1. Early life

2. Career

3. Awards and honors

4. Publications

5. References

Patrick Vinton Kirch is an American archaeologist and Professor Emeritus^[1] of Integrative Biology^[2] and the Class of 1954 Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.^[1] He also serves as Curator of Oceanic Archaeology in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, and was director of that museum from 1999 to 2002.

Early life

Kirch was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and was raised in Manoa valley from 1950s to 1960s. At the age of 13, he became an intern to Yoshio Kondo, a Bishop Museum malacologist. While there, he was studying Linnaean taxonomy and helped curate his mentor's collection of Polynesian snail shells. At the time, despite his strong interest in snails, he already had a passion for archaeology. Seeing it, Kondo suggested him to work along with Kenneth Emory, a renowned Polynesian archaeologist. Unfortunately, Emory refused on working with Kirch, so Kondo took him under his wing so that Kirch can spent the whole summer conducting archaeological digs of his own.^[3]

A year later, securing the permission of a landowner and some help from his father, Kirch had dug out a three-by-three-foot test pit at Hālawa on Molokai. In the midden of the pit, he found bone and shell fragments, which he carefully assembled, counted and write up results on. The results made Emory furious, but Kondo insisted that Kirch did everything right and therefore deserves to go with him to the South Point's excavation site.^[3]

Career

After graduating from the Punahou School, he attended University of Pennsylvania and Yale University from which he obtained Ph.D. in 1975. From 1975 to 1984 Kirch served on the staff of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Due to the research decline in mid-1980s, Kirch had relocated to Seattle, Washington in 1984 where he was a director of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington and then became its Associate Professor. In 1989, he moved to California where he took a position at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Anthropology.^[3] He later took a joint appointment in the Department of Integrative Biology.

In 1997, he met with the Reverend Kawika Ka‘alakea of Hawaiian Congregational Church who blessed him on the way to study Kahikinui tribe on Maui, near Haleakalā volcano.^[3]

Vinton Kirch had retired from faculty in July 2014, becoming Chancellor's Professor Emeritus and Class of 1954 Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Integrative Biology.^[1]

Awards and honors

He has published widely: many articles and nine books. He is known for his belief that practitioners of archaeology, historical linguistics, human genetic studies, ethnology, and archival historical research can work together to give a fuller picture of the past than any discipline alone could do. In 1997 Kirch was awarded the John J. Carty Award from the National Academy of Sciences^[4] and in 2011 became recipient of the Herbert E. Gregory Medal for Distinguished Service to Pacific Science from the Pacific Science Association.^[5] He is also a Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of French Polynesia (2016).^[6]

Kirch's research was recognized by the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.

From 1997 to 1998, Krich was a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences^[7] and in 2010, Kirch was elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.^[8]

Publications

• 1982 – {{cite book|author=Kirch, Patrick Vinton|author2=Yen, D.E|title=Tikopia; The Prehistory and Ecology of a Polynesian Outlier|publisher=Bishop Museum Press|place=Honolulu, Hawaii|isbn=9780910240307}}
• 2002 – On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands Before European Contact, University of California Press, 446 pages. {{ISBN|0-520-23461-8}}, {{ISBN|978-0-520-23461-1}}
• 2012 – In A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai‘i^[3]
• 2014 – Kua‘āina Kahiko: Life and Land in Ancient Kahikinui, Maui^[3]
• 2015 – Unearthing the Polynesian Past: Explorations and Adventures of an Island Archaeologist^[3]

References

• Walter Daniels
• Walter Darby Bannard
• Walter Darcy Hall
• Walter Darlington Huddleston
• Walter Darré
• Walter David Baker
• Walter Davidson
• Walter Davis
• Walter Davis (Athletics)
• Walter Davis (basketball)
• Walter Davis (blues)
• Walter Davis (high jumper)
• Walter Day
• Walter D. Broadnax
• Walter D. Burnham
• Walter Dean Burnham
• Walter Dean Meyers
• Walter Dean Myers
• Walter de Baltroddi
• Walter de Baltroddie
• Walter de Baltrodin
• Walter de Bidun
• Walter de Bonstetten
• Walter de Burgh Earl of Ulster
• Walter de Cantilupe