Easter Island statues may have 'walked' out of quarry (2012)(nature.com)
nature.com
Easter Island statues may have 'walked' out of quarry (2012)
https://www.nature.com/news/easter-island-statues-walked-out-of-quarry-1.11613
27 comments
I think the "scientific consensus" you describe never existed.
I am no specialist myself, but I remember reading a long article about Easter Island, signed by several archaeologists. They were really annoyed by the charismatic people that propagated their romantic views on Easter Island and ignored everything the archaeology proved. IIRC they especially blamed the popular book "Collapses", though others non-historians neither archaeologists, like the Kon-Tiki leader, had propagated other fantasies.
Studies proved the Rapa Nui inhabitants were better fed than inhabitants of other Pacific islands, though the women were below the average and the men above. They had developed technologies that palliated the lack of trees, notably an atypical irrigation system: they scattered black stones in their fields where water condensated at night. There are no remains of wars: no heaps of bodies and no weapons. The moais were not brought down by conflicts, they were laid down delicately when the funeral practices changed. At the same time, the inhabitants stopped producing moais, but it was not abrupt, and no statue was left unfinished because of this. No trace of a collapse until the Europeans arrived.
I am no specialist myself, but I remember reading a long article about Easter Island, signed by several archaeologists. They were really annoyed by the charismatic people that propagated their romantic views on Easter Island and ignored everything the archaeology proved. IIRC they especially blamed the popular book "Collapses", though others non-historians neither archaeologists, like the Kon-Tiki leader, had propagated other fantasies.
Studies proved the Rapa Nui inhabitants were better fed than inhabitants of other Pacific islands, though the women were below the average and the men above. They had developed technologies that palliated the lack of trees, notably an atypical irrigation system: they scattered black stones in their fields where water condensated at night. There are no remains of wars: no heaps of bodies and no weapons. The moais were not brought down by conflicts, they were laid down delicately when the funeral practices changed. At the same time, the inhabitants stopped producing moais, but it was not abrupt, and no statue was left unfinished because of this. No trace of a collapse until the Europeans arrived.
There are TONS of unfinished moai still in the quarry. I've seen plenty of unfinished, half-carved statues there. Many of the broken and restored moai were pulled down and broke at the neck, which would imply that they were not set down gently.
I thought the rise of the birdman cult had something to do with giving up on creating new moai. That would have been a fun contest: annual swim out to a sharp rock where you have to steal a bird egg and bring it back to shore. But the water was shark infested and your fellow competitors would try to stab you to get the sharks riled up.
In any case, Rapa Nui/Easter Island is an amazing place with a fascinating history.
I thought the rise of the birdman cult had something to do with giving up on creating new moai. That would have been a fun contest: annual swim out to a sharp rock where you have to steal a bird egg and bring it back to shore. But the water was shark infested and your fellow competitors would try to stab you to get the sharks riled up.
In any case, Rapa Nui/Easter Island is an amazing place with a fascinating history.
I've encountered the "scientific consensus" that OP describes while being taught biology at University in Canada.
It certainly seems that part of the issue is that "scientific consensus" is frequently wrongly claimed even though there may be a consensus among many mainstream academics in a network.
It certainly seems that part of the issue is that "scientific consensus" is frequently wrongly claimed even though there may be a consensus among many mainstream academics in a network.
> I think the "scientific consensus" you describe never existed.
I appreciate the correction. Thanks.
I appreciate the correction. Thanks.
I don't think there was ever a scientific consensus among people who actually studied Rapa Nui and anthropology that Rapa Nui had an ecological collapse before the arrival of Europeans. (The introduction of Europeans and sheep grazing did contribute to a subsequent ecological collapse, but the indications are that Rapa Nui was considered very fertile when Europeans first arrive).
The loudest proponent of this theory is Jared Diamond, whose credibility among anthropologists is somewhere between non-existent and negative. Given the popularity of his books Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse (the latter of which is particularly egregious in cherry-picking evidence and making stuff up to support his hypothesis), I suspect that's where your evidence came from. The centerpieces of ecological self-destruction--Maya, Rapa Nui, and Norse Greenland--are all not supported by the available evidence. (The cause of Mayan collapse is not agreed-upon, but the climate thesis is problematic since the more marginal sites lasted far longer than the less marginal; Rapa Nui, as noted above, didn't collapse in the suggested timeframe; and Norse Greenland died out when it was dropped from trade routes, not when the environment changed).
The loudest proponent of this theory is Jared Diamond, whose credibility among anthropologists is somewhere between non-existent and negative. Given the popularity of his books Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse (the latter of which is particularly egregious in cherry-picking evidence and making stuff up to support his hypothesis), I suspect that's where your evidence came from. The centerpieces of ecological self-destruction--Maya, Rapa Nui, and Norse Greenland--are all not supported by the available evidence. (The cause of Mayan collapse is not agreed-upon, but the climate thesis is problematic since the more marginal sites lasted far longer than the less marginal; Rapa Nui, as noted above, didn't collapse in the suggested timeframe; and Norse Greenland died out when it was dropped from trade routes, not when the environment changed).
