u00a0fossilized sand dunes, where,\u00a0through a process called dissolution, a\u00a0network of caves was formed.<\/p>\n

For more than 100<\/span>,000 <\/span>years,\u00a0groundwater seeped in and eroded the\u00a0limestone. Some 7<\/span>,000 <\/span>years ago, the\u00a0sea encroached and a large portion of\u00a0the ceiling of one of these caves collapsed,\u00a0leaving behind a vast oval, mostly\u00a0<\/span>open to the sky and filled with brackish\u00a0<\/span>water that didn\u2019t dry up until the\u00a0middle of the twentieth century. It also\u00a0created what would turn out to be a\u00a0unique and fortuitous set of conditions\u00a0that preserved a long, dramatic story of\u00a0geological change and biological invasions,\u00a0and of the waves of humans that\u00a0successively altered the island in radical\u00a0ways. Paleoecologists and archaeologists\u00a0working there, surrounded by the\u00a0high, ancient limestone walls, are beginning\u00a0to read that record.<\/p>\n

\"cave\"<\/a>Wedged in a crease of hills just\u00a0above a long white-sand beach favored\u00a0by sailboarders, the sinkhole sits in\u00a0a setting so picturesque that Johnny Depp\u2019s Captain Jack Sparrow leaped\u00a0off the lip of one of its high cliffs in the\u00a0recent Pirates of the Caribbean\u00a0 <\/span>movie On\u00a0Stranger Tides . There, everything from\u00a0a <\/span>352 ,<\/span>000-year-old lava flow to a Sty rofoam\u00a0<\/span>cup washed in during a recent\u00a0hurricane has been preserved. For the\u00a0past quarter century, husband-and-wife\u00a0paleoecologists David Burney and Lida\u00a0Pigott Burney, along with dozens of\u00a0colleagues and volunteers, have been\u00a0digging down through the black mud\u00a0that fills the sinkhole. There they have\u00a0uncovered millions of fossils\u2014in fact,\u00a0the site, referred to as Makauwahi\u00a0Cave, may be the richest fossil site in\u00a0the entire Pacific region. The upper\u00a0levels contain thousands of artifacts,\u00a0ranging from animal bones to stone\u00a0tools and carved wood, all of which\u00a0were washed, blown, or thrown into the\u00a0cave. But despite the richness of the\u00a0site in terms of the evidence, Burney\u00a0doesn\u2019t need expensive drilling equipment\u00a0or a massive dig project to plumb\u00a0the site\u2019s secrets. \u201cIt\u2019s the poor man\u2019s\u00a0time machine,\u201d he says. Small trowels, a\u00a0very good water pump to keep groundwater\u00a0<\/span>under control, and wood-framed\u00a0screens, along with a great deal of\u00a0tenacity, are all that\u2019s required.<\/p>\n

On a recent winter day, Burney\u00a0is shin-deep in the tar-black ooze at\u00a0the bottom of one of the excavation\u00a0pits. He typically locates them at the\u00a0periphery of the sinkhole, against the\u00a0cave\u2019s walls, where the stratigraphy is\u00a0clearer. He motions to me to clamber\u00a0down a <\/span>20-foot aluminum ladder and\u00a0gives me a history lesson as I descend.\u00a0After the first few rungs, I leave behind\u00a0the period after Captain James Cook\u00a0landed on Kauai in January 1778<\/span> , the\u00a0first European known to have visited\u00a0Hawaii. Plastic, glass, and metal artifacts\u00a0abruptly cease and are replaced by\u00a0giant boulders, gravel, and sand in the\u00a0level below, dated to about four or five\u00a0centuries ago, unmistakable signs of an\u00a0enormous tsunami which Burney and\u00a0his colleagues believe originated from\u00a0a massive earthquake in the eastern\u00a0Aleutian Islands. This event, no doubt a\u00a0catastrophe for the people living on the\u00a0Kauai coast, deposited a great deal of\u00a0debris and sealed off the prehistoric layers\u00a0<\/span>deposited in the cave from those of\u00a0the later era of Western contact, leaving\u00a0the material below undisturbed and\u00a0uncontaminated.<\/p>\n

