Easter Island (Rapu Nui) is considered to be the world’s msot isolated habitable land (Wolcott and Conrad 2011). The island is 64 miles², and lies in the Pacific ocean. It’s nearst neighbour, the Pitcairn Islands, lie 1400 miles away, and South America lies 2000miles away. The island has a mild climate, and due to the fact it is a volcanic island, the soils are exceptionally fertile. The first settlers of the island (called Rapanuis) were thought to have been from Polynesian descent (derived from Asia), where around 25 – 100 of them sailed in canoes from the Marquesas Islands, around 2090 miles to the west of Easter.
When Jacob Roggeveen first discovered the island in 1722 he found 47 species of higher plants native to Easter and no animals bigger than insects. In summary, Easter was a ‘wasteland’. However, pollen and fossil records suggest that the geography of Easter was the polar opposite when the first Rapanuis settled (Bahn and Flenley 1992) – it had a subtropical forest of trees, woody bushes and a ground layer of shrubs, herbs, ferns and grasses. However, the most abundant type of tree was a palm which is now extinct to Easter, where field research has shown that around several million of these giant palm trees once dominated the island (Hunt and Lipo 2009). The palms not only provided edible fruits and seeds, but the trunk provided wood for fires, constructing canoes and a transportation method for the famous stone statues, and the palm leaves provided uses such as rope and thatching for houses. Although no animals bigger than insects were found by Roggeveen, when the Rapanuis arrived, Easter once had the richest seabird breeding site in Polynesia, and was home to porpoises, turtles, fish, shellfish, rats, seals and large lizards (Diamond 2005).
From looking at archaeological and paleontological evidence, in addition to pollen records, it was estimated that the Rapanuis first settled in AD400-700. However there is major uncertainty over about the date of settlement where radiocarbon dates on charcoal and porpoise bones suggest the first settlement at around AD900 (Hunt and Lipo 2006).The first Rapanuis initially settled on the Northwest coast, and then slowly spread to the Eastern side first, and then the rest of the island. It is thought that by AD1100, population expansion was in full swing on the whole island, with an estimated population of 2000-7000 people. The stone statue or moai construction was around AD1100 to 1400 and because building them was such huge task, a large population was required, thus signifying a population peak estimated at 6000-20,000 people (Wolcott and Conrad 2011) by AD1400. The erection of the moai and population expansion suggests that Easter’s society was that of a complex, organised one. Easter’s resources were scattered around the island; the best stones were quarried in the Northeast, stone carving tools came from the Northwest, the best farmland was in the south and east and the best fishing grounds were off the north and west coasts.
With all of these factors added together, Diamond (2005) points out that:
‘In theory, this combination of blessings should have made Easter a miniature paradise, remote from problems that beset the rest of the world’
So why was Easter not a blessing?
By the time Roggeveen arrived on the Island in 1722, he reported that the island was a treeless landscape inhabited by around 2000 people. When James Cook discovered the island in 1774 he noticed that many of the stone statues observed by Roggeveen had been toppled, and only one tenth of the island was now being used. So what happened between AD1400 and 1722?
From looking at this story so far it’s clear to see some problems already arising that would contribute to the collapse of Easter Island; population expansion, resource exploitation from moai construction and agriculture and potential deforestation.
References
Bahn, P. and Flenley, J. (1992) Easter Island, Earth Island London: Thames and Hudson
Diamond, J. (2005) Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive London: Allen Lane
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