The disparity between radiocarbon and volcanic glass dates: new evidence from the island of Lāna'i, Hawai'i

Two dating methods, radiocarbon and volcanic glass, are widely employed in Hawaiian archaeology. The dates produced are used inferentially and as data, especially for testing paleodemographic hypotheses. Recent work on the island of Lāna'i has demonstrated a marked temporal incongruence between the radiocarbon and volcanic glass dates from within archaeological deposits and features. Further analyses suggest that the volcanic glass dates may be in error and that the method may be generally unreliable for Hawaiian sources. Because most of the data pertaining to inferences about prehistoric population decline in Hawai'i are derived from volcanic glass dating, these conclusions must be treated cautiously.