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The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Aubrey Burl

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<< Our Photo Pages >> Easter Island - Sculptured Stone in Easter Island

Submitted by terryj on Wednesday, 24 February 2016  Page Views: 23559

Multi-periodSite Name: Easter Island Alternative Name: Rapa Nui
Country: Easter Island
NOTE: This site is 414.576 km away from the location you searched for.

Type: Sculptured Stone
Nearest Town: Hangaroa  Nearest Village: Hangaroa
Latitude: 27.091234S  Longitude: 109.271234W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
4 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
5 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
1 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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easter island
easter island submitted by terryj : Ahu Akaivi2 (Vote or comment on this photo)
Easter Island is the most remote inhabited island on the planet, being out in the Pacific Ocean nearly four thousand kilometres from the coast of Chile. The island is perhaps best known for the hundreds of stone statues (Moai) carved and erected by an ancient population, which later died out.

This is probably one of the most atmospheric ancient sites on Earth. I feel very priviledged to have seen this fabulous place and experienced the mystery first hand.
The Island has nearly one thousand statues (Moai) scattered about in various states of abandoment or in some cases fully restored in their original positions on the Ahus ( the sacred platform on which the statues stand).
The balance of restored and ruined/ smashed Ahus and Moai is perfect in that it is possible to see the grandeur of the statues as they were originally, but also to experience the more recent history of the islanders at the time when they were feuding and smashing the monuments to the ground.
Apart form the fantastic monuments, Rapa Nui is just a fantastic place to be. All the population live in the main village of Hangaroa. This means that with the exception of a few other tourists the rest of the island is more or less people free. We hired bicycles and toured around much of the island and on many occasions were the only people at the ahus.
The most remote populated Island on earth, but worth making the effort to get there.

Note: CyArk documents Rapa Nui monuments and geological setting. See comment.
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 More pictures in our eGallery: Easter Island

easter island
easter island submitted by terryj : Ahu Vai Uri2 (Vote or comment on this photo)

easter Island
easter Island submitted by terryj : Puna Pau. The quarry where the red topknots (Pukao) where fashioned. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Easter Island
Easter Island submitted by durhamnature : Wooden figures from Easter Island, from "Easter Island..." via archive.org (Vote or comment on this photo)

Easter Island
Easter Island submitted by durhamnature : Old map of the island's archaeology, from "Easter Island..." via archive.org (Vote or comment on this photo)

Easter Island
Easter Island submitted by SolarMegalith : Fallen moai near the southern coast of Rapa Nui, next to the road from Hanga Roa to Ahu Tongariki (photo taken in 2005).

Easter Island
Easter Island submitted by DrewParsons : Easter Island - view of the moai plinth at Vinapu (O Tahiri) on the South West coast showing the primitive interlocking fascia of the plinth wall

Easter Island
Easter Island submitted by DrewParsons : A Moai buried up to its neck at Rano Raraku on the eastern end of Easter Island

easter island
easter island submitted by terryj : Birdman Island ( Moto Nui)

easter island
easter island submitted by terryj : Ahu Vinapu

easter island
easter island submitted by terryj : Ahu Akaivi3

easter island
easter island submitted by terryj : Ahu Akaivi1 (1 comment)

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 3.9km SSW 202° Rano Raraku* Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
 4.1km W 274° Ahu Te Pito Kura* Standing Stones
 4.8km S 185° Ahu Tongariki* Sculptured Stone
 4.9km WNW 285° Ahu Ature Huke* Sculptured Stone
 5.5km WNW 287° Ahu Nau Nau Anakena* Sculptured Stone
 12.7km WSW 256° Ahu Akivi* Sculptured Stone
 14.6km WSW 241° Ahu Huri A Urenga* Sculptured Stone
 14.6km WSW 244° Puna Pau Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
 16.3km WSW 251° Tahai Kote Riku Sculptured Stone
 16.4km SW 235° Ahu Vinapu* Sculptured Stone
 16.6km WSW 251° Ahu Tahai Sculptured Stone
 16.6km WSW 251° Ahu Vai Uri Sculptured Stone
 16.6km WSW 251° Ahu Ko Te Riku* Sculptured Stone
 17.3km WSW 248° Ana Kai Tangata* Rock Art
 19.4km WSW 237° Rano Kau* Holy Well or Sacred Spring
 20.2km WSW 237° Orongo* Ancient Village or Settlement
 3628.8km SE 124° Pilauco Ancient Village or Settlement
 3645.4km SE 125° Monte Verde* Ancient Village or Settlement
 3662.4km WNW 296° Hanamiai Dune* Ancient Village or Settlement
 3665.7km WNW 296° Tehueto Tohua* Ancient Village or Settlement
 3693.4km ESE 105° Valle del Encanto* Rock Art
 3706.6km ESE 108° Los petroglifos Tilama* Rock Art
 3712.4km ESE 104° Archaeological Museum of La Serena* Museum
 3723.7km ENE 73° Candelabra* Hill Figure or Geoglyph
 3727.3km ENE 73° Paracas History Museum* Museum
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"Easter Island" | Login/Create an Account | 24 News and Comments
  
