What destroyed the cilivisation of Easter Island
An undisputed answer to a question about the moai
10 metres tall
weigh over 7000 kilos
moai builder were Polynesians
don't know exactly how they moved their creations
Diminishing food resources
Rapa Nui
grassland
covered in lush palmforests
extremely fragile
People
cleared the forests for firewood and farming
ate birds
descended into civil war and cannibalilsm
How the statues made a situation worse
accelerated the self destruction
competed by building
ever bigger figures
Two opposing views about the Rapanui people
populated by peaceful and ingenious moai builders and careful stewards of land
rather than by reckless
destroyers
Evidence of innovative environment management practices
went to heroic efforts
build circular stone
windbreaks
use broken volcanic
rocks
A theory which
supports a local belief
helped keep the peace
moving the moai
required few people
and no wood
few as 18 people could
easily move a 1000 kg
moai
Destruction outside the
inhabitants' control
prevented the
reseeding of the slow growing palm trees
thereby doomed Rapa
Nui's forest