There are plenty of other examples of utter human-caused destruction. Iceland is a prominent one. People are in awe at its unique terrain, so much of which is due to Iceland's deforestation which was completed in a matter of only a couple hundred years.
Sure but there are numerous other examples where human activity has ruined the ecology...
There are many many other examples of human activity ruining the ecology.
The particularity of the (most likely false) Easter Island story is that they ruined their own civilization in the process. I can't think of any other example like that. In all other cases I can think of, technological progress managed to offset whatever damage human activity did, and when it didn't, people simply moved away.
The particularity of the (most likely false) Easter Island story is that they ruined their own civilization in the process. I can't think of any other example like that. In all other cases I can think of, technological progress managed to offset whatever damage human activity did, and when it didn't, people simply moved away.
Pavel Pavel was successfully testing this hypothesis in 1986.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Pavel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Pavel
This has been known for many years and it would match with the local legends that literally say that the statues "walked" to their resting places.
It looks like the arrival of Europeans had a lot to do with the quick demise of the Easter Island, by introducing diseases, rats and by enslaving the local population.
This would match what happened on a much larger scale elsewhere, for example in both South and North America.
It looks like the arrival of Europeans had a lot to do with the quick demise of the Easter Island, by introducing diseases, rats and by enslaving the local population.
This would match what happened on a much larger scale elsewhere, for example in both South and North America.
rats had been there from the start and are a good (imo) explanation for what happened-- the tree and their seeds were preyed upon.
[This explains explains it from an academic standpoint.](https://www.amazon.com/Questioning-Collapse-Resilience-Ecolo...)
Saying that they killed all the trees to help the moai get into place (or similar) is ridiculous.
In addition, the first reports from the 1720+ timeframe (first contact and there abouts) estimated the population at a few hundred iirc, no trees, toppled moai.
[This explains explains it from an academic standpoint.](https://www.amazon.com/Questioning-Collapse-Resilience-Ecolo...)
Saying that they killed all the trees to help the moai get into place (or similar) is ridiculous.
In addition, the first reports from the 1720+ timeframe (first contact and there abouts) estimated the population at a few hundred iirc, no trees, toppled moai.
This is how I move my refrigerator when I need to clean behind it (albiet without rope or a team of people), and it has occurred to me previously that this is probably how people in the ancient world moved large objects such as the moais. I was actually under the impression that this was previously considered, and rebolek's answer above actually reinforces that.
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond is a mind-expanding read. Furthermore, it should be noted that many civilizations have problems roughly around the 250 year / 10 generation time, and the US is quite close to that. Combined with climate change and peak population, things gradually getting more than unpleasant might be the understatement of the millennium. I seriously doubt many civilizations went under quickly, and that most were “frogs” boiled slowly. The time for a dramatic, practical course-correction is now... not tomorrow, not soon and not later.
Guns, Germs and Steel is... not a particularly scientific work. Read some of the refutations linked https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views... here. For example:
> in a world where conquistadors bested Aztecs with with guns and Spanish friars set up missions in communities devastated by plague, Diamond’s arguments would matter. But this is a world Tlaxcalans bested Aztecs, and Spanish friars set up many failed missions before gaining a foothold and witnessing entirely disrupted populations fall to disease afterwards.
> Mass resettlement into compact and unsanitary reduccion towns, disruption and destruction of traditional foodways, abusive forced labor in mines and hacienda plantations, and other factors all enabled diseases to assault an already weakened populace. [Germ] Resistance had little to do with.
> On a similar note, the most deadly diseases did not originate from domesticated mammals
This last one is repeated in another post:
> when I dived into the genetic and historic data, only two pathogens (maybe influenza and most likely measles) on his hand-picked All Star team could possibly have jumped to humans through domestication. The majority were already a part of the human disease load before the origin of agriculture, domestication, and sedentary population centers. Diamond ignored the evidence that didn't support his theory to explain conquest via disease spread to immunologically naive Native Americas.
> in a world where conquistadors bested Aztecs with with guns and Spanish friars set up missions in communities devastated by plague, Diamond’s arguments would matter. But this is a world Tlaxcalans bested Aztecs, and Spanish friars set up many failed missions before gaining a foothold and witnessing entirely disrupted populations fall to disease afterwards.
> Mass resettlement into compact and unsanitary reduccion towns, disruption and destruction of traditional foodways, abusive forced labor in mines and hacienda plantations, and other factors all enabled diseases to assault an already weakened populace. [Germ] Resistance had little to do with.
> On a similar note, the most deadly diseases did not originate from domesticated mammals
This last one is repeated in another post:
> when I dived into the genetic and historic data, only two pathogens (maybe influenza and most likely measles) on his hand-picked All Star team could possibly have jumped to humans through domestication. The majority were already a part of the human disease load before the origin of agriculture, domestication, and sedentary population centers. Diamond ignored the evidence that didn't support his theory to explain conquest via disease spread to immunologically naive Native Americas.
