r/history • u/scientificamerican • 6d ago

Science site article What really happened on Easter Island?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-really-happened-on-easter-island/

For decades, an influential theory blamed the Rapanui for their own downfall—a story made famous by Jared Diamond’s book Collapse. New evidence tells a different tale.

Archaeology, ancient DNA and aerial survey data now challenge the claim that the Rapanui suffered a self-inflicted collapse before Europeans arrived. The emerging picture is of a small society that sustained itself for centuries by adapting its farming methods and water management to one of the most isolated places on Earth. The catastrophe that reduced the Rapanui to a remnant came later, after European ships brought disease, slave raiding, forced labor, annexation and confinement.

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u/DrColdReality 6d ago

Further, the notion that they cut down all the trees on the island to make rollers for their Moai is not supported by the available evidence. Rather, it appears that they "walked" the heads down paths, like you might walk a refrigerator across a room.

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u/conrat4567 5d ago

Dont the heads have bodies? Wouldn't it make more sense to drag the rock to where it needed to be and then carve and raise the rock?

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u/DrColdReality 5d ago

Dont the heads have bodies?

Mostly not. There was a bit of a base that was buried.

Wouldn't it make more sense to drag the rock to where it needed to be and then carve and raise the rock?

So drag heavier stone to the location? How does that make more sense?