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.