Thank you. Having temporarily fallen for Diamond's all too "logical" fantasy reasoning in the past, I always recoil a bit seeing it cited in intellectual discussion.
Maybe you're thinking of "Collapse", which covers Easter Island?
I found Collapse fascinating. At first it was very persuasive, then I got to the chapter about Greenland, which posits that Norwegians at the time would rather starve than eat fish. At that point the book became fascinating for a different reason: The rhetoric and narrative are good enough to make it seem reasonable that people living on a coast rich in fish would develop advanced boats and boating technique, yet absolutely would not eat fish.
It's all done with smooth prose: The book is smoothly easy to read and your attention is kept where you won't wonder why those boats were developed in the first place.
I found Collapse fascinating. At first it was very persuasive, then I got to the chapter about Greenland, which posits that Norwegians at the time would rather starve than eat fish. At that point the book became fascinating for a different reason: The rhetoric and narrative are good enough to make it seem reasonable that people living on a coast rich in fish would develop advanced boats and boating technique, yet absolutely would not eat fish.
It's all done with smooth prose: The book is smoothly easy to read and your attention is kept where you won't wonder why those boats were developed in the first place.
See above. Diamond's books are fascinating alright but there is no science behind them. They are not true, plain and simple.
How does he define "civilization"? Arguably the US is just part of a much older civilization, coming at least since the end of the Western Roman Empire. Resetting the clock just because some English guys decided to split off from the other English people seems a bit silly.
Right - it has a certain United Judean Front ring to it. :-)
(Life of Brian.)
(Life of Brian.)
Your comment frankly terrifies me. (But I upvoted it nonetheless for being so thought-provoking!)
How does an entire civilization achieve a dramatic course correction without one group of people forcing others to do their will?
Even if it may seem undeniably necessary, who decides what the course correction should be and how it will be implemented?
Or can a course correction be made without somebody deciding for others?
I mean these as honest questions, not just adversarial arguing points. Would very much welcome any insights, thanks!
How does an entire civilization achieve a dramatic course correction without one group of people forcing others to do their will?
Even if it may seem undeniably necessary, who decides what the course correction should be and how it will be implemented?
Or can a course correction be made without somebody deciding for others?
I mean these as honest questions, not just adversarial arguing points. Would very much welcome any insights, thanks!
Generally speaking, the things you've been mentioning have been happening for the last 250 year's. Systems have been put in place that have reinforced certain ways of being as being the ideal or easiest way to do things.
Stuff like class hierarchies, zoning policies, corporatism, segregation... All these little quirks and nudges from the past that may or may not be relevant anymore.
This is why some of the founding fathers did not believe in legislation that was considered binding in perpetuity. With a once and done mindset combined with a psychological reluctance to undo what those before us have done, we lay the foundation through which attitudes hundreds of years old still affect us in our day to day for good or ill without OUR generation having consciously discussed and new a positive decision that a law is worth keeping.
A Government that operates without sunset dates on its laws resembles more a Tyranny of the Dead than a Government of the Living if you will as time goes on.
It doesn't HAVE to happen with violence. However, there has to be some very frank, realistic, high integrity people combing through a lot of detritus for a long time. Making conscious decisions others are willing to back up.
It's not an easy thing. The Framers really never set out for easy in their defense.
Stuff like class hierarchies, zoning policies, corporatism, segregation... All these little quirks and nudges from the past that may or may not be relevant anymore.
This is why some of the founding fathers did not believe in legislation that was considered binding in perpetuity. With a once and done mindset combined with a psychological reluctance to undo what those before us have done, we lay the foundation through which attitudes hundreds of years old still affect us in our day to day for good or ill without OUR generation having consciously discussed and new a positive decision that a law is worth keeping.
A Government that operates without sunset dates on its laws resembles more a Tyranny of the Dead than a Government of the Living if you will as time goes on.
It doesn't HAVE to happen with violence. However, there has to be some very frank, realistic, high integrity people combing through a lot of detritus for a long time. Making conscious decisions others are willing to back up.
It's not an easy thing. The Framers really never set out for easy in their defense.
"Collapse" cover's Easter Island in depth. I'm not sure it's even mentioned in "GGS".
I'm no expert so I probably have details wrong, but basically for decades the scientific consensus was that for some mysterious "penis size contest" type of reason, competing tribes of the Rapa Nui kept building more and more moais, and they needed wood to move them because the moais were heavy. So they had to roll them on tree trunks to their preferred location. They cut down all the trees on the island to move the moais, and when the trees were gone the ecology went to shit (no roots to hold the sand together, etc, lots of trouble).
If the moais weren't moved using enormous amounts of trees, then:
In a weird way I find this a motivating result for humanity. If the Easter Island thing wasn't human-caused, then maybe there's hope left for planet Earth.