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Re: Easter Island by Anne T on Saturday, 02 February 2019
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The Journal of Antiquities includes an entry for Easter Island, South Pacific Ocean, which gives some background information about the stones, petroglyphs and rock carvings scattered across the island. The Journal also includes a list of reference sources for further reading.
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Easter Island people to head to London to request statue back by Runemage on Sunday, 18 November 2018
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Next week, a delegation from Rapa Nui will travel to London to request the moai’s return.
It's on display in the British Museum which acquired the statue in 1869.

“We want the museum to understand that the moai are our family, not just rocks. For us [the statue] is a brother; but for them it is a souvenir or an attraction,” said Anakena Manutomatoma, who serves on the island’s development commission. “Once eyes are added to the statues, an energy is breathed into the moai and they become the living embodiment of ancestors whose role is to protect us.”

More information is in the Guardian article https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/16/maoi-easter-island-statue-british-museum-talks-return
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CyArk Documents Archaeology of Rapa Nui by bat400 on Saturday, 14 April 2018
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"CyArk collaborated with the managers of Rapa Nui National Park, Ma'u Henua and the Chilean National Monuments Commission (Secretaria Tecnica de Patrimonio Rapa Nui) for the emergency documentation of priority monuments within the park. Several of the ahus are being affected by erosion especially following severe weather events and our work will be used to inform the ongoing conservation and management of the sites."

for more see Kacey Hadick's blog entry.
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Easter Island not destroyed by war, analysis of ‘spear points' shows by Andy B on Monday, 22 February 2016
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Analysis of artifacts found on the shores of Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) originally thought to be used as spear points reveal that these objects were likely general purpose tools instead, providing evidence contrary to the widely held belief that the ancient civilization was destroyed by warfare.

According to Carl Lipo, professor of anthropology at Binghamton University and lead on the study, the traditional story for Rapa Nui holds that the people, before Europeans arrived, ran out of resources and, as a result, engaged in massive in-fighting, which led to their collapse. One of the pieces of evidence used to support this theory is the thousands of obsidian, triangular objects found on the surface, known as mata’a. Because of their large numbers and because they’re made of sharp glass, many believe the mata’a to be the weapons of war that the ancient inhabitants of the island used for interpersonal violence

Lipo and his team analyzed the shape variability of a photo set of 400-plus mata’a collected from the island using a technique known as morphometrics, which allowed them to characterize the shapes in a quantitative manner. Based on the wide variability in shape of the mata’a and their difference from other traditional weapons, the team determined that the mata’a were not used in warfare after all, as they would have made poor weapons.

"We found that when you look at the shape of these things, they just don’t look like weapons at all," said Lipo. "When you can compare them to European weapons or weapons found anywhere around the world when there are actually objects used for warfare, they’re very systematic in their shape. They have to do their job really well. Not doing well is risking death."

"You can always use something as a spear. Anything that you have can be a weapon. But under the conditions of warfare, weapons are going to have performance characteristics. And they’re going to be very carefully fashioned for that purpose because it matters…You would cut somebody {with a mata’a], but they certainly wouldn’t be lethal in any way."

According to Lipo, this evidence strongly supports the idea that the ancient civilization never experienced this oft-theorized combat and warfare, and that the belief that the mata’a were weapons used in the collapse of the civilization is really a late European interpretation of the record, not an actual archeological event.

"What people traditionally think about the island is being this island of catastrophe and collapse just isn’t true in a pre-historic sense. Populations were successful and lived sustainably on the island up until European contact," said Lipo.

Lipo and his team believe that the mata’a are found all over the landscape because they were actually cultivation tools used in ritual tasks like tattooing or domestic activities like plant processing.

"We’ve been trying to focus on individual bits of evidence that support the collapse narrative to demonstrate that really there’s no support whatsoever for that story," he said. "Sort of a pillar of the broader study is the fact that this is an amazing society that really was successful. It just doesn’t look like success to us because we see fields that are rock, we think catastrophe, and in fact it’s actually productivity."

The paper, "Weapons of war? Rapa Nui mata’a 1 morphometric analyses" was published Feb. 16 in Antiquity.

