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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm fair doubting and Chuck reboarding. And you guys know

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Speaker 1: that we really love a good historical mystery. It allows

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Speaker 1: for so much interesting discussion. I think, a discussion of

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Speaker 1: different theories, sometimes compelling one, sometimes less plausible sounding theories,

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Speaker 1: and then sometimes just completely lucky out their idea, which

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm glad that we at least get to

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Speaker 1: mention those most of the time. But we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: talking about a historical mystery today. And since Judge explorers

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Speaker 1: first arrived at Easter Island in the seventeen hundreds, people

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Speaker 1: have wondered about the tiny, remote locations. Most startling feature

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Speaker 1: the gargantuan carved stone statues called moi, and in the

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Speaker 1: past people tended to focus more on how the islands

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Speaker 1: people got ar to this really really far out location

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Speaker 1: and who built the moai. So, for instance, the Norwegian

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Speaker 1: adventure tour hired all of Kantigie fame suggested that Peruvian

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Speaker 1: pre Inca came to the island and built these statues themselves,

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Speaker 1: and Swiss author Eric von Donnigen even thought that they

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Speaker 1: were built by aliens, you know, a classic catch all

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Speaker 1: for the most impressive building. Today, though most of these

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Speaker 1: questions are answered, interdisciplinary evidence points to the inhabitants coming

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Speaker 1: by boat from the Polynesian Islands in the South Pacific,

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Speaker 1: so the focus has been more on how these gargantean

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Speaker 1: statues were moved and what led to the populations collapse

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Speaker 1: pre European contact, and recently new information on both of

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Speaker 1: these points has come out questioning the predominant idea about

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Speaker 1: Eastern Island's darker history. It's environmental degradation and the MOA.

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Speaker 1: I pardon it, but before we give too much away here,

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Speaker 1: let's take listen to Candis and Jane's podcast from two

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Speaker 1: thousand and eight. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: editor Candis Gibson, joined by staff writer Jane McGrath. Hey, Candis, Jane.

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Speaker 1: I think that if I could go any place in

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Speaker 1: the world, it would be Easter Island. Really, it's a

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Speaker 1: beautiful place. Have you been. I haven't. I've just seen pictures,

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Speaker 1: but it looks beautiful. I am kind of obsessed with it,

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Speaker 1: and I was looking at videos of Easter Island the

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Speaker 1: other day and I stumbled upon this fabulous piece of information,

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Speaker 1: and that is that Easter Island has its own marathon.

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Speaker 1: And now I love love running long distances. I love

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Speaker 1: half marathons and full marathons. And I'm very slow. I

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Speaker 1: won't profess to be the first line or even like

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Speaker 1: the eight hundred, but I don't think there'd be anything

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Speaker 1: cooler than running around the moai of Easter Island. And

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Speaker 1: it's not that big of an island. Actually, I was

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Speaker 1: looking at it. I mean I saw that it was

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Speaker 1: about sixty four square miles and that's about I mean,

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Speaker 1: just to see the point of reference, like, it's about

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Speaker 1: the same size is Washington, d C. It is itty bitty. Furthermore,

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Speaker 1: it is in the middle of nowhere. I think it's

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Speaker 1: closest land neighbor. I guess a big land neighbor. I

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Speaker 1: think there are other islands smattered around nearby, but not

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Speaker 1: too close by would be chilly. And that is about

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Speaker 1: two thousand two miles away. That's right. If you look

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Speaker 1: at a globe, it looks like just a tiny little

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Speaker 1: spook on the globe. And it's fascinating that people were

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Speaker 1: able to find it as early as they did. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: considering that these are the Polynesians who were not quite

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Speaker 1: sure where they came from, and we're not quite sure

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Speaker 1: why they left, whether there was some sort of dispute

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Speaker 1: the Rows, or whether some got ambitious and wanted to

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Speaker 1: start their own colony elsewhere. But because the Polynesians are

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Speaker 1: such great sailors and navigators, they were able to make

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Speaker 1: it to this island. We know that they sailed and

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Speaker 1: wooden boats that were probably lashed together with reeds wrapped

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Speaker 1: really tightly like ropes, and they were probably a drift

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Speaker 1: in the ocean for about two weeks before they hit

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Speaker 1: land Easter Island, and that was around four a d.

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Speaker 1: And so you can understand how archaeological evidence can't really

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Speaker 1: indicate like what exactly motivated these people because they ended

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Speaker 1: up being isolated on this island for so long. Furthermore,

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Speaker 1: speaking of isolation, we're not sure how many went the

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Speaker 1: first time, and when they arrived at Easter Island, we're

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Speaker 1: not sure if they settled there because they had picked

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Speaker 1: it and they knew it existed and that was their

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Speaker 1: final destination, or if they were so desperate they thinked

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Speaker 1: any land that they could have seen, and regardless, they

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Speaker 1: actually came very prepared for for being ready to survive

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Speaker 1: wherever they landed. Yeah, they had a type of leafy

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Speaker 1: green with them to grow. They had sweet potatoes and

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Speaker 1: bananas eline. Now, who doesn't love a sweet potato gosh um.

