JOIN TODAY
JOIN TODAY

Easter Island "Collapse" May be a Modern Myth

News December 16, 2013

(Wikimedia Commons)
SHARE:

Ahu Tongariki
(Wikimedia Commons)
HONOLULU, HAWAII—According to some scholars, the people of Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, committed “environmental suicide” by deforesting their island, an event that led to the society's demographic collapse. But now some archaeologists, including the Bishop Museum's Mara Mulrooney, believe that intepretation of the island's history is wrong. Mulrooney studied 300 radiocarbon dates from Rapa Nui and found that people continued to use the interior of the island to cultivate crops such as sweet potatoes up until European contact. Previously it had been believed that these areas had been abandoned when the island chiefdom supposedly collapsed. "The new picture that emerges from these results is really one of sustainability and continuity rather than collapse, which sheds new light on what we can really learn from Rapa Nui,” said Mulrooney. “Based on these new findings, perhaps Rapa Nui should be the poster-child of how human ingenuity can result in success, rather than failure.” Mulrooney believes that it wasn't until after European contact and the introduction of new diseases that the society underwent demographic collapse.  

Recommended Articles

Off the Grid September/October 2012

Aquincum, Hungary

Read Article
(Courtesy Aquincum Museum)

Off the Grid July/August 2012

Pucará de Tilcara, Argentina

Read Article
(Niels Elgaard Larsen/Wikimedia Commons)

Ancient DNA Revolution September/October 2024

Ancestors of the Blackfoot

North American High Plains

Read Article
Members of the Siksika First Nation, 1913
Library of Congress

Ancient DNA Revolution September/October 2024

A Stranger in a Strange Land

Cambridgeshire, England

Read Article
Relief depicting Roman and Sarmatian battle
PA Media Pte Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

More to Discover

Features November/December 2013

Ancient Tattoos

Read Article

  • Features November/December 2013

    Life on the Inside

    Open for only six weeks toward the end of the Civil War, Camp Lawton preserves a record of wartime prison life

    Read Article
    (Virginia Historical Society, Mss5.1.Sn237.1v.6p.139)

  • Features November/December 2013

    Vengeance on the Vikings

    Mass burials in England attest to a turbulent time, and perhaps a notorious medieval massacre

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Thames Valley Archaeological Services)

  • Letter from Bangladesh November/December 2013

    A Family's Passion

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Reema Islam)

  • Artifacts November/December 2013

    Moche Ceremonial Shield

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Lisa Trever, University of California, Berkeley)