Source: Binghamton University, with thanks to Coldrum for the link
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Study suggests history of Rapa Nui - Easter Island far more complex than thought by bat400 on Sunday, 22 March 2015
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A team of researchers with members from the U.S., Chile and New Zealand has uncovered evidence that contradicts the conventional view of the demographic collapse of the Rapa Nui people living on Easter Island, both before and after European contact. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes how they conducted obsidian hydration dating of artifacts from the island to trace the history of human activity in the area and what they found in doing so.

To better understand what actually occurred both before and after Europeans arrived in the 1700's, the researchers used a technique known as obsidian hydration dating on artifacts found at various sites on the northern part of the island where the Rapa Nui lived. That allowed them to gain insights into how the land in that area had been used during different time periods. From that they were able to construct a timeline that showed where the people were living over the course of hundreds of years. And that, the researchers report, showed that rather than a population crash due to starvation, there were population shifts that reflected changing weather patterns. Some areas did see population losses before European contact, and some actually saw initial gains afterwards. The population did see a dramatic decline, of course, sometime thereafter as the Rapa Nui people became exposed to European diseases such as smallpox and syphilis and as many were taken and sold into slavery. This means, the team concludes, that there is little evidence of population collapse prior to European contact.

For more, see phys.org/news/2015-01.
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Adam on his way back from Easter Island with loads of photos by Andy B on Wednesday, 06 February 2013
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Adam from Aerial Cam writes: "We start the journey back home from Easter Island tomorrow with another set of nearly 4000 images, 3D models and Gigapans to work through."

Adam has very kindly agreed to help us create a fuller photographic record of the various Easter Island sites on the Portal - I can't wait!
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    Re: Adam on his way back from Easter Island with loads of photos by AngieLake on Saturday, 11 May 2013
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    I must have missed this news. Am reading an old copy of 'Aku-Aku' by Thor Heyerdahl at the moment and it is fascinating. I'm only about half way through it, but enjoying Heyerdahl's writing. He makes you feel as if you are there, so it'll be great to see Adam's photos.
    (Maybe he'll have some photos of his work at Arthur's Stone, too?)
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Re: Easter Island's massive stone statues once walked by AngieLake on Sunday, 28 October 2012
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Amusing opening lines of an article on new theory of how these figures were put into place.
See this link from Daily Mail online's science pages:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2222376/Did-Easter-Islands-statues-walk-place-Controversial-theory-suggests-megaliths-moved-position-fridge.html
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New book challenges accepted wisdom about demise of the indigenous civilisation by Andy B on Sunday, 24 April 2011
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As we first reported in January, a scientific battle over the fate of Easter Island's natives is ready to erupt with the publication of a book challenging the notion that their Neolithic society committed ecological suicide.

The debate has a modern political dimension. At stake is the central example, cited by Jared Diamond in his 2005 book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive, of the dire consequences that threaten if humans don't take care of the planet.

The archaeological argument revolves around the moai, hundreds of stone statues that line the coast of the now treeless South Pacific island, known to its inhabitants as Rapa Nui.

The almost-naked natives discovered by a Dutch expedition on Easter Sunday 1722 were considered too impoverished to have carved and moved the statues themselves.

The accepted theory is that a more advanced civilisation, numbering some 15,000 people, must have erected the statues, with hundreds of men hauling them to the shore and whole industries devoted to making ropes, rollers and sledges while the rest struggled to feed the workers.

After the last of the island's giant palm trees was felled, the theory suggests, its ecology collapsed, food production crashed, and civil war ensued, leading eventually to cannibalism, with the remnants of the population left to eke out an existence until the Dutch arrived.

But the revisionists, led by archaeologists Carl Lipo of California State University and Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii, argue that this superior society never existed.

More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/has-the-mystery-of-easter-island-finally-been-solved-2274075.html
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Re: Easter Island by IanMilton on Sunday, 16 January 2011
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Never mind the carbon emissions! Unless of course you got there by raft, a la Thor Heyerdahl, or sailing boat? Easter Island was an early example of a community that exhausted its natural resources and became impoverished as a result. They cut down all the trees to make rollers for the statues, so could no longer make boats to fish or get away. (The Burren in the West of Ireland is another example: beautiful but barren). These act as a metaphor for the whole planet and our place in it. I have seen excellent documnetaries about them, so don't need to go there. There are plenty of fascinating sites within walking and cycling distance, or if necessary on a bus trip!
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East Polynesia colonized faster and more recently than previously thought by davidmorgan on Wednesday, 12 January 2011
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New research by an international team of scholars shows early human colonization of Eastern Polynesia took place much faster and more recently than previously established.

