Jennifer Kahn

Biography

Jennifer G. Kahn received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005. She then served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Queensland after which she served as Associate Anthropologist at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawai’i. She currently holds the position of Associate Professor at the College of William and Mary (Virginia, United States). Over the last 24 years Jenny has conducted archaeological field research in Polynesia and Melanesia, working in the Hawaiian Islands, the Society Islands, the Marquesas Islands, the Gambier Islands, and New Caledonia. She received the prestigious Rising Star Award from the Virginia State Council of Higher Education in 2016.  .

Title of the project

Fenua and Fare, Marae and Mana: The Society Islands as a Complex Chiefdom      

keywords: Archaeology, French Polynesia, household archaeology, monumental architecture, religion, rank and status, human-environmental interactions, foodwebs

Selected recent publications:

►Kahn, J.G. and P.V. Kirch, 2014. Monumentality and Ritual Materialization in the Society Islands.

►Bishop Museum Bulletin in Anthropology 13. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press.

►Kahn, J.G. 2016. Household Archaeology in Polynesia: Historical Context and New Directions. Journal of Anthropological Research 24(4): 325-372.

►Kahn, J.G. 2016. Holistic Houses and a Sense of Place: Contextualizing the Bishop Museum Hale Pili

►Exhibit through Archaeological Analyses. Museum Worlds: Advances in Research (4): 181-195.

►Kahn, J.G. 2016. Public versus Corporate Ritual in the Prehistoric Society Islands (French Polynesia): A Multi-Scalar Analysis of Religious Practices. Séances de la Société Préhistorique Française 7: 141-161.

►Kahn, J.G. 2016. The Functionality of Feasting at Late Prehistoric Residential and Ceremonial Sites in the Society Islands. Journal of the Polynesian Society 125(3): 203-238.

►Kahn, J.G. 2015. Identifying Residences of Ritual Practitioners in the Archaeological Record as a Proxy for Social Complexity. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 40: 59-81.

►Kahn, J.G., C. Nickelsen, J. Stephenson, N. Porch, E. Dotte, C.C. Christensen, J.S. Athens, L. May, and P.V. Kirch, 2015. Mid- to Late Holocene Landscape Change and Anthropogenic Transformation on Mo‘orea, Society Islands: A Multi-Proxy Approach. The Holocene 25(2): 333-347.

►Kahn, J.G., E. Dotte-Sarout, G. Molle, and E. Conte, 2015. Landscape Change, Settlement Histories, and Agricultural Practices on Maupiti Island, Society Island Archipelago. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 10(3): 363-391.