Perpustakaan Digital ITB

In West Polynesia, monumental structures with a volume s 2500 m^ include mounds of earth or stone that in U-aditional history were used to house or bury chiefs, as well as being the focus of ceremonial and religious activity. We review archaeological theory about the initiation of monumental architecture and examines how chiefly and high-status activity might be identifled. Large structures with monumental dimensions often have a complicated construction history that spanned several centuries indicating change to the social structure, particularly the power of elites. As a result archaeologists need to develop ideas that relate episodes of architectonic change to alterations in the prehistoric socio-political system.