The team of scholars describe their discoveries in a December 27 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition article (http://www.pnas.org) titled "High-precision radiocarbon dating shows recent and rapid colonization of East Polynesia." The study is co-authored by UH Mānoa professor of anthropology and director of the UH Mānoa Honors Program, Terry Hunt; team leader and paleoecologist Janet Wilmshurst of Landcare Research in Lincoln, New Zealand; Carl Lipo, associate professor of anthropology at California State University, Long Beach; and Atholl Anderson, professor of prehistory, archaeology and natural history at Australia National University's College of Asia and the Pacific in Canberra.

The study was based on an analysis of the validity of more than 1,400 radiocarbon dates from 47 islands in the region collected from their own and other researchers' published studies.

Polynesian ancestors settled in Samoa around 800 B.C., then much later moved to colonize the region in two distinct phases—earliest in the central Society Islands between A.D. 1025 and 1120, four centuries later than previously assumed. Then, between 70 and 265 years later, dispersal continued in one major ‘pulse’ to all remaining islands including New Zealand, Hawai`i and Easter Island (Rapa Nui) between A.D. 1190 and 1290. The timing and sequence of this remarkable event has been highly debated and poorly resolved, precluding the understanding of cultural and ecological change that followed.

"This is an amazing feat of Polynesian sea voyaging and discovery, and represents a rate of dispersal unprecedented in oceanic prehistory,” Wilmshurst said. “It’s even more incredible given that these isolated islands are spread across a vast area of the Pacific Ocean from the subtropics to the sub-Antarctics. Nearly all of the 500 or so islands were discovered, despite being scattered across an area of ocean the size of North America." The team noted that the voyagers probably benefited from improved canoes and sailing vessels as well as favorable winds resulting from frequent El Niño weather conditions.

Over the last decade, Hunt, joined by Lipo, has done extensive field research on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), where their work revealed that the timeframe of its earliest colonization was similar to New Zealand, which had been studied in depth by Wilmshurst and Anderson. The four researchers met in Hawai`i last spring to collaborate on this new study.

The study sorted all radiocarbon-dated materials into sample categories of short-lived plant remains such as seeds or small twigs, unidentified wood charcoal, bone and marine shells, which Hunt said are the least likely sample materials to suffer from dates being erroneously too old from what scientists call “in-built age problems.” Newer radiocarbon dating equipment and techniques also contribute to greater accuracy.

"An example of a most reliable sample would be something like a rat-gnawed seed," Hunt said. "It's not just the seed, because the seed could fall off the tree and often be preserved well in caves for hundreds of years. But we know that rats came with Polynesian colonists and rats love seeds, so such gnawing on seeds is a sure sign of human arrival.

"This study recognizes that we can't just accept dates for just whatever they are; we have to link them to what's being dated and the actual human event," he continued. "That's true, say, for a piece of wood charcoal. You can date the charcoal, but the question is when did the wood actually die? If ancient Polynesians used wood from an old tree, or worse, driftwood, the age would be centuries too old. It matters because of the big difference in age. When you want to know when people arrived on an island, you have to be careful what mater

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Outsiders blamed for Easter Island’s historic demise by coldrum on Wednesday, 25 August 2010
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Outsiders blamed for Easter Island’s historic demise

An archaeologist studying a remote Pacific island, world famous for its strange stone statues, says outsiders - and not its ancestors - should be blamed for its historic demise hundreds of years ago.
Rock art and moai in the background

Dr Karina Croucher from The University of Manchester says her research backs a growing body of opinion which casts new light on the people living on the island of Rapa Nui, named ‘Easter Island’ by its discoverers in 1722.

“Easter Islanders’ ancestors have been unfairly accused by Westerners of being primitive and warlike, for toppling statues - or moai - and for over-exploiting the island’s natural resources,” she said.

But the art which adorns Easter Island’s landscape, volcanoes and statues, body tattoos and carved wooden figurines, when examined together, show a different picture of what the islanders were like, according to Dr Croucher.

“The carved designs - including birds, sea creatures, canoes and human figures - mimic natural features already visible in the landscape and show their complex relationship to the natural environment,” she said.

“They were a people who saw themselves as connected to the landscape, which they carved and marked as they did their own bodies and the moai statues.

“These people must have had a sophisticated and successful culture – until the Westerners arrived - and it is time we recognise that.

“Early expedition accounts repeatedly show the islanders produced a trading surplus – they were successful and self sufficient.

“It must have been quite a place to live: I imagine the sounds of the carvers dominating the soundscape as they worked on the rock.”

Dr Croucher, whose research is funded by the British Academy, added: “There is a growing body of opinion which says history has been unkind to the Easter Islanders - and my research confirms and underlines that.