\"HawaiiPic-800\"<\/a>Natives and tourists had long known\u00a0about Makauwahi Cave, but it was Burney\u00a0who, in August <\/span>1992 , first grasped\u00a0its significance for understanding\u00a0Hawaii\u2019s long and varied history, when\u00a0he, Lida, and researchers Storrs Olson\u00a0and Helen James from the Smithsonian\u00a0Institution stumbled on the site while\u00a0on vacation. At the time, the Burneys\u00a0were at New York\u2019s Fordham University\u00a0and had a keen interest in ecological\u00a0history and paleontology. One afternoon,\u00a0while walking on a nearby beach,\u00a0Burney spotted fresh footprints that\u00a0appeared to lead into the brush. Curious\u00a0but cautious, he followed the prints\u00a0to a small hole at the foot of a cliff, just\u00a0big enough to crawl through. Inside, he\u00a0found himself within a giant oval bowl,\u00a0but he couldn\u2019t see much else through\u00a0the dense growth and the afternoon\u2019s\u00a0lengthening shadows.<\/p>\n

The next morning, before the\u00a0sun had reached the interior, the two\u00a0couples were back with a bucket augur,\u00a0a small hand-powered drill that can pull\u00a0material up from below ground, making\u00a0only a small puncture in the surface,\u00a0not greatly disturbing the site. The first\u00a0bore went down 10 <\/span>feet, and Burney\u00a0found three species of extinct land\u00a0snails, important indicators of ancient\u00a0environmental conditions. In the\u00a0second sample was a small bird skull.\u00a0\u201cIf you got that much good stuff by\u00a0drilling two small holes, then I couldn\u2019t\u00a0imagine what was waiting,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve spent much of my life looking for\u00a0two things\u2014lakes and caves that have\u00a0fossils in them,\u201d says the peripatetic\u00a0scientist, who had flitted in this pursuit\u00a0from the North Carolina sounds to\u00a0the Serengeti plains to the jungles of\u00a0Madagascar before moving to Kauai to\u00a0devote himself to studying Makauwahi\u00a0Cave. \u201cIf you can find a lake inside\u00a0a cave, it\u2019s more than twice as good\u00a0because you get the benefit of both\u00a0types of fossil-forming environments.\u201d\u00a0At Makauwahi, the conditions are\u00a0remarkable. The alkaline limestone\u00a0and the acidic groundwater cancel\u00a0each other out and create the perfect\u00a0neutral pH. \u201cThis is the Goldilocks\u00a0zone\u2014just right,\u201d he says. \u201cEverything\u00a0in here is preserved. It\u2019s like pages in a\u00a0diary. And this process has been operating\u00a0for thousands of years.\u201d An acidic\u00a0environment would have destroyed\u00a0bones, while an alkaline environment\u00a0would have destroyed plant fossils. But\u00a0here, not just animal fossils, but also\u00a0shells, seeds, leaves, and wood, as well\u00a0as billions of microscopic algae, pollen,\u00a0and spores are embedded in the layers\u00a0that extend as far as 33 <\/span>feet deep to the\u00a0sinkhole\u2019s floor.<\/p>\n

Since they settled there permanently\u00a0to devote themselves to studying\u00a0<\/span>the cave full-time 10 years ago, the\u00a0<\/span>Burneys, along with their team, have\u00a0been working almost year-round to\u00a0clear the thick tangle of foliage inside\u00a0the sinkhole and dig small but deep\u00a0trenches. Each bucket of mud must be\u00a0hauled by hand up a ladder while a loud\u00a0water pump keeps the hole from filling\u00a0up. Once up top, the mud is washed\u00a0through mesh screens using garden\u00a0hoses, and the remains are collected\u00a0for cataloguing and analysis. In the topmost\u00a0layers, which go down a few feet,\u00a0the team retrieved eight-track tapes\u00a0and Polaroid film packs, a bottle that\u00a0might have contained the opiate laudanum,\u00a0perhaps used by Chinese workers\u00a0who snuck into the cave a century ago,\u00a0and a coin dated to 1895<\/span>. Below that,\u00a0the team found a piece of glass and an\u00a0iron nail, possibly bartered from the\u00a0crew of a passing clipper ship on its way\u00a0to or returning from China, probably in\u00a0the mid-nineteenth century.<\/p>\n

