The indigenous people of Easter Island, the Rapa Nui, experienced a societal collapse after the 17th century because they stripped the island clean of its natural resources. Or at least, that’s the leading theory.
What really happened to Easter Island?
What Really Happened on Easter Island. The popular known history of Easter Island — that deforestation brought about its demise — is not generally accepted. On Easter Sunday in 1722, a Dutch ship made Europe's first contact with a remote island in the South Pacific, halfway between Pitcairn and Chile. They found a mountainous green land ...
What is the mystery of Easter Island?
Rapa Nui (or Easter Island, as it is commonly known) is home to the enigmatic Moai, stone monoliths that have stood watch over the island landscape for hundreds of years. Their existence is a marvel of human ingenuity — and their meaning a source of some mystery.
What are facts about Easter Island?
History of Easter Island
- Historical summary. A thousand years ago, a small group of polynesians paddled the worlds greatest ocean in search of a new land.
- Expansion into Pacific Ocean. ...
- Settlement. ...
- A civilization grew. ...
- Raising megaliths. ...
- Deforestation. ...
- Adapting to new climate. ...
- Taŋata manu - birdman competition at Orongo. ...
- European contact. ...
- Slave raids. ...
Why is Easter Island so mysterious?
Upon discovery of Easter Island by Europeans, all of the Moai (the head statues) were knocked down, it is believed, by tribal wars. Similar to the mystery surrounding Stonehenge, nobody knows for certain how the Moai were placed in their final locations or erected. Diving conditions are excellent with 60+ meters of visibility compared to 20-30 ...
See more
Why did the population of Rapa Nui decrease?
"The demographic declines of the Rapa Nui are linked to the long-term effects of climate change on the island's capacity for the production of food," explains Mauricio Lima.
Why did cannibalism start on Easter Island?
With no trees to anchor the soil, fertile land eroded away resulting in poor crop yields, while a lack of wood meant islanders couldn't build canoes to access fish or move statues. This led to internecine warfare and, ultimately, cannibalism.
What mistake did the Rapa Nui make?
One theory posits that the early Polynesians who settled on the island, also known as Rapa Nui, cut down trees for logs to roll the statues from their quarries to their overlook positions. Competition among clans led to ever bigger moai and, ultimately, to the destruction of the forest.
Who owns Easter Island today?
ChileIt was annexed by Chile in the late 19th century and now maintains an economy based largely on tourism.
Are there any Easter Islanders left?
Following contact with Europeans, disease spread dangerously through the Rapa Nui population, sparing only approximately 100 individuals. But the Rapa Nui survived and today account for around 50 percent of the 7,750 people living on the island.
What wiped out Easter Island?
Around 1400 the Easter Island palm became extinct due to overharvesting. Its capability to reproduce has become severely limited by the proliferation of rats, introduced by the islanders when they first arrived, which ate its seeds.
Where did the people from Easter Island go?
Their ancestors likely arrived on Easter Island, now part of Chile, roughly a millennium ago. They came in the sophisticated canoes that allowed Polynesians to bring their cultures to dozens of islands in the Pacific Ocean, from Hawaii to Samoa and New Zealand.
Was Easter Island people cannibalism?
In this story, made popular by geographer Jared Diamond's bestselling book Collapse, the Indigenous people of the island, the Rapanui, so destroyed their environment that, by around 1600, their society fell into a downward spiral of warfare, cannibalism, and population decline.
What did the people of Easter Island eat?
Easter Islanders Ate Little Seafood - Archaeology Magazine. POCATELLO, IDAHO—An analysis of teeth from 41 individuals whose remains were found on Easter Island suggests that the Rapa Nui ate a diet of plants such as yams, sweet potatoes, and bananas, and terrestrial animals, including Polynesian rats and chickens.
How did humans get to Easter Island?
According to Thor Heyerdahl, people from a pre-Inca society took to the seas from Peru and voyaged east to west, sailing in the prevailing westerly trade winds. He believes they may have been aided, in an El Niño year, when the course of the winds and currents may have hit Rapa Nui directly from South America.
What is Easter Island famous for?
stone statues of human figuresEaster Island is famous for its stone statues of human figures, known as moai (meaning “statue”). The island is known to its inhabitants as Rapa Nui. The moai were probably carved to commemorate important ancestors and were made from around 1000 C.E. until the second half of the seventeenth century.
