The History and Future of Easter Island

Easter Island is one of the most unusual places on the planet. In A Green History of the World Clive Ponting notes, “Easter Island is one of the most remote, inhabited places on earth. Only some 150 square miles in area, it lies in the Pacific Ocean, 2,000 miles off the west coast of South America and 1,250 miles from the nearest inhabitable land of Pitcairn Island,” (Ponting, 1991). The extreme isolation of Easter Island or Rapa Nui is not the islands most distinguishing feature. The most interesting feature of Easter Island is the evidence that an advanced civilization once lived there. The most obvious indication of this advanced civilization existing are the moai (pronounced moe-eye). Moai are the huge statues that everyone associates with Easter Island. In Island at the Center of the World Father Sebastian Englert states, “I suppose that for all time the classic symbol of Easter Island will be a gigantic brooding moai, his lips curled with disdain, gazing out to sea from the slopes of Rano Raraku. Perhaps this is rightly so, for the carving, transportation, and erection of these gigantic monuments were an accomplishment worthy of the highest admiration.” (Englert, 1970). What is important about the moai is that they could not have been built by a primitive society. Their very existence suggests that Easter Island had to have been home to an advanced civilization. Sculpting and transporting these huge statues would have required a relatively large and organized society. This seemed to be impossible from the conditions observed by the first Europeans. According to Ponting, The Dutch Admiral Roggeveen, onboard the Arena, was the first European to visit the island on Easter Sunday 1722. He found a society in a primitive state with about 3,000 people living in squalid reed huts or caves, engaged in almost perpetual warfare and resorting to cannibalism in a desperate attempt to supplement the meager food supplies available on the island (Ponting, 1991).

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