\"fish-hooks\"<\/a>A<\/span>rtifacts of the more recent past\u00a0found in Makauwahi Cave are\u00a0abundant. But the finds that\u00a0are proving to be the most exciting are\u00a0those that reveal the impact the first\u00a0people to settle in Hawaii had on its\u00a0ancient environment. Hawaii is one of\u00a0the last places on Earth to have been\u00a0settled by humans. Thousands of years\u00a0after people had made their homes on\u00a0the tip of South America, the heights\u00a0of the Tibetan plateau, and even the\u00a0icy edges of Greenland, no human\u00a0had yet set foot on this volcanic\u00a0archipelago. When people pulled\u00a0double-hulled canoes onto Hawaiian shores for the first time, it marked\u00a0one of our species\u2019 greatest triumphs\u00a0of exploration. Yet, until recently,\u00a0archaeologists have been unsure how\u00a0and when this feat took place.<\/p>\n

The ancestors of today\u2019s Polynesians,\u00a0<\/span>who settled most of the Pacific,\u00a0including Hawaii, were part of what is\u00a0called the Lapita culture. They fanned\u00a0out from East Asia more than 3<\/span>,000\u00a0<\/span>years ago, but questions about their\u00a0origins and route remain. Archaeologists\u00a0have found hundreds of sites\u00a0across the western Pacific littered with\u00a0artifacts such as stone axes and organic\u00a0remains that suggest the island-hopping\u00a0<\/span>seafarers traveled great distances\u00a0with goods, plants, and animals from\u00a0the large islands along the coast of\u00a0China and Southeast Asia. This collection\u00a0of materials, dubbed the Lapita\u00a0package, made colonization possible.\u00a0\u201cBut we don\u2019t know where the package\u00a0comes together,\u201d says Alan Cooper,\u00a0an archaeologist at the University of\u00a0Adelaide in Australia.<\/p>\n

By about 1000 <\/span>b<\/span>.c<\/span>., these people\u00a0had moved east as far as Samoa and\u00a0can be identified as early Polynesians.\u00a0The vast distances required to reach\u00a0the islands beyond, such as the Society\u00a0Islands\u2014another 1,<\/span>500 miles across\u00a0<\/span>open ocean\u2014halted\u00a0further successful migration for nearly\u00a02<\/span>,000 <\/span>more years. Then the Polynesians\u00a0were suddenly on the move\u00a0again, though it\u2019s not clear why, into\u00a0the central and eastern Pacific, an area\u00a0as big as North America. They eventually\u00a0landed on the Hawaiian islands,\u00a0possibly first on Kauai, not far from\u00a0Makauwahi Cave.<\/p>\n

