c.

c. AD 1 – 600: Although many researchers have traditionally characterized Saladoid communities as egalitarian, recent scholarship has questioned this assumption, suggesting that a well-developed social hierarchy may have existed even before the islands were colonized. It is likely that in these relatively large and independent villages, at least one lineage occupied a superior social position within the community. Evidence from the time of European contact suggests that indigenous groups practiced matrilineal descent and matrilocal residence, systems that likely originated during this earlier Saladoid expansion. Such social structures are common in other major global population movements and provided a flexible framework for managing high residential mobility across the archipelago. This organizational complexity was essential for coordinating the communal labor required for village life and long-distance maritime travel.