BC Cook
WE have discussed the giant statues of Easter Island but the statues are not the greatest mystery of the island. The people are. What did they do on Easter Island besides build giant statues? Where did they go? Did they move away or die off? New research has forced us to change much of what we think about Easter Island.
The language of Easter Island, now called Rapa Nui, is so different from other Polynesian tongues that it suggests extreme isolation. No surprise. We have little historical evidence of what happened there before the 1700s. We rely completely on archaeological and environmental clues to piece together what happened in what may be the most remote place in the world where people live. By the time European explorers arrived in the early 1700s the island was deforested and had a very small population. Now we have two explanations for what happened on the island.
We used to think that the first Polynesians came in small numbers around 1,200 years ago. The population remained small and sustainable. The islanders lived in harmony with their surroundings, respecting the fragile balance between humans and nature. Then, a few hundred years ago, it ballooned to an unsustainable 15,000 people. Population growth led to competition for land, food, wood, and other resources which became severe and eventually involved building the giant statues of Easter Island as a way to assert clan dominance over rivals. Abandoning sustainable agriculture, islanders degraded the environment until all the trees were gone. Wood was necessary for shelter, fires, boats and tools. Mass starvation or relocation followed. When European sailors arrived in the early 1700s they counted 3,000 people, a small remnant of a once-proud civilization. The enduring question has been, ‘What went through the mind of the islander as he cut down the last tree?’
New evidence has shot holes through that story. In fact, hardly any of it is true. Settlement began much later than thought, around 800 years ago. The population rapidly reached around 3,000 and leveled off until the Europeans arrived five hundred years later. There was no “Garden of Eden” period when a small group of islanders lived in harmony with nature. There is no evidence to support a period of intense competition between rival clans, no warfare. The statues were almost certainly not built to intimidate enemies. The environment was degraded, the once plentiful trees died off, it is true, but it occurred very early after the arrival of humans. They could not have destroyed the environment so quickly. Not without help.
What accounts for the dramatic change in understanding? What caused the destruction of the trees, and with them the civilization, on Rapa Nui? Rats. They arrived with the earliest settlers and reproduced rapidly. In a healthy environment in the absence of a predator, rat populations can double every six or seven weeks. A single pair can become 17 million in only three years. Nearly all palm tree seeds found on Easter Island show evidence of being gnawed by rats. It was not people cutting down all the trees so much as it was rats eating all the seeds that led to massive deforestation. With fewer trees growing, collapse was inevitable. So, rats (introduced by humans yes, but decidedly not human) brought about the environmental destruction that caused the island culture to collapse.
This conclusion is important because many people use the “lessons” of Rapa Nui to support a modern agenda. They are used to further political motives, environmental regulations, and so on. We are warned that unless we change our ways we will suffer the same fate those islanders did. Before we can do that, we must know what “ways” need to be changed. To learn more about this, Google search Terry Hunt to find the latest research.
Dr. BC Cook taught history for 30 years and is a director and Pacific historian at Sealark Exploration (sealarkexploration.org). He currently lives in Hawaii.
