One of the most remote populated places on Earth is Rapa Nui, better known as Easter
Island.
It is located 3600 km from the coast of Chile, country it belongs to.
This small island, of only a bit more than 160 square km, with a population of around
6000 people, has fascinated everyone for years thanks to its mysterious statues, discovered
in the early 18th century.
On Sunday 5th of April 1722, the Dutch sailor Jakob Roggeveen arrived to this territory
during his trip around Oceania, and he named it "Easter Island" as it was the day of that
festivity.
Even though, apparently, it was just a normal place, the team was astonished when they found
nearly a thousand enigmatic statues around the whole island.
These statues, known as "moais" are gigantic huma-shaped sculptures made of volcanic stones,
that go all the way from three to ten or more meters tall.
And they are not only amazing because of their height: their weight can get up to 80 tons
in some cases.
They were sculpted directly on the stone, which was extracted from the vicinity of the
volcanic crater of the island.
First, they sculpted the front part, and then they chiseled the back of it, to make it come
off the rock.
Once it was done, they slid the moai down the mountain with a system made of wood and
ropes, and then placed it on a hole that kept it standing.
We still don't know exactly how they could move such big and heavy statues.
People say they balanced them sideways over their base while they pulled them forward,
using trunks or a sled system.
Historians believe these statues, built between the years 700 and 1600 AD, represent the gods
of the first inhabitants in the island.
Though it could also be their most important ancestors, who after dying extended their
spiritual power through the Moais, to protect them.
Many have wondered how such a small population could actually build more than 900 sculptures
of these characteristics.
And they have come to the conclusion that the 3000 people living on the island that
European navigators found when they arrived couldn't have been enough.
One of the theories suggests that in the Easter Island up to 15000 people got to live together
at its peak - and this amount of people would have been enough to build so many moais.
But... what happened there that made population decrease so drastically in so little time?
They believe in the beginning the island was rich on resources, and the people living there
used them as the population kept growing.
However, the more people living there, the more land and wood they needed to farm, hunt
and fish.
This, along with a rivalry between tribes to see who built the most impressive moais,
led to an overuse of the resources of the island.
The scarce raw material that was left was used to build the statues, keeping them from
building houses to live in and boats to fish with.
The cutting down of forests made the soil erode, making it difficult to cultivate and
leading to a huge famine.
This led to strong conflicts between its inhabitants, the appearance of slavery and probably cannibalism
as well.
As it was an isolated place, people couldn't scape, so they died there after the collapse
of their society.
The Easter Island and the carelessness of its inhabitants has left a fascinating and
enigmatic legacy in their Moais, witnesses of the destruction of its own people.
This should be a good reminder of what can happen to us if we don't use rationally the
resources in our planet.
So, you've been warned, Tiktakers... let's take good care of it!