Why did the original settlers deforestation Easter Island?
They have explored and dug, and evidence suggests that original settlers began the process of deforestation of the island to make way for the planting of crops. Additionally, islanders used trees to build fishing boats, houses, shrines, and to transport the moai to the coast from the quarries. But eventually, there were no more trees to gather. This ended the construction of moai, islanders had to restrict fishing to the immediate coast as boats deteriorated, and the agricultural soil eroded away.
Why did Europeans abduct women from Easter Island?
Visitors began abducting the islanders to replenish crew members, and Europeans infected the women with various sexually transmitted diseases. This further destabilized Easter Island’s civilization.
What are the statues on Easter Island called?
Fishing vessels fed the people, and islanders erected large statues called moai around the coast. The moai are perhaps the most iconic feature of Easter Island today.
Why is Rapa Nui named Rapa Nui?
A 19th-century Tahitian visitor is credited for naming the island Rapa Nui, because its shape reminded him of the Tahitian island of “Rapa,” but was bigger – “Nui.”. Initially, the island was a lush paradise, as it was filled with large palm tree forests.
What did the Rapa Nui people take with them?
The voyagers took with them paper mulberry trees, chickens, rats, sugarcane, and taro from their homeland, and they began farming the land. Hence, their new civilization had begun. But it was not destined to last.
How long was Easter Island explored?
A 1300 Year Exploration of Easter Island History. Migrations and settlements, the evolution of a culture, wars between tribes, and the ultimate decimation of a whole population define the course of Easter Island history.
Where did the sweet potatoes come from on Easter Island?
Additionally, the islanders had sweet potatoes, which originate from South America.
Where is Easter Island?
THE fall of the civilization that carved more than 600 huge, elongated stone heads on Easter Island, 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile, has long been among the most tantalizing of archeological mysteries. One proposed solution, now receiving renewed support from the analysis of pollen grains embedded in the island's volcanic craters, has been an environmental collapse following the deforestation of the island by its inhabitants.
Who visited Easter Island in 1916?
According to Dr. Ruppert Barneby of the New York Botanical Garden, by the time the botanist J. P. Chapin visited Easter Island in 1916 a single scrawny specimen remained in one of the craters. Dr. Barneby said the botanical garden has a specimen on file, but did not know whether there are living examples anywhere.
How deep is the pollen in Easter Island?
Now two British researchers have studied pollen distribution in layers of sediment to depths of 30 or 40 feet below the floors of all three volcanic craters on Easter Island. The samples from these craters have provided inventories of the island's vegetation for the last 37,000 years. The pollen records show that 40 plant species have inhabited ...
What was the island of Palms once forested?
Sediment samples brought back by Dr. Heyerdahl's expedition to the island in 1956 were found to contain pollen grains from palm trees, suggesting that the island was once forested. It remained possible, however, that the pollen was brought from elsewhere by the wind. And even if there had once been palms, they might have vanished, perhaps from a climate change, before human settlers arrived.
What did the Long-Ears clan call each other?
Warfare broke out between clans, possibly reflecting different ethnic origins. They called each other ''Long-Ears'' (denoting perhaps a clan of South American derivation) and ''Short-Ears '' (possibly meaning a people of Polynesian origin).
Why were the stone heads overturned?
The stone heads had been overturned, apparently to spite those who revered them. Some had been abandoned unfinished, only partly carved out of the mountainside. By the time the first missionary arrived in 1864 no one on the island remembered how to read the ancient script.
When did the vegetation on the island of Hull begin to decline?
According to the pollen record, the island's vegetation began to decline about 990 years ago and continued until deforestation was total. A timetable was obtained by using the radioactive decay of the isotopes carbon 14 and lead 210 as stopwatches. The results are set forth in the January 5 issue of the British journal Nature by J. R. Flenley and Sarah M. King of the University of Hull.
What was the downturn of the islanders?
The downturn of the islanders, DiNapoli and his colleagues claim, began only after Europeans ushered in a period characterized by disease, murder, slave raiding, and other conflicts.
What evidence suggests that the people of the island continued to thrive?
Now new evidence from Hunt, Lipo, and their colleagues, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, lends credence to their ideas. This evidence suggests that the people of the island continued to thrive, as indicated by the continued construction of the stone platforms, called ahu, on which the iconic statues stand, even after the 1600s.