The timing of these voyages has\u00a0been hotly debated, largely because\u00a0archaeological evidence is difficult to\u00a0recover under the destructive conditions\u00a0created by the warm and wet\u00a0climate that dominates the scattered\u00a0islands of the Pacific, and because of\u00a0the prevalence of acidic volcanic soils.\u00a0These two factors wreak havoc on\u00a0organic material such as the wood,\u00a0plant remains, and animal bones that\u00a0can provide firm dates through radiocarbon\u00a0<\/span>dating. \u201cThere aren\u2019t enough\u00a0bones,\u201d explains Cooper, \u201cbecause the\u00a0preservation is a mess. The Pacific is a\u00a0hard place to work.\u201d And the ancient\u00a0seafarers didn\u2019t leave behind texts or\u00a0inscriptions. But, unlike at many other\u00a0sites, the conditions inside Makauwahi\u00a0Cave have preserved a great deal of evidence.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s a really fantastic snapshot\u00a0of the environment just before and\u00a0after humans arrive,\u201d says Terry Hunt,\u00a0an archaeologist at the University of\u00a0Oregon. \u201cI can\u2019t think of a single site\u00a0that has yielded as much information\u00a0about Polynesia in this period.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"artifacts\"<\/a>Some of the most prized discoveries\u00a0in the cave are found below the\u00a0400 -year-old tsunami layer\u00a0that Burney believes was\u00a0deposited in less than an hour. They are\u00a0the tiny and fragile remnants of ancient\u00a0fowl. \u201cThis is where the chicken bones\u00a0are,\u201d he says when I am halfway down\u00a0the ladder, pointing at a dark layer of\u00a0earth several feet below the tsunami\u00a0layer. \u201cWe can be pretty sure they are\u00a0not mixed with modern stuff. There is\u00a0no KFC chicken in here at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Polynesians set out for new\u00a0places, chickens were an essential part\u00a0of the settlement package, providing\u00a0not just meat and eggs and entertainment\u2014\u00a0<\/span>cockfighting is still popular\u00a0across the region\u2014but also bones that\u00a0could be made into tattooing or sewing\u00a0needles or musical instruments.\u00a0Polynesians sometimes left dogs or\u00a0pigs behind, but they invariably carried\u00a0chickens to their new destinations.\u00a0Since domesticated chickens are not\u00a0native to the Pacific Islands, the presence\u00a0<\/span>of chicken bones is a clear marker\u00a0of human activity, and following the\u00a0movement of chickens provides a\u00a0handy way to track the spread of settlement\u00a0across Polynesia. Realizing this,\u00a0Burney bagged the chicken remains he\u00a0discovered and sent them to Cooper\u2019s\u00a0lab. When compared with the DNA\u00a0from other samples around Polynesia,\u00a0researchers found that a distinct set of\u00a0genes characterized the ancient chickens.\u00a0The resulting DNA map reveals\u00a0two distinct waves of exploration, one\u00a0moving northeast toward Micronesia,\u00a0and the other moving east to Samoa \u00a0and Hawaii. Rats traveled extensively\u00a0with Polynesians as well, but they could\u00a0hop boats back and forth to different\u00a0islands, making them difficult to track,\u00a0says Cooper. Pigs and dogs, apparently,\u00a0did not make it to some outposts, such\u00a0as Easter Island.<\/p>\n

The mud of Makauwahi Cave has\u00a0also preserved the residue of charcoal\u00a0that blew into the cave and settled\u00a0into the muck. Radiocarbon dating of\u00a0the samples suggests that charcoal is\u00a0a rare occurrence until a<\/span>.d<\/span> . 1200<\/span> . Its\u00a0sudden appearance is another marker\u00a0for human occupation and activity as\u00a0people began to burn off foliage to\u00a0plant taro and other staples.\u00a0Cores taken from\u00a0ancient stone-lined fish ponds\u00a0<\/span>on the island produced\u00a0charcoal that provides comparable\u00a0dates, clear signs and possible confirmation\u00a0<\/span>that humans arrived a good deal\u00a0later\u2014as much as 800 years later\u2014than\u00a0many historians had thought.<\/p>\n

In the same levels as the chicken\u00a0bones, the Burneys discovered large\u00a0quantities of fishhooks made from\u00a0bone and mother-of-pearl and the shells\u00a0of <\/span>16 different kinds of mollusks. These\u00a0<\/span>artifacts are evidence of the earliest\u00a0stages of ancient Hawaiian culture.<\/p>\n

