Interpretations of European and American contact with Oceania often highlight the rapid changes that took place in the technologies and practices of its traditional societies. In the Hawaiian Islands, for example, many scholars have assumed that stone adzes were quickly replaced with metal adzes, and that such change was an inevitable consequence of a more efficient western technology. The timing and pace of this particular change is put into a comparative perspective by reviewing published information on the rate at which indigenous Hawaiians selectively modified their clothing and pole-and-thatch hale (buildings) in the context of Euro-American colonialism. The study reveals that although Hawaiian women quickly adopted selected styles of western clothing, indigenous stone adze technology and vernacular architecture persisted about a century after contact in AD 1778. These findings confirm that archaeological studies of colonialism must consider a variety of social and economic factors to document and explain technological change.
