Monumental architecture has long been a focus of archaeological research. The construction of large and elaborate structures is a costly endeavour, which may seem to have little immediate benefit. Costly signalling is one explanation which can be applied to this problem by determining the contexts in which monument construction would carry a selective advantage. This study investigates stone and earthen mounds and platforms from Savai‘i and ‘Upolu in Sāmoa. These are among the most common type of archaeological feature in the landscape, yet targeted research explaining why these costly mounds were built is lacking. One of the primary expectations of costly signalling is that monuments will be located near areas where contested resources are abundant. To test this expectation, a semi‐automated feature identification method was used to identify mounds in LiDAR data, and a model of agricultural productivity was produced to map locations where the cultivation of dryland taro should have been successful. Mounds were found to be preferentially located near areas with high agricultural potential, suggesting that costly signalling could be an explanation for mound construction in Sāmoa, where mounds served to demonstrate resource holding potential and competitive ability.

中文翻译：

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萨摩亚的萨瓦伊和乌波卢昂贵的信号和巨大的土丘分布

纪念性建筑长期以来一直是考古研究的重点。大型而精致的结构的建造是一项昂贵的工作，似乎没有什么直接的好处。昂贵的信号传输是一种解释，可以通过确定纪念碑构造将带来选择优势的环境来应用于此问题。这项研究调查了萨摩亚（Sāmoa）的Savai'i和'Upolu的石头和土丘和平台。这些是景观中最常见的考古特征之一，但是缺乏有针对性的研究来解释为什么建造这些昂贵的土墩。对昂贵信号的主要期望之一是古迹将位于竞争资源丰富的区域附近。为了检验这种期望，使用半自动特征识别方法来识别LiDAR数据中的土丘，并制作了农业生产力模型来绘制应该成功种植旱地芋头的位置。人们发现土墩优先位于农业潜力高的地区附近，这表明昂贵的信号传递可能是萨摩亚土墩建设的一个解释，土墩起到了展示资源拥有潜力和竞争能力的作用。