“Rather than a story of self-inflicted deprivation, I agree with the view that substantial blame has to rest with Western contact, ever since Easter Island’s first sighting by Jacob Roggeveen in 1722.

“Visitors brought disease, pests and slavery, resulting in the tragic demise of the local population and culture.

“There is little archaeological evidence to support the history of internal warfare and collapse before contact with the outside world.”

Easter Island’s 19th Century history is a sad one: slave raids in 1862 reduced the Island’s population A few islanders survived slavery and were returned home, bringing with them small pox and other diseases.

The missionaries converted the remaining population to Christianity, encouraging them to abandon their traditional beliefs.

Even then, several hundred inhabitants were driven off the island to work on sugar plantations in Tahiti. By 1877, a population of just 110 people was recorded.

The academic, based at The School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, said: “Explorer Thor Heyerdahl famously asserted that it was South Americans who built the moai.

“However, rather than relying on the arrival of a South American fleet of carvers and sculptors, it is clear the moai, rock art and tattooing are very much part of the same tradition, which has Polynesian roots.

“The statues and rock art, although difficult to date with certainty, are the result of a population which flourished on the island until outside contact set the tragic course for the Island’s demise.”
Notes for editors

Examples of rock art include intriguing ‘Makemake’ faces which appear to resemble lichen patterns and naturally-formed fissures in rock which are carved into fish-tails.

http://www.ma

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Total eclipse seen from Easter Island by davidmorgan on Monday, 12 July 2010
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I see that some lucky people managed to witness the total eclipse there yesterday:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/latin_america/10592671.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/latin_america/10594067.stm
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Easter Island finds disprove transportation theory in favour of ceremonial avenues by Andy B on Sunday, 16 May 2010
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[Paul Devereux and the ley line death road people will like this one - MegP Ed]

Archaeologists have disproved the 50-year-old theory underpinning our understanding of how the famous stone statues were moved around Easter Island

Archaeologists have disproved the fifty-year-old theory underpinning our understanding of how the famous stone statues were moved around Easter Island.

Fieldwork led by researchers at University College London and The University of Manchester, has shown the remote Pacific island's ancient road system was primarily ceremonial and not solely built for transportation of the figures.

A complex network of roads up to 800-years-old crisscross the Island between the hat and statue quarries and the coastal areas.

Laying alongside the roads are dozens of the statues- or moai.

The find will create controversy among the many archaeologists who have dedicated years to finding out exactly how the moai were moved, ever since Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl first published his theory in 1958.

Heyerdahl and subsequent researchers believed that statues he found lying on their backs and faces near the roads were abandoned during transportation by the ancient Polynesians.

But his theory has been completely rejected by the team led by Manchester's Dr Colin Richards and UCL's Dr Sue Hamilton.

Instead, their discovery of stone platforms associated with each fallen moai - using specialist 'geophysical survey' equipment – finally confirms a little known 1914 theory of British archaeologist Katherine Routledge that the routes were primarily ceremonial avenues.

The statues, say the Manchester and UCL team just back from the island, merely toppled from the platforms with the passage of time.

"The truth of the matter is, we will never know how the statues were moved," said Dr Richards.

"Ever since Heyerdahl, archeologists have come up with all manner of theories – based on an underlying assumption that the roads were used for transportation of the moai, from the quarry at the volcanic cone Rano Raraku.

"What we do now know is that the roads had a ceremonial function to underline their religious and cultural importance.

"They lead – from different parts of the island – to the Rano Raraku volcano where the Moai were quarried.

"Volcano cones were considered as points of entry to the underworld and mythical origin land Hawaiki.

"Hence, Rano Ranaku was not just a quarry but a sacred centre of the island."

The previous excavation found that the roads are concave in shape –making it difficult to move heavy objects along them

And as the roads approach Rano Raraku, the statues become more frequent – which the team say, indicated an increasing grades of holiness.

"All the evidence strongly shows that these roads were ceremonial - which backs the work of Katherine Routledge from almost 100 years ago, " said Dr Sue Hamilton.

"It all makes sense: the moai face the people walking towards the volcano.

"The statues are more frequent the closer they are to the volcano – which has to be way of signifying the increasing levels of importance."

She added: "What is shocking is that Heyerdahl actually found some evidence to suggest there were indeed platforms.

"But like many other archaeologists, he was so swayed by his cast iron belief that the roads were for transportation – he completely ignored them."

Source:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-05/uom-eid051210.php
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Were rats behind Easter Island mystery? by Andy B on Sunday, 15 November 2009
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By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
Easter Island's mystery — brooding statues atop a treeless Polynesian island — fascinates tourists and scholars alike. And inspires debate.

