Huge stone figures, massive ritual platforms: The culture of Rapa Nui on Easter Island remains a mystery to this day – also because it is said to have collapsed before the first Europeans arrived. But now a new study raises doubts about this scenario. Because historical documents and evidence of a continuing construction activity by the Rapa Nui speak against such a collapse. Instead, the decline of culture appears to have only started after contact with the Europeans.
Easter Island is relatively isolated in the middle of the Pacific – around 2,000 kilometers from the nearest Polynesian island and 3,000 kilometers from South America. It was therefore not settled by Polynesian sailors until the 13th century. Back then, they began to transform the island according to their needs relatively quickly and developed their own culture. The Rapa Nui, as these residents of Easter Island are called, built massive stone platforms on which they placed huge, human-like stone figures. These moai were probably used for ritual purposes.
Collapse around 1600?
According to common wisdom, the intensive clearing of trees and overuse of the land by the Rapa Nui led to increased erosion, lack of food and the associated collapse of Easter Island culture. As early as 1600 – and thus long before the first Europeans arrived – the building of new stone figures and platforms is said to have ceased as a result of this social, cultural and ecological disaster. “In general opinion, the Rapa Nui society collapsed when the first Europeans saw it,” explains Robert DiNapoli of the University of Oregon.
DiNapoli and his colleagues have now checked whether this assumption is correct using a new analysis of the existing radiocarbon dating, the geological and physical data around the stone platforms and based on historical records. “It has only recently become possible for and archaeologists to examine groups of such data for patterns using advanced statistical analysis,” explains co-author Carl Lipo of Binghamton University. “We use this method to reconstruct the history of platform building on Easter Island for the first time.”
New buildings after the arrival of the first Europeans
The evaluations gave surprising results. Contrary to popular belief, the Rapa Nui still built new stone platforms after 1600. “We found that people started building these stone monuments shortly after they arrived on the island,” says Lipo. “Then they continued this work well into the time when the first Europeans arrived from 1722.” According to the dates, the construction of the stone platforms continued at least until 1750, as the researchers report. However, a collapse of the Rapa-Nui culture around 1600 could not be traced in their data.
“Our results demonstrate the absence of any evidence of a collapse before the first contact with Europeans,” the archaeologists state. Instead, the Rapa Nui society must have been largely intact and flourishing until the middle of the 18th century. This is also supported by early historical documents by Dutch sailors who reached the Ostersinel in 1722. Her descriptions of the customs and rituals of the locals give no indication of a social decay of the Rapa Nui. The same applies to reports by Spanish seafarers from 1770. “Their stays on the island were short and their descriptions were rather short. But they still provide us with useful information, ”says DiNapoli.
However, shortly after the Spaniards’ visits, there were obviously drastic changes among the residents of Easter Island: When British cook James Cook reached Easter Island in 1774, he encountered a culture that showed clear signs of a crisis. “Once the Europeans arrived on the island, there were many documented events such as epidemics, murder, slave driving, and other conflicts,” reports Lipo. But these events are due to external influences. “We interpret our results and historical evidence so that there was no collapse of the monument construction before the arrival of the Europeans,” says DiNapoli.
Source: University of Oregon; Specialist article: Journal of Archaeological Science, doi: 10.1016 / j.jas.2020.105094