Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Rapa Nui island at sunset with moai statues along the coast (Google Images)

 

 

If you have seen images of colossal stone heads on an island or near an ocean then you a familiar with Rapa Nui (aka, Easter Island).  This remote island is located off the coast of Chile, and it was once the home to a thriving cultural group.  Unfortunately, that cultural group was wiped out before any appropriate chronically of their lives, histories, beliefs, etc. were recorded, leaving them and the island shrouded in mystery.  This blog post will provide information about what is currently known about the Rapanui Polynesians who once occupied the island.

 

Rapa Nui is a unique island located off the coast of Chile. The island formed out of an extinguished volcano.  This resulted in the island bedrock being very porous, thereby making it difficult for freshwater resources to exist.  There are very few that exist on the island today, although limited archaeological evidence suggests that the current environment is far sparser than it was in the past.  It is unclear if this was the case or not given the lack of evidence that can be recovered from the island.  Regardless, the environmental conditions and isolation of the island from other habitable locations did not stop Polynesians from settling on the island around 400 CE.  They brought with them several domesticates, such as chickens, sweet potatoes, taros, yams, and more.  They also brought with them their language and culture, which are like other Tahitian and Polynesian languages and cultures throughout the Pacific. 

 

Over time, the Rapa Nui established a chiefdom level society.  Lands were divided among clans.  The people maintained an agrarian lifestyle, and they managed to thrive on the island for several centuries.  Between the 12^th and 17^th centuries they quarried volcanic stone from Rano Raraku, a volcanic depression of the eastern side of the island.  The quarried stone was used to construct the large colossal stone heads that the island is best known for.  These are called moai, and their specific purpose has not been precisely identified yet.  They are known to exist in three locations on the island, including Rano Raraku and along roads within the island interior and along the coasts.  Most recently, scholars conducted a study of these coastal moai and concluded that they may have served a purpose in helping the islanders collect fresh water.  Because of the porous bedrock water does not stand on the island surface, and it instead flows through the island back into the ocean.  The coastal moai appear to be in locations where the fresh water flowed into the ocean, and during low tides these underground waterways are visible as they dump the island’s collected water into the ocean.  These could have been markers for the islanders to know where to collect that freshwater before it was lost to the ocean. 

 

It is imprecisely known how the moai were moved throughout the island.  They vary in size and weight, with the largest being 10 meters in height and weighing close to 50 tons.  The hundreds (although some scholars say 1000s) of moai from the island could not have been moved easily, leading various scholars to question how they were moved.  Several hypotheses have been put forward and tested, but this debate remains.

 

As does the debate about the fall of the Rapanui Polynesians.  When Dutch colonists encountered the Rapanui Polynesians on Easter Sunday in 1722, which is how the island got its second name (Easter Island), the Dutch said they encountered several hundred islanders.  Scholars believe that either the Rapanui Polynesians were responsible for their own collapse through environmental degradation by overusing their resources.  This ignores the role of Europeans in the extermination of much of the remaining population, who were central to spreading diseases that killed off many of the Rapanui Polynesians.  Those who did not die from disease were killed through enslaved labor. 

 

Bibliography

Dapcevich, M. (2018, October 11). Scientists Believe They Have Finally Discovered What Easter Island's Statues Were For. Retrieved from IFL Science: https://www.iflscience.com/scientists-may-have-just-discovered-what-easter-islands-statues-were-for--50105

Lipo, C., Hunt, T., & Haoa, S. (2012). he ‘Walking’ Megalithic Statues (Moai) of Easter Island. Journal of Archaeological Science.

Pakandam, B. (2009). Why Easter Island Collapsed: an answer for an enduring question. Unpublished Report.

Pitts, M., Miles, J., Pagi, H., & Earl, G. (2014). Hoa Hakananai'a: A new study of an Easter Island statue in the British Museum. The Antiquaries Journal, 291-321.

Van Tilburg, J. a. (1987). Symbolic stratigraphy: Rock art and the monolithic statues of Easter Island. World Archaeology, 133-149.

Anthropology as a Holistic Discipline: Archaeolinguistics & Ancient DNA Analyses Crack Origins of Transeurasian Languages

Anthropology is a holistic discipline, meaning one must understand all the anthropological subfields to truly understand what it means to be human.  Despite this there has been a push for anthropologists to specialize in one, maybe two, subfields.  Typically, this results in sociocultural and linguistic anthropological studies, and physical/biological anthropological and archaeological investigations.  More recently, though, there has been greater collaboration among anthropologists, bridging the divide and leading to truly holistic studies.  These collaborations have enriched our understanding of human history, including identify the origins of Transeurasian languages.

 

Transeurasian languages include a wide diversity of languages spoken throughout eastern Asia, including but not limited to Japanese, Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic, and Turkic languages.  For a long time scholars were unsure if these languages shared a common proto (parent) language, or if they were simply a variety of languages that borrowed from each other over time.  This question was a contentious debate among linguistics until recently due to the collaborative research completed by linguistic, archaeological, and paleogenetic scholars out of the Max Plank Institute. 

 

These scholars opted to use multiple lines of evidence to explore this linguistic matter.  They drew upon historical linguistic, archaeological, and ancient genetic evidence.  They studied common vocabulary among the modern languages of this language family, statistically analyzing them for similarities and differences.  They then compared these results further with previously documented historical evidence of vocabulary spoken within these languages in the past.  They discovered a key aspect of language change within these languages was due to the introduction of specific vocabulary related to agriculture, specifically terms related to agricultural crops and technologies.