"Who or what destroyed the ancient palm woodland on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)?" ask German ecologists Andreas Mieth and Hans-Rudolf Bork, in an upcoming paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science. "The circumstances, causes and triggers of these environmental changes are the subject of persistent scientific discussion."

And how. In 2005, Pulitzer-prize winner Jared Diamond revived public awareness of the island with Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. "What were they thinking when they cut down the last palm tree?" he asked in the book. The question had puzzled many scholars looking at the depopulated, deforested island, finally concluding the inhabitants had denuded it of food-providing palms to build sledges for statues and roofs for homes, an ecological parable of self-destruction.

But only a year later, another explanation surfaced in a series of papers by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo of the University of Hawaii. First, they set the date for colonization of the island to 1200 A.D. in a radiocarbon dating paper in the journal Science, more recent by at least a century than past estimates. Next, they proposed, based on DNA evidence and chewed palm remains in the Journal of Archaeological Science, that Polynesian rats brought with those immigrants had been the culprits behind deforestation, eating palm tree nuts.

Without predators to keep rat numbers in check, the rodents ate most of the seeds and the older trees had mainly died out without reproducing by 1772 when Europeans arrived in ships. Those Europeans wiped out the islanders, they suggested, through disease and later enslavement. "It was genocide, not ecocide, that caused the demise of the Rapanui. An ecological catastrophe did occur on Rapa Nui, but it was the result of a number of factors, not just human short-sightedness," Hunt wrote in The American Scientist magazine.

In their new study, however, Mieth and Bork, both of Germany's Christian Albrechts University of Kiel, "disagree with the hypothesis of a major rat impact" to explain Easter Island's demise. In their study, they look at the charcoal remains from fires, evidence of the spread of slash and burn agriculture from the island's shore to its peak. "Over large areas, a single layer of charcoal and ashes several millimeters in thickness can be found deep below the recent surface and on top of the prehistoric garden soils that belong to the period of woodland gardening," they write. "The extensive distribution of charcoal layers can only have one explanation: widespread fires in the woodland of Rapa Nui."

Looking at the march of tree burning over time, cut palm stumps and a lack of rat bite marks on palm nuts found in the charcoal layers, they conclude "deforestation was an act of humans."

"But we were never talking about rats killing mature trees," Hunt says in an interview. "It's very tempting to see one explanation for everything, all people or all rats, but what we were saying was that rats surely played a role on Easter Island." He rejects the notion that a lack of rat-eaten palm nuts in charcoal layers proves anything, saying, "rats are unlikely to eat charcoal."

Besides, he says, "how can you explain the idea of rats not having an effect?" Unhindered by predators and provided ample food, the rat population must have exploded on Easter Island, he argues, eating nuts even as colonists raised farms.

About the only thing the competing viewpoints can agree upon is that drought, a third suspected cause, didn't have a big effect on Easter Island's palm forests, which in 1100 A.D. covered about 70% of the island. "The question is how much of a role did each player have and how did they interact?"

Of course, Hunt acknowledges, the early colonists likely brought rats with

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Easter Island -- tourists destroying 'perfect place' by Andy B on Sunday, 11 October 2009
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Stepping off the plane, tourists are welcomed to Easter Island with a garland of flowers. They find themselves on a tiny dot in the Pacific Ocean, 3,700 kilometres west of Chile, to which the island belongs, and 2,000 kilometres east of Pitcairn Island. All around are the white-flecked waves of the Pacific. "What perfect peace," exclaimed Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian explorer when he arrived in the mid-1950s.

He might not say so today. Some 70,000 visitors now arrive each year, up from just 14,000 in the mid-1990s. Apart from the island's utter remoteness, what attracts the tourists are the moai, the mysterious giant stone statues erected by the ancestors of the indigenous Rapa Nui people. They are a testament to a complex society of up to 20,000 people that later shrank to a shadow as a result of calamitous environmental stress and deforestation, a cautionary tale narrated in Collapse, a book by Jared Diamond, a polymath at the University of California.

Today, Easter Island once again faces environmental threats. Food comes from Chile, either by ship or on the seven weekly flights from Santiago (there are also two from Tahiti). The visitors "all pull the chain," Luz Zasso, the mayor, notes acidly. The absence of a sewage system is threatening the cleanliness of the island's underground water sources. But it would be hard to install one without damaging archaeological sites. Electricity comes from diesel-powered generators. Power cuts are frequent. Trash is piling up.

Many Easter Islanders are worried. Tourists should be limited to 50,000 a year and be preferably well-heeled, argues Marcelo Pont, the vice-president of the Council of Elders, an advisory body. Visitors from the Chilean mainland attract particular resentment.