B<\/span>urning was only one way in\u00a0which the new settlers transformed\u00a0Kauai\u2019s landscape.\u00a0Along with the rats, insects, such as\u00a0ants, stowed away on their canoes. The\u00a0combination of human activity and\u00a0changes wrought by the animals and\u00a0plants they brought makes it difficult\u00a0to imagine the island\u2019s environment\u00a0as it existed before people arrived,\u00a0but the cave is providing proof that it\u00a0was once radically different. Standing\u00a0almost at the bottom of the ladder,\u00a0Burney says that bones, seeds, and\u00a0other organic material embedded in\u00a0the mud around us are below the level\u00a0of the Polynesians\u2019 appearance on the\u00a0island, predating their arrival.<\/p>\n

The Burneys\u2019 work suggests that,\u00a0in contrast to the weedy fields where\u00a0sugarcane was long cultivated, the area\u00a0around the sinkhole was wooded, dominated\u00a0by a species of small\u00a0palm. The trade winds blew\u00a0birds to the island chain, and\u00a0though these ancient Hawaiian\u00a0birds had no predators,\u00a0being blown back to sea meant certain\u00a0death. Wings, therefore, constituted a\u00a0risk for larger birds, and thus flightless\u00a0species arose. More than 50 <\/span> species of\u00a0finches hopped through the forests,\u00a0each adapted to a tiny ecological niche.\u00a0Two sorts of small birds called rails\u00a0crept along the ground looking for the\u00a0eggs of other species to snag. The only\u00a0mammals on the island before humans\u00a0arrived were small bats. Avians filled\u00a0the ecological niches that elsewhere\u00a0were occupied by grazing animals such\u00a0as wild sheep and cattle, which could\u00a0not survive the long journey across the\u00a0ocean. \u201cThe mallard duck gets here and\u00a0suddenly grows 10 <\/span> times as large, stops\u00a0flying, develops a beak like a tortoise,\u00a0and goes out and eats the vegetation,\u201d\u00a0Burney says, gesturing up through the\u00a0hole. \u201cIt\u2019s a laboratory of evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The island\u2019s most fearsome predator\u00a0<\/span>was a type of long-legged owl that\u00a0caught what flying birds there were in\u00a0mid-air during the day\u2014there were no\u00a0nocturnal rodents to eat\u2014and pierced\u00a0their skulls with pincer claws. \u201cYou\u00a0can tell by the holes in the skulls of the\u00a0victims,\u201d says Burney. By now we are\u00a0standing at the bottom of one of the\u00a0excavation trenches with cool muck rising\u00a0halfway to our knees.<\/p>\n

\"arial-view\"<\/a>Eventually we climb back up, passing\u00a0the centuries as we go. When we\u00a0emerge from the pit, Burney\u2019s legs are\u00a0caked in the black ooze and his black\u00a0helmet is spotted with dried dirt. He\u00a0ambles over to the volunteers sorting\u00a0through the mud using garden hoses\u00a0and rectangular boxes with one-sixteenth-\u00a0inch mesh. \u201cDon\u2019t save every\u00a0last little snail, but every bird bone\u00a0and every seed we want to keep,\u201d\u00a0he says to one woman. \u201cThe biggest\u00a0problem is that people try to screen\u00a0too much at once,\u201d he explains. \u201cJust\u00a0keep it to a double handful so you\u00a0don\u2019t miss anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