What is the Rapa Nui story?
Rapa Nui is often seen as a cautionary example of societal collapse. In this story, made popular by geographer Jared Diamond’s bestselling book Collapse, the Indigenous people of the island, the Rapanui, so destroyed their environment that, by around 1600, their society fell into a downward spiral of warfare, cannibalism, and population decline. These catastrophes, the collapse narrative explains, resulted in the destruction of the social and political structures that were in place during precolonial times, though the people of Rapa Nui survive and persist on the island to the present day.
Is Diamond's collapse a one time event?
In short, Van Tilburg believes the new work is missing some of the nuances of Diamond’s original theory. Diamond never described the collapse as a one-time event, Van Tilburg explains , but rather as a series of events that ultimately resulted in destructive societal changes that were hastened by European contact.
Is Rapanui a controversial story?
The new work is controversial, and not everyone is convinced. But if DiNapoli and his team are correct, the popular story of Rapa Nui’s decline, as described by Diamond, needs to be rethought and its heroes and villains reconfigured. Instead of the Rapanui hastening their own destruction prior to European contact, it is possible that the people of the island may have been the victims of European exploration and exploitation.
What was the downturn of the islanders?
T he downturn of the islanders, DiNapoli and his colleagues claim, began only after Europeans ushered in a period characterized by disease, murder, slave raiding, and other conflicts.
What evidence suggests that the people of the island continued to thrive?
N ow new evidence from Hunt, Lipo, and their colleagues, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, lends credence to their ideas. This evidence suggests that the people of the island continued to thrive, as indicated by the continued construction of the stone platforms, called ahu, on which the iconic statues stand, even after the 1600s.
What did Heyerdahl believe?
Heyerdahl later popularized his belief that this warfare, combined with deforestation, resulted in the collapse of the island’s social hierarchies and many traditions, such as the building of stone platforms and statues.
What are the statues on E aster Island?
E aster Island’s colossal statues loom large—both literally and figuratively—in the popular imagination. The massive heads and torsos dot the landscape like stone sentinels, standing guard over the isle’s treeless, grassy expanse. T he statues have inspired widespread speculation, awe, and wonder for centuries.
Who was to blame for the decline of Rapanui society?
I f Europeans were to blame for the decline of Rapanui society, that explanation is similar to what happened to other Indigenous peoples elsewhere throughout the world, DiNapoli notes. From that perspective, he says, the popular story of environmental destruction has obscured the islanders’ successes.
Is Diamond's collapse a one time event?
I n short, Van Tilburg believes the new work is missing some of the nuances of Diamond’s original theory. Diamond never described the collapse as a one-time event, Van Til burg explains, but rather as a series of events that ultimately resulted in destructive societal changes that were hastened by European contact.
Is Diamond's environmental destruction a viable hypothesis?
V an Tilburg also argues that Diamond’s environmental destruction argument remains a viable hypothesis. “The collapse narrative as these authors describe it is a straw man they have set up that does not accurately reflect the actual hypothesis,” she says.
Where is Easter Island?
Easter Island, whose native name is Rapa Nui, is a remote island in the Pacific Ocean about 2,300 miles west of Chile.
What did the Rapa Nui population do to the island?
One popular narrative holds that the growing Rapa Nui population cut down so many of the island’s tall palm trees that they depleted their food and logistical resources and inadvertently killed off plant and animal species. Meanwhile, Polynesian rats, which were carried to the island via boat and had multiplied exponentially over generations, contributed to deforestation by eating seeds and plants. Compounding the island’s problems were changes in the El Niño Southern Oscillation, which led to drier conditions.
How many statues are there on Easter Island?
In the popular imagination, the story of Easter Island has long centered on stone. About 900 monolithic statues, or “moai”, have been identified on Easter Island, a remote 63-square-mile triangle in the Pacific Ocean whose native name is Rapa Nui. The statues — haunting, hollow-eyed faces — were crafted from massive blocks of volcanic rock by the Rapa Nui people, who settled on the island around 1200 CE.
What did the Rapa Nui do?
For example, evidence suggests that the Rapa Nui people built productive gardens on deforested land and mulched them with nutrient-rich stone. As for climate change, the researchers pointed to recent studies suggesting that the natives adapted to drier conditions by turning to coastal groundwater sources.
