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Gravity's Engines
We’ve long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end. Often billions of times more massive than the Sun, they...
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Easter Island was once home to lush palm forests. Over time, however, the humans who settled there depleted the island’s resources, leading to wars among clans that doomed the population.
Their legacy, the giant stone sculptures called moai, have drawn intense interest and fascination ever since Europeans discovered them in 1722. 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.
Some researchers doubt that such logging could have devastated the island, especially if the statues “walked” into position, as Polynesian mythology holds. Indeed, scientists published a paper last month showing just how a moai could have been walked with a series of ropes pulled by dedicated volunteers.
Their demonstration supports other theories for the disappearance of the Easter Islanders, such as the hunting to extinction of sea birds, whose droppings nourished the forest. This and other explanations are summed up in this sneak-peek NOVA clip. The full program premieres on Wednesday, November 7 at 9 P.M. Eastern on PBS.
Watch Sneak Peek: Easter Island on PBS. See more from NOVA.
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8 Comments
Add CommentYeah, blame it on the rats! Seriously, though, there must have been an initial abundance of nutrition available for both humans and rats for their populations to have reached very large numbers. At that point, given the fixed availability of island resources, it would only have been a matter of time before they were depleted, unless at least one species was sustainably managing both supply and demand.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToo bad Easter Island had so many sources of nutrition when humans arrived - otherwise they would have been forced to manage their population growth demand from the beginning...
Pardon my ignorance but how did the deforestation of the island make it uninhabitable? Did effect the humans' ability to grow crops? Were they unable to use the rat infestation as a food source?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOverpopulation and irrational, blatant abuse of resources was the cause of their problem. Read Malthus - you have the answer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjcolemanparrott You definitely need to read Malthus, especially if you are truly interested.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the case suggested, that the people hunted the land fertilizing birds to extinction, both forests and agriculture (and people) could have suffered from the loss of fertilizer...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAssuming a large population 'suddenly' found itself with insufficient resources, all hell would break loose!
My guess is that it was caused by depredation by off-island enemies. The story of overshoot however is instructive even if it's false.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjcolemanparrott, I'm not sure that the island did become uninhabitable. We know about the warfare between factions and about the "walking" statues because of the stories told by the natives. However, as I recall the deforestation meant that they could no longer build boats, so they could not travel like they had been able to before.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Easter Island head-torsos represent cemetery markers for kings of the island over time (probably cremated and buried as ash nearby). Some statues end at the upper thighs, with the penis buried in the soil (well pictured in Thor Heyerdahl's book on the island), in the hope of enhancing renewal of kingly seed. Like other Neolithic religions (cf ancient Egypt), each king was believed to be touched with the divine and remain a protector of his people from the afterworld. This involved the 1% privileged and the 99% field hands. History tells us that divine-king governing (cf Louis XIV) was subject to frequent revolts. When the 99% fellaheen on Easter Island had their biggest revolution, they obviously overthrew the head-torsos and broke up some. In short, the mortuary divine-king authoritarian religion collapsed due to governance abuse and natural calamities, as in Egypt. Those slain no doubt included the very minute educated royal-court class. With no education, the 99% would be hoist by their own petard. Their labor at farming would deteriorate. Given a drought or two, the land became too poor to farm. Yes, they had fish, turtles and birds' eggs, but they also had continuing testosterone wars for new leaders. The island then either became uninhabitable, perhaps through poor nutrition and bouts of disease, or was severely reduced in population to primitive handfuls that had lost touch with their cultural roots. Genetically, via incest, their chances of producing new leaders with enough savvy to improve their lot would diminish.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAl Sundel