What do archeologists think killed the original inhabitants of Easter Island?

What do archeologists think killed the original inhabitants of Easter Island?

A series of devastating events killed almost the entire population of Easter Island. Jared Diamond suggested that Easter Island’s society so destroyed their environment that, by around 1600, their society fell into a downward spiral of warfare, cannibalism, and population decline.

What is Easter Island known for and what do archaeologists think they were created for?

Easter Island is famous for its stone statues of human figures, known as moai (meaning “statue”). The island is known to its inhabitants as Rapa Nui. The moai were probably carved to commemorate important ancestors and were made from around 1000 C.E. until the second half of the seventeenth century.

What did explorers find on Easter Island?

When Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen landed on Easter Island in 1722, he found the inhabitants subsisting on sea snails and rats. When they needed to fish, they paddled leaky, patched canoes mere yards offshore. The island itself was a desolate wilderness of scorched grasses and scrub brush.

What artifacts were found on Easter Island?

The Easter Island Museum’s current collection consists of about 15,000 objects, most of which are stone tools such as toki (hatchet) and hoe (knife), and other needle-bone artifacts, ornaments and mangai (hook), coral and timber.

Why is Easter Island important to history?

The island is most famous for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, called moai, which were created by the early Rapa Nui people. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park.

What continent is Easter Island in?

South America
Easter Island/Continent

What did the archeologists find on Easter Island?

Officially known as the Easter Island Statue Project, this team of archeologists put an incredible amount of effort in order to excavate a number of Rapa Nui’s statues. As you can see, the excavation made some stunning revelations about the Moai, giving researchers clues about the structures’ history and who may have built them.

Is it true that Easter Island has heads?

Archaeologists have known since 1919 that Easter Island’s heads have bodies. Did you? THE giant stone statues are even more impressive than they first appear.

How many stone statues are there on Easter Island?

The island is famous for its gigantic stone statues, of which there are more than 600, and for the ruins of giant stone platforms ( ahu s) with open courtyards on their landward sides, some of which show masterly construction. Archaeological surveys were carried out in 1886, 1914, and 1934; archaeological excavations were initiated in 1955.

Why was the moai placed on Easter Island?

According to archaeologists, the location of those hulking ancestral figures ( moai) and the platforms they’re placed upon ( ahu) is based on their proximity to fresh water sources—an exceedingly rare and precious resource.

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