Welcome to Baker Island
Welcome Ashore

How small is too small to support human life? Baker Island is 0.65 square miles of dry barren land and was never settled by the Polynesians. Nearby Howland Island has only 0.73 square miles of land, yet Bishop Museum archaeologist Kenneth Emory recorded numerous Polynesian structures there in 1924. Other very small Pacific islands (see map) also have ancient temples and house sites, but were abandoned before Euro-American contact.

Why did ancient Polynesians settle these small islands, build impressive temples and then abandon them? There are 12 such "mystery" islands in Polynesia. The ambitious Polynesians eked out an living on these ecologically extreme islands for a short time. But over the long run they were simply too small and too dry for people to survive. How and why they were settled in the first place is perhaps the real mystery, one which archaeology is helping to answer.
Upstairs Gallery of the Hawai`iloa Exhibit

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Revised on August 29, 1996 by mcb