Mysterious Rapa Nui

Hundreds of years agone, atiny low cluster of Polynesians rowed their wood stabiliser canoes across Brobdingnagian stretches of open ocean, navigating by the evening stars and also the day's ocean swells. once and why these individuals left their hometown remains a mystery. however what's clear is that they created atiny low, unoccupied island with rolling hills and a lush carpet of palm trees their new home, eventually naming their sixty three sq. miles of paradise Rapa Nui—now popularly called Easter Island.




On this outpost nearly a pair of,300 miles west of South America and one,100 miles from the closest island, the newcomers well-defined away at volcanic stone, carving moai, monolithic statues designed to honor their ancestors. They affected the mammoth blocks of stone—on average thirteen feet tall and fourteen tons—to totally different ceremonial structures round the island, a achievement that needed many days and lots of men.

Eventually the enormous palms that the Rapanui trusted dwindled. several trees had been curtail to form area for agriculture; others had been burned for hearth and wont to transport statues across the island. The cleared piece of ground scoured nutrient-rich soil, and, with very little wood to use for daily activities, the individuals turned to grass. "You need to be pretty eager to want burning grass," says John Flenley, United Nations agency with Paul Bahn co-authored The Enigmas of Easter Island. By the time Dutch explorers—the 1st Europeans to achieve the remote island—arrived on Easter Sunday in 1722, the land was nearly barren.

Although these events area unit usually accepted by scientists, the date of the Polynesians' arrival on the island and why their civilization ultimately folded continues to be being debated. several specialists maintain that the settlers landed around 800 A.D. They believe the culture thrived for many years, calling it quits into settlements and living off the fruitful land. per this theory, the population grew to many thousand, liberating a number of the working class to figure on the moai. however because the trees disappeared and other people began to starve, warfare skint out among the tribes.

In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond refers to the Rapanui's environmental degradation as "ecocide" and points to the civilization's death as a model of what will happen if human appetites go ungoverned.

But new findings by anthropologist Terry Hunt of the University of Hawai'i could indicate a distinct version of events. In 2000, Hunt, anthropologist Carl Lipo of CA State University, Long Beach, and their students began excavations at Anakena, a white sandy beach on the island's northern shore. The researchers believed Anakena would are a lovely space for the Rapanui to land, and so is also one in every of the earliest settlement sites. within the high many layers of their excavation pit, the researchers found clear proof of human presence: charcoal, tools—even bones, a number of that had return from rats. beneath they found soil that appeared absent of human contact. this time of 1st human interaction, they patterned, would tell them once the primary Rapanui had arrived on the island.

Hunt sent the samples from the dig to a science laboratory for dating, expecting to receive a date around 800 A.D., to keep with what different archaeologists had found. Instead, the samples dated to 1200 A.D. this might mean the Rapanui arrived four centuries later than expected. The deforestation would have happened abundant quicker than originally assumed, and also the human impact on the surroundings was quick and immediate.

Hunt suspected that humans alone couldn't destroy the forests this quickly. within the sand's layers, he found a possible culprit—a inordinateness of rat bones. Scientists have long far-famed that once humans settled the island, thus too did the Austronesian rat, having hitched a ride either as stowaways or sources of food. but they need to Easter Island, the rodents found a limiteless food provide within the lush palm trees, believes Hunt, United Nations agency bases this assertion on AN abundance of rat-gnawed palm seeds.

Under these conditions, he says, "Rats would reach a population of many million at intervals some of years." From there, time would take its toll. "Rats would have AN initial impact, consumption all of the seeds. With no new regeneration, because the trees die, deforestation will proceed slowly," he says, adding that individuals lowering trees and burning them would have solely other to the method. Eventually, the degeneration of trees, per his theory, light-emitting diode to the downfall of the rats and eventually of the humans. The death of the island, says Hunt, "was a action of impacts. however i believe it's additional rat than we predict."

Hunt's findings caused a stir among Easter Island scientists. John Flenley, a spore analyst at New Zealand's University of Massey, accepts that the many rats would have some impact on the island. "Whether they may have deforested the place," he says, "I'm undecided."

Flenley has taken core samples from many lakebeds fashioned within the island's volcanic craters. In these cores, he has found proof of charcoal. "Certainly there was burning happening. generally there was plenty of charcoal," he says. "I'm inclined to assume that the individuals burning the vegetation was additional harmful [than the rats]."

Adding to the civilization's death, European explorers brought with them Western diseases like VD and variola major. "I assume that the collapse happened shortly before European discovery of the island," Flenley says. "But it may be that the collapse was additional of a general affair than we predict, and also the Europeans had an impression on finishing it off."

Flenley, United Nations agency at first surveyed Easter Island in 1977, was one in every of the primary scientists to investigate the island's pollen—a key indicator of foresting. The island's volcanic craters, that once housed tiny lakes, were ideal sites for his analysis. "The sediment was undisturbed. every layer was place down on high of the layer before," says Flenley, bearing on core samples from one crater's lakebeds. "It's sort of a history book. you only need to learn to scan the pages." The samples showed AN abundance of spore, indicating that the island had once been heavily wooded. The spore rate then born off dramatically. "When I dated the deforestation at that website, it came beginning at regarding 800 A.D. and finishing at this explicit website as early as a thousand A.D.," a finding in line with different atomic number 6 dates on the island. Since this was one in every of the primary settlement sites, Flenley says, it is smart that deforestation would have occurred even sooner than it did on different elements of the island.

This crater, Flenley believes, would are one in every of the sole sources of fresh on the island, and so one in every of the primary places the Polynesians would have settled. "It wasn't solely a website of fresh, it absolutely was additionally a really protected  crater," he says. "It would are potential to grow tropical crops." Anakena, the beach wherever Hunt did his analysis, would are a decent place to stay their canoes and to travel fishing, however not a decent place to measure. Hunt, Flenley says, "has positively shown a minimum age for individuals being there, however the particular arrival of individuals might are somewhat earlier."

Other scientists United Nations agency work on the island additionally stay skeptical of Hunt's later settlement date of 1200 A.D. Jo Anne Van Tilburg, founding father of the Easter Island sculpture Project and a somebody at the University of CA, l.  a.  , is one in every of the island's leading archaeologists and has studied the moai for nearly thirty years. "It's not logical that they were constructing monument sites at intervals many years of arrival on the island," she says. Van Tilburg and her colleagues have surveyed all 887 of the island's statues. "By 1200 A.D., they were actually building platforms," she says bearing on the stone walls on that the islanders alert the moai, "and others have represented crop intensification at regarding a similar time. It's exhausting on behalf of me to be convinced that his series of excavations will overturn all of this info."

Despite these queries, Hunt remains assured in his findings. several scientists, he says, "get a date, tell a story, invest plenty in it, and so don't desire to grant it up. they'd a really smart environmental message."

Hunt, Lipo, and their students still do excavation work on the island. they need recently affected on from Anakena to try and do work on the northwest coast. They additionally decide to date the earliest rat-gnawed seeds. "We keep obtaining somewhat additional proof," says Hunt, United Nations agency has printed his findings in Science. "Everything appearance terribly consistent."

Scientists could ne'er notice a conclusive answer to once the Polynesians settled the island and why the civilization folded thus quickly. whether or not AN invasive species of placental mammal or humans ruined the surroundings, Easter Island remains a cautionary tale for the globe.