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Questioning the Easter Island Collapse

News February 10, 2020

(Robert J. DiNapoli)
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Easter Island Collapse
(Robert J. DiNapoli)
EASTER ISLAND, CHILE—According to a statement released by the University of Oregon, a team of researchers led by archaeologist Robert J. DiNapoli has demonstrated that the people of Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, continued to construct monumental stone statues well after 1600, a date around which some scholars believe society on the island suffered a collapse. The team investigated the construction sequence of the statues, also known as moai, by studying radiocarbon dates taken at 11 sites. They found that the islanders began to build moai soon after they settled Rapa Nui in the thirteenth century and continued to construct them at least 150 years after the supposed collapse around 1600. Accounts left by Dutch explorers who reached the island in 1722 suggest the islanders were still using the moai for rituals. Later Spanish voyagers, who landed on the island in 1770, also reported the moai were still in use, though by 1774 the British explorer James Cook found that Rapa Nui was in a state of crisis and that many moai had been overturned. "The way we interpret our results and this sequence of historical accounts is that the notion of a pre-European collapse of monument construction is no longer supported," DiNapoli said. To read in depth about Polynesian prehistory, go to “Letter From Hawaii: Inside Kauai’s Past."

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