A<\/span>rchaeologists have long suspected\u00a0that the arrival of\u00a0humans on Hawaii spelled\u00a0doom for innumerable plant and animal \u00a0species. Nearly four dozen bird species,\u00a0many of them extinct, have been\u00a0recovered from Makauwahi Cave, and\u00a0other excavations, particularly along\u00a0the coastal plains, confirm the rapid\u00a0transformation of the environment\u00a0once people got there. Though the\u00a0original settlers likely were a small band\u00a0of 100 <\/span> people or so, based on genetic\u00a0data, rats rapidly populated the islands,\u00a0posing a deadly threat to the large\u00a0flightless birds vulnerable to scurrying\u00a0mammals. The rats also quickly ate the\u00a0seeds of the native palms, while humans\u00a0may have overexploited the trees for\u00a0thatch, causing them to almost disappear\u00a0from the island. Early engravings\u00a0made by Europeans who began coming\u00a0to Hawaii in the late 1700<\/span> s show the\u00a0area around Makauwahi Cave to be\u00a0virtually treeless by this point\u2014coastal\u00a0plains had been transformed by way of\u00a0irrigation and ponds, and mass burning\u00a0had driven the forest back to areas\u00a0too steep to cultivate. By the time the\u00a0Europeans arrived, 600 <\/span> or so years after\u00a0the islands\u2019 first settlers, Hawaiians\u00a0numbered perhaps 200<\/span> ,000 <\/span> or more,\u00a0and the landscape was a combination\u00a0of field and forest with few signs of\u00a0the strange birds that once dominated\u00a0the chain. One of the surprising finds\u00a0Burney and his colleague, Australian\u00a0paleoentomologist Nick Porch of Deacon\u00a0University, have made is that the\u00a0accidental introduction of insects, particularly\u00a0ants, may have devastated the\u00a0native species of beetles, many of which\u00a0were wingless and therefore defenseless\u00a0against the invaders. \u201cIt was insect\u00a0Armageddon,\u201d Burney says. \u201cWhen\u00a0people come to a new land, there is\u00a0always mass extinction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although today only a few native\u00a0species of plants and animals survive\u00a0in the lowlands of Kauai, the Burneys\u00a0are working hard to change this. The\u00a0land that includes the cave complex is\u00a0owned by the Grove Farm Company,\u00a0but it is now managed by the nonprofit\u00a0Makauwahi Cave Reserve, which the\u00a0Burneys created. In combination with\u00a0their archaeological work, they are\u00a0trying to bring ancient Hawaii back\u00a0to life, at least on a small scale. Inside\u00a0the sinkhole, based on what they have\u00a0found during more than two decades\u00a0of excavation, they are slowly replacing\u00a0plants brought by Europeans with both\u00a0native Hawaiian and Polynesian species.\u00a0In acres of plant restorations that Lida\u00a0Pigott Burney has created outside the\u00a0cave, she and a host of volunteers have\u00a0planted examples of native plants the\u00a0Burneys identified in the cave\u2019s fossil\u00a0record. These species had retreated\u00a0into largely inaccessible areas, but can\u00a0thrive in the lowlands if given a chance.\u00a0The reserve is also home to a few acres\u00a0of traditional taro and other early Polynesian\u00a0crops, as well as native palms and\u00a0indigenous flowering plants that have\u00a0replaced what was a 200-year monocul<\/span>ture\u00a0of sugarcane.<\/p>\n

More than 20<\/span> ,000 <\/span> visitors,\u00a0including many students, come to\u00a0Makauwahi Cave each year to rediscover\u00a0Hawaii\u2019s lost past. There they\u00a0learn to plant traditional crops such\u00a0as bananas and breadfruit, and they\u00a0visit the Burneys\u2019 fenced restoration\u00a0containing not only newly cultivated\u00a0native plants, but also a dozen and a\u00a0half tortoises that mimic the feeding\u00a0<\/span>habits of the long-extinct grazing\u00a0birds and keep invasive weeds at bay.\u00a0For Burney, the effort is an innova tive\u00a0<\/span>way to use archaeological and\u00a0paleontological data to restore native\u00a0species to the landscape and revive\u00a0ancient practices. \u201cI\u2019m just as much\u00a0interested in the future as the past,\u201d\u00a0he says. As we part, Burney is off to\u00a0feed his chickens before dusk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ideal conditions within an ancient cave system are revealing a\u00a0rich […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archaeology"],"yoast_head":"\nInside Kauai\u2019s Past • Andrew Lawler<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ideal conditions within an ancient cave system are revealing a\u00a0rich history that reaches back to a time before humans settled the island\u00a0and extends to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.archaeology.org\/issues\/177-1505\/letter-from\/3144-letter-from-hawaii-kauai-caves\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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