How would you rather go extinct? Starvation, spears or syphilis? The Rapa Nui had all three!
Hey guys, Amy with you on DNews today. It’s been long thought that the original people
of Easter Island killed themselves off through war. But new information is suggesting otherwise.
Easter Island, the 64 square mile remote Chilean territory that lies over 2,300 miles off the
South American coast, is known to most of us as that island with the giant heads. Called
moai, these statues of human figures with oversize heads were made by the Rapa Nui,
the island’s native Polynesian inhabitants at some point between the 10th and 16th centuries.
But not long after erecting the impressive statues, the Rapa Nui disappeared, and for
years archaeologists have suspects they were killed by an environmental catastrophe they
brought upon themselves.
The commonly held theory is that humans, somewhat miraculously, reached the small island more
than a millennium ago and quickly colonized it. But, with these new residents also came
rats, which they either brought as a food source or as stowaways. In any case these
rats thrived on the isolated volcanic island, finding an ample food supply in the lush palm
trees, and with no risk of starvation, the population quickly swelled to a few million.
The rats ate the vegetation faster than it could regrow, eventually taking away their
own food supply. Less rat food meant less rats and less rats meant less food for the
humans.
Tack on the fact that the local people were also cutting down vegetation for farmland
and building materials, and you have an island that is no longer environmentally sustainable.
Again, meaning less food for humans.
Those that didn’t die from starvation went to war over the dwindling food supply, killing
each other with the many arrowheads archaeologists found scattered around the island. By the
time European explorers reached the island in 1722, there were few natives left. Those
that remained were quickly killed by western diseases like syphilis and smallpox the Europeans
brought with them.
This theory on Easter Island’s history is so prevalent that historians use it as a cautionary
tale of the perils that comes from abusing the scant natural resources available in a
small environment. But new research is challenging this long-held theory. Archaeologists’ continued
fieldwork on the remote island now suggests that disease and slavery brought by Europeans
played a much larger role in killing the Rapa Nui than their own environmental demise.
The findings, published in the journal Antiquity, point to one specific thing. Do you remember
when I talked about those arrowheads the Rapa Nui used to kill each other with? Well, it
turns out, they aren’t arrowheads at all. They’re not even weapons.
Those carved, sharp pointed pieces of obsidian, a rock made of volcanic glass, are called
mata’a, and after analyzing 423 of them, a team of scientists has has now determined
that the objects aren’t suited for killing humans, they’re more suited to be a general
purpose tool. They could have been used for anything from cultivating the land to ritual
scarification to tattooing.
As lead author on the recent study Carl Lipo of Binghamton University, New York, explained
to the BBC, a weapon would be long and thin, like a sword, basically something primed for
piercing an organ without having to get too close to an enemy. The points on Easter Island
are just too short and flat. They are more reminiscent of a spade than a spear making
them tools for survival, like digging and farming.
So if the Rapa Nui didn’t kill themselves, that shifts the blame firmly onto the Europeans
explorers. While rats eating the palm trees and the Rapa Nui felling them the trees to
clear land and make fires would have changed the environment, it seems they remained a
sustainable community for centuries. It wasn’t until the Europeans brought disease and enslaved
the native Islanders that they were put on the road to near extinction.
So the Rapa Nui might be gone, but at least we can rebuild their history through rich
archaeological analysis. But analysing pointed stones isn’t the only way scientists are
recovering lost civilizations. Julian’s got the skinny on how scientists are using
LiDAR to unveil lost cities.
And if you want to keep updated on all things science, be sure to check out TestTube’s
newsletter! Get a weekly round-up of our most popular videos across all our shows at TestTube.com/fwd
What mysteries of ancient civilizations would you guys like to know more about? Let us know
in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe for more DNews every day of the
week.