"They're interested in sun, sand and swimming pools, not the island," says Edgard Herevi of the local chamber of tourism. Tourism has brought migrants from the mainland, too. The population is now 5,000, up from 3,300 in 2002, of whom only half are of Rapa Nui descent. Locals complain that the incomers are competing in the handicrafts trade, carving wooden moai and selling shell necklaces.

There is almost no unemployment, and thanks to tourist revenues and government spending, living standards are similar to those on the mainland. But locals worry about the future. In response, Chile's government is proposing laws that would beef up the island's government, give the Rapa Nui more say in it and allow them to control immigration. It also plans to raise the entrance fee to the Rapa Nui National Park, where most of the main sights are, from $10 to $60 for foreigners.

The Rapa Nui Parliament, a radical group that split from the Council of Elders, is calling for independence. Its supporters blocked the airport's runway for two days in August. It wants to expel Chileans, even those who have lived much of their lives on the island, unless they have a long-standing relationship with a Rapa Nui or are the parent of a child with Rapa Nui blood.

The group also dreams of ditching Chile's peso and forming a Polynesian currency union, including Australia.

Such claims are merely a sign of economic frustration, argues Sergio Rapu, an archaeologist and former governor of the island. Perhaps. But the question they raise is whether greater autonomy to run their own affairs would help the Rapa Nui to avoid a repeat of the ecological collapse they failed to prevent centuries ago.

Source:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/westview/easter-island----tourists-destroying-perfect-place-63835042.html
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Re: British Archaeologists solve the mystery of the Easter Island Red Hats by AngieLake on Monday, 07 September 2009
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A team of British archaeologists has solved the mystery of how the famous statues dotting the landscape of Easter Island acquired their distinctive red hats.

Dr Sue Hamilton from University College London and Dr Colin Richards from the University of Manchester believe the hats were constructed in a hidden quarry and then rolled down from the slopes of an ancient volcano.
They are the first archaeologists ever to have excavated the Puna Pau quarry on the tiny Pacific island.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1211673/British-archaeologists-solve-mystery-Easter-Island-red-hats.html#ixzz0QSiqcIVg


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Re: Model of Easter Island Collapse Might Reveal Message for Today by Anonymous on Thursday, 21 February 2008
I sailed there in 1963 on a trip round the world and the information I got was completely different to what is in most of the articles
What information has anybody got on the "People" who had the red hair as the last person who had it was still alive when I was there
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    Re: Model of Easter Island Collapse Might Reveal Message for Today by bat400 on Thursday, 21 February 2008
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    Care to share your "completely different" information?
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Model of Easter Island Collapse Might Reveal Message for Today by Andy B on Tuesday, 19 February 2008
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Researchers Mauro Bologna and J. C. Flores from the University de Tarapacá in Arica, Chile, have recently developed a mathematical model that describes the evolution – the quick rise and fall – of Easter Island during its golden age. Their model considers the interaction between natural resources and population, and generates a close estimation of the civilization’s collapse time, which can be applied to other similar civilizations.

Easter Island, located about 2,230 miles (3,600 km) off the coast of Chile in the Pacific Ocean, was, and is, one of the most isolated inhabited islands in the world. Unlike most individual societies of today or even in the past, it can be considered as a closed system.

The first settlers were thought to arrive around 400 AD from one of the other Polynesian islands to the west. Over the next 1,000 years, the Rapanui people developed a relatively advanced and complex culture. They farmed a variety of crops, built more than a thousand 30-foot-tall “moai” (stone statues), and saw their population increase to at least 7,000 (some archaeologists estimate 20,000) inhabitants.

But, as Bologna and Flores explain in their study, Easter Island’s rapid growth also meant that the society was reaching the “carrying capacity” of its ecosystem. In other words, the isolated island could no longer support its human inhabitants. The Rapanui continued to cut down the island’s palm trees – which once covered nearly the entire 160-km2-island – at a steady rate, heedless to the long-term effects.

Using their model, Bologna and Flores could determine the civilization’s equilibrium point, where humans can coexist with the available natural resources indefinitely. However, the researchers noted that a minimum number of individuals is required to maintain a population, meaning some species cannot exist at all if there are too few natural resources to support their minimum size. In the researchers’ model, this requirement is the collapse condition of an isolated civilization with a primitive level of technology.

The researchers estimate that Easter Island’s equilibrium population size would have been about 2,000 individuals – as it was around 1175. But by 1300 – just 125 years later – the population spiked to its peak of an estimated 7,000 individuals. As part of the collapse condition, each individual requires a certain amount of natural resources. For Easter Island, the minimum number of individuals required to sustain the species was higher than the maximum number of individuals the island could provide for.

