How did humans destroy Easter Island?

How did humans destroy Easter Island?

However new evidence based on pollen analysis supports a much simpler theory, that the Easter Island inhabitants destroyed their own society through deforestation. When Easter Island was “discovered” by Europeans in 1722, it was a barren landscape with no trees over ten feet in height.

Can you touch the statues on Easter Island?

Touching a Moai is not only forbidden but will land you in major trouble. Visitors are forbidden from touching the Moai and breaking the law carries a hefty fine. Most recently a Finnish tourist was fined $17,000 US for touching a Moai and breaking its earlobe as a souvenir.

Why did the people of Easter Island stop making statues?

Cristián Moreno Pakarati, who also trains tour guides on the island, explained that locals stopped making moai during a time of high deforestation. Without trees, islanders had to build specialized rock gardens, which kept the soil humid. Hundreds of years of sun, wind, and rain have battered the moai.

Why are the Easter Island statues important?

They stand with their backs to the sea and are believed by most archaeologists to represent the spirits of ancestors, chiefs, or other high-ranking males who held important positions in the history of Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, the name given by the indigenous people to their island in the 1860s.

Was there cannibalism on Easter Island?

With no trees to anchor the soil, fertile land eroded away resulting in poor crop yields, while a lack of wood meant islanders couldn’t build canoes to access fish or move statues. This led to internecine warfare and, ultimately, cannibalism.

Do Easter Island statues have bodies?

As a part of the Easter Island Statue Project, the team excavated two moai and discovered that each one had a body, proving, as the team excitedly explained in a letter, “that the ‘heads’ on the slope here are, in fact, full but incomplete statues.”

Does Easter Island have WiFi?

In Easter Island almost all hotels offer internet connection, in some cases through computers accessible to customers and in others there is WiFi signal, although it usually covers only the common areas and not the rooms. In both cases the connection is still very slow and is often interrupted.

Do the Easter Island statues have bodies?

Who owns Easter Island?

Chile
Chile annexed Easter Island in 1888. In 1966, the Rapa Nui were granted Chilean citizenship. In 2007 the island gained the constitutional status of “special territory” (Spanish: territorio especial). Administratively, it belongs to the Valparaíso Region, constituting a single commune of the Province Isla de Pascua.

Does anyone still live on Easter Island?

The 2017 Chilean census registered 7,750 people on the island, of whom 3,512 (45\%) considered themselves Rapa Nui. Easter Island is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world.

Do the giant heads of Easter Island have bodies?

Why are there so many statues on Easter Island?

The answer lies in Easter islands’ ecological past, when the island was not a barren place. The Easter Island of ancient times supported a sub-tropical forest complete with the tall Easter Island Palm, a tree suitable for building homes, canoes, and latticing necessary for the construction of such statues.

Are Easter Island’s famous moai statues linked to the Rapanui’s downfall?

One theory posits that the famous moai statues of Easter Island are linked to the downfall of the Rapanui. We’ve got theories… The question of what happened to the Rapanui, Easter Island’s native population, is one of the world’s most intriguing mysteries, while the myths surrounding the famous moai statues they created persist to this day.

How many people were taken from Easter Island?

According to Easter Island: The Truth Revealed, approximately 1,500 to 2,000 people – half the population – were taken in 1862 in a raid by slave traders from Peru to work there, predominately in agriculture.

How did Easter Island get rid of its own society?

Still others are convinced that an ancient society with the capability of flight constructed them along with the Nazca lines in Peru. However new evidence based on pollen analysis supports a much simpler theory, that the Easter Island inhabitants destroyed their own society through deforestation.