 

They also examined the archaeological evidence.  They discovered the migration patterns of ancient people within the geographical space where Transeurasian languages are spoken.  They also chronologically mapped when these groups adopted new agricultural patterns, be it new domesticates or technologies.  This helped expose the origins of the Transeurasian languages further.

 

A final key to this issue was the study of ancient DNA recovered from 19 ancient individuals who resided in the region.  The ancient DNA results showed biological relations among individuals which matched linguistic clusters.  This meant that people who spoke similar or the same languages were related to each other.

 

Ultimately, these researchers were able to conclude that Transeurasian languages developed from one proto (parent) language.  This was the result of the multiple lines of linguistic, archaeological, and genetic evidence demonstrating that there was first a group of Neolithic millet farmers who resided in the Liao River Valley (China) who spoke the proto-language.  Over time these proto-language populations migrated northwest and settled in new areas.  This resulted in the language these groups spoke changing, which were the result of new agricultural products and technologies being introduced and adopted.  As new contact with different groups of people occurred (due to trade, a latent result of the adoption of agriculture and evolution of social groups) the languages changed further, leading to the great diversity of Transeurasian languages spoken today.

 

References

Robbeets, M., Bouckaert, R., Conte, M. et al. Triangulation supports agricultural spread of the Transeurasian languages. Nature 599, 616–621 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04108-8

Bringing the Past to Life: The Kennis Brothers, Paleo-Artists

Figure 1: The Kennis brothers working in their studio (Source: Alamy Stock Photos)

 

If you ever wandered through a museum or opened a textbook on ancient life then you may have viewed any number of sculptures or illustrations of ancient creatures.  These creatures are often very far removed from their modern descendants, leading many to question how and why the artists decided upon the stylistic choices they made.  These criticisms have led some artists to draw upon scientific research to inform their creativity, which is very much the case for Adrie and Alfons Kennis, two highly sought-after paleo-artists (Figure 1).

 

If you ask Adrie and Alfons Kennis, identical twins from the Netherlands, what led them to their careers in paleo-artistry they will quickly admit that they were not good at traditional schoolwork, such as math or reading.  They loved art and spent much of their time drawing.  They drew inspiration from illustrator Zdenek Burian, who drew and painted various hominids, particularly Neanderthals.  They were fascinated by the scenes in Burian’s work, and during family vacations they would visit the various sites that Neanderthals had previously occupied.  Over time, they, too, became critical of the depictions of hominid ancestors, asking questions pertaining to the realism of the scenes.  Dissatisfied with what they were seeing they opted to enter the field and try their hand at reconstructing human ancestors.

 

They began by studying anatomy, art, biology, evolutionary theory, forensic facial reconstructions, and more.  They constructed a studio in their hometown of Arnhem, Netherlands, which the filled with casts of various human, nonhuman primate, and hominids skeletal elements (cranial and post-cranial remains).  They began creating their sculptures within short order.  First, they build a model of the individual’s skeleton.  They take great care in studying the features of every bone to understand the location, size, and depth of muscles and soft tissues that are then reconstructed onto the model skeleton.  This is where the forensic methods come in, but they also rely on their understanding of human and nonhuman primate anatomy and morphology to inform their modeling of the individual’s body. 

 

Additionally, they draw upon ethnographic anthropological methods.  By studying contemporary foraging groups they gain insights into how the physical environment affects the body.  Prolonged sun exposure will darken the skin over time, while repetitious physical activity will mold and shape the bones and body for functional precision.  Ethnographic photographs of foragers during colonization also provide insights into cultural elements that could be present on hominids bodies.  For example, many artists will depict clothed hominids, but the reality is that there is no evidence to support this stylistic choice.  Modern foragers are often naked, for both practical and cultural reasons (e.g., they do not feel shame in being nude), leading the Kennis brothers to leave their hominid models naked.

 

The brothers will draw upon the material cultural evidence found with specific hominid remains to decide if and what cultural elements should be present on the body.  For example, Neanderthals have been recovered buried with all manner of artifacts.  They wore jewelry and used pigments on the deceased, which are replicated in various sculptures of Neanderthals the Kennis brothers have created.

 

With the publication of ancient DNA results the Kennis brothers have a new avenue of information to draw upon.  These pieces of evidence have led them to make informed choices concerning skin, hair, and eye color for their sculptures.  This had led to some controversies, such as was the case with their reconstruction of Cheddar Man.  Cheddar Man was one of the first Homo sapiens in the United Kingdom, and ancient DNA analyses provided insights into his skin and eye color.  From this information the Kennis brothers created a sculpture of a dark-skinned man with blue eyes, leading to public shock and some outcry.  This was tempered by release of the ancient DNA results.

 

The Kennis brothers have created at least a dozen hominid sculptures and illustrations.  Their work is on display in various museums across Europe, as well as present in various publications (e.g., textbooks and magazines).  Their work is quite expensive, but it is worth every penny.  They do not let anything leave their studio without approval by the both of them, and they hold themselves to incredibly high standards.  This has paid off since the scientific community and the public love their work, which is in large part due to the humanity they bring to the creations.

 

References

Buchan, K. (2018, May 5). Meet the ancestors… the two brothers creating lifelike figures of early man. The Guardian.

California-TV, U. o. (Director). (2018). CARTA: Imagination and Human Origins: Adrie & Alfons Kennis - Using Imagination to Create Reconstructions of Ancient Hominins [Motion Picture].

Hendry, L. (2018). Bringing a Neanderthal to life: the making of our model. Retrieved from Natural History Museum: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/bringing-a-neanderthal-to-life-the-making-of-our-model.html

Kennis, A., & Kennis, A. (n.d.). About. Retrieved from Kennis and Kennis: https://www.kenniskennis.com/about/