From there, it didn’t take long for the civilization to collapse. By 1225, the island had only half as many palm trees as it once had, and by 1400, there were practically none left. Consequently, the population size quickly reversed its ascent, and fell back to less than 2,000 individuals by 1600. These numbers, from Bologna and Flores’ model, are also supported by archeological data.

“Probably the relative peaceful life on the island at the beginning favored the development of the society,” Bologna explained to PhysOrg.com. “In my opinion, in general, the combination of the increase of individuals and exploitation of resources can cause many difficulties, even to a technologically advanced society.”

Whether or not these difficulties could have been avoided is complex. Bologna says that the question of whether the collapse of Easter Island was inevitable is not easy to answer.

“Surely they exhausted the most important resource (trees),” he said. “At that point, they were forced to change their lifestyle, and apparently they did it fighting among themselves instead of collaborating. Perhaps a collaboration among the several tribes could have changed the final part of the evolution of the Eastern Island society. Hard to say with certitude.”

Whatever the specific causes of decline were, the researchers’ model a

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Smallpox, Rats, or Easter Island Statues Cause of Eco Downfall? by bat400 on Saturday, 07 July 2007
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The giant stone statues of Easter Island have perplexed generations of archaeologists, engineers and scholars. How could the island's inhabitants have erected such massive edifices – each weighing many tons – without the help of wheels, cranes, machines, metal tools or draft animals? The very existence of these giant heads on a barren outcrop of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean seemed to defy reason, if not the laws of physics.

Jacob Roggeveen, the Dutch seaman who gave the island its name when he spotted it on Easter Day in 1722, was amazed by the statues. "The stone images at first caused us to be struck with astonishment, because we could not comprehend how it was possible that these people, who are devoid of heavy thick timber for making any machines, as well as strong ropes, nevertheless had been able to erect such images, which were fully 30ft high and thick in proportion," Roggeveen wrote in his journal.

Yet there were no trees, no timber and no ropes to be seen. Easter Island seemed to be a place of "singular poverty and barrenness", Roggeveen wrote.

However, we now know that Easter Island was once a lush, sub-tropical paradise covered in thick forest filled with a rich assortment of wildlife. But the trees and forest animals were long gone by the time Roggeveen had arrived. The question is why?

The moai stones lie at the heart of the many mysteries of Easter Island. But trying to explain the puzzle has caused a deep fissure within academia. Some archaeologists see Easter Island as an example of what can happen when the lust for material splendour – ever bigger stone carvings in this case – is satisfied at the expense of the environment.

Others, meanwhile, take a different view. They see Easter Island as another victim of European colonialism that killed off an ancient culture. The island, these scholars argue, suffered at the hands of introduced diseases, notably smallpox, and a slave trade that stole a huge proportion of its indigenous population.

At the heart of the debate is the issue of the island's deforestation. There is no dispute that the island was once covered in huge palm trees. There is also no dispute that something happened that caused the island to become completely denuded over a short period of time. But was it the islanders who triggered this environmental degradation, or some other event beyond their control such as climate change or the introduction of rats?

In his 2005 book Collapse, author Jared Diamond explains the islanders started to build bigger ceremonial statues in an atmosphere of competitive rivalry between the island's many different clans. To move the statues from the island's quarry, Rano Raraku, in the south-east, the islanders needed to cut large logs for the construction of long "canoe ladders" to carry the massive carvings to the island's coast. They also needed heavy ropes made from the fibrous bark of the bigger palms.

Crews of between 50 and 500 men dragged statues weighing between 10 and 90 tons. For its transport alone, each statue would have required several trees to be cut down. Other timber was needed for housing, fuel and the construction of the large stone platforms, or "ahu", on which the moai were placed.

"The overall picture for Easter Island is the most extreme example of forest destruction in the Pacific, and among the most extreme in the world. Food production fell dramatically as crops became exposed to the harsh winds and semi-arid conditions of the region. The population collapsed from perhaps as many as 15,000 at its peak to the few thousand that were eking out a living by the time Roggeveen arrived.

Smallpox and slavery killed off most of the people that remained, but the islanders were on the way to total collapse even without any contact with Europeans, says Diamond.

But not everyone is convinced. "It's a shame that some now want to blame the islanders for their own demise," says Professor Terry Hunt, an anthropologis

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Rapa Nui locals question preservation by bat400 on Wednesday, 10 January 2007
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An article on concerns that excavation and preservation of the ancient stone statues is expensive and would turn their home into an "archaeological theme park." There is also some question whether some presevation practices ultimately cause more harm to the sites than good.
Article from the New York Times website.
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Re: Easter Island by TimPrevett on Monday, 08 January 2007
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The Independent and the American Scientist Online both carry an alternative story as to why the island was abandoned.
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