Easter 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.
The statues have inspired widespread speculation, awe, and wonder for centuries. But the island, called Rapa Nui by its Indigenous people, has also captured the world’s imagination for an entirely different reason.
In recent years, researchers working on the island have questioned this long-accepted story. the Rapanui did not succumb to a downward spiral of self-destruction but instead practiced resiliency, cooperation, and perhaps even a degree of environmental stewardship.
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.
statue platform construction and use did not end prior to European arrival in 1722. This finding, drawing on new statistical methods and excavation work, suggests that the Rapanui were not destitute when the first Europeans arrived. It’s therefore possible that it was the newcomers from Europe who contributed to the island’s societal collapse in the years to come.
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.
Rapa Nui is one of the most remote islands in the world. A tiny speck in the eastern Pacific, it sits more than 2,000 miles west of South America and is about 1,200 miles from its nearest island neighbor, Pitcairn Island.
The new research indicates that ahu construction began soon after the first Polynesian settlers arrived on the island and continued even after European contact in 1722. This timeline argues against the hypothesized societal collapse occurring around 1600.
The downturn of the islanders, began only after Europeans ushered in a period characterized by disease, murder, slave raiding, and other conflicts.
— source scientificamerican.com | May 30, 2020