A stratified feudal chiefdom centered on the stone city of Leluh on Kosrae island, with nobles controlling land worked by commoners — a Micronesian parallel to Nan Madol that flourished from roughly 1250 to 1850 CE.
The Kosraean chiefdom centred on Leluh collapsed under missionary influence from 1852 onward; central compounds of the ceremonial site were abandoned by the 1860s as Christian conversion displaced traditional practices, with people relocating to the shoreline; the city of Leluh, occupied from c. 1250 to 1850 CE, was functionally abandoned by c. 1860.
Covers both Nan Madol and Leluh as comparable Micronesian stone cities; contextualizes the Kosrae chiefdom in regional perspective.
Polity/site-specific: the definitive archaeological and historical study of the megalithic stone city of Leluh and its stratified chiefdom, by the site's foremost researcher.
Era/regional context: places the Kosraean Leluh chiefdom alongside Nan Madol within the broader archaeology of Micronesian and Pacific chiefdoms.