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Speaker 1: I think they also had a couple of chickens. And

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Speaker 1: again when they pulled up to Easter Island, I just

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine how they must have felt, because parts

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Speaker 1: of Easter Island were just gorgeous, a very verdant paradise.

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Speaker 1: I think that today archaeologists suspect that there may have

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Speaker 1: been at one time sixteen million palm trees, just you know,

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Speaker 1: an eden in the middle of the ocean. But the

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Speaker 1: part that they docked at was a less welcoming landscape.

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Speaker 1: And that's the thing about Easter Island, as tiny as

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Speaker 1: it is, this little triangle shaped island has very diverse

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Speaker 1: landscapes that has white sandy beaches, and then it has

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Speaker 1: this very jagged and forbidding cliffs, and it has a

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Speaker 1: volcano and volcanoes and palm trees. So who is what

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Speaker 1: they thought? But they set to task, and they did

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Speaker 1: pretty well. They cultivated the land, and they increased their population,

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Speaker 1: and they became a very sophisticated society. Yeah, and you

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Speaker 1: can see you how it was probably pretty hard at first,

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Speaker 1: especially because they brought most of their sustenance with them,

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Speaker 1: as we said, and what was actually on the island

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Speaker 1: itself before they came there was not much. There were

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Speaker 1: there were lizards, maybe an insect um, but but they

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Speaker 1: actually had to start from the ground up mostly exactly.

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Speaker 1: They were able to hunt dolphins and other types of

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Speaker 1: fish in the waters. But it's important to note that

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Speaker 1: Easter Island is not just remote as far as people

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Speaker 1: go and animals. Like you were saying, there aren't very

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Speaker 1: many nutrients in the water, or there weren't at that time,

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Speaker 1: and so not much could be sustained. So there were

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Speaker 1: birds that would pass over, and some people think that's

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Speaker 1: how it got to be such a verdant little paradise,

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Speaker 1: is that the birds would bring seeds that they deposited.

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Speaker 1: And this is actually a point of contention about like

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Speaker 1: how things got there and and um, etcetera, because some

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Speaker 1: historians claim, like we're trying to figure out where the

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Speaker 1: original people came from, and some historians claim, oh, these

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Speaker 1: people came from Chile, obviously, like that's the closest land. Um.

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Speaker 1: But when explorers eventually stumbled upon the island, the European explorers, uh,

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Speaker 1: a Polynesian on the ship was actually able to converse

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Speaker 1: with the people there, and so that's so they were

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Speaker 1: obviously speaking of variation on Polynesian. So they think the

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Speaker 1: people came from Polynesia. And so we could tell y'all

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Speaker 1: about Easter Island all day, and if you don't know

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Speaker 1: much about it, you may be saying, okay, sure, So

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Speaker 1: it's a tiny little island, things are green, people came

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Speaker 1: from nowhere. Great, But the really important thing about Easter

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Speaker 1: Island is the mo I, and ultimately the Moi brought

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Speaker 1: about the height of the civilization. And then they're very

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Speaker 1: very darkest hour and the history of Easter Island not

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Speaker 1: just how they got there, because that part is interesting

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Speaker 1: in and of itself, but it gets so haunting and

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Speaker 1: it really gives me chills every time I think about it.

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Speaker 1: These people had a very specific religion and culture, and um,

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Speaker 1: their spirituality was manifested through art, you know, storytelling and

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Speaker 1: string figures and sculpture. And then they got to Easter Island.

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Speaker 1: The volcanoes and the quarries had all of this ash

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Speaker 1: that was perfect for making sculpture, and so they made

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Speaker 1: these giant heads and they're very stylized looking. If you've

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Speaker 1: never seen a picture of them, I would encourage you

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Speaker 1: to look at the Easter Island Moi and what people

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Speaker 1: usually asso associate with Easter Islands these huge hits huge

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Speaker 1: And what I found interesting is that there actually found

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Speaker 1: other places, like other other cultures did have something like this,

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Speaker 1: but it was the Easter Islanders who actually like they

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Speaker 1: had the most sophisticated in the biggest and the most

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Speaker 1: incredible ones. Well, and you have to wonder too, I

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Speaker 1: think they might have gotten bored and there was a

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Speaker 1: sense of competitiveness among them because they would build these

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Speaker 1: giant giant heads. And just to give you guys an

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Speaker 1: idea average average wise, they could weigh up to eighty

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Speaker 1: two tons and stand up to thirty two ft high.

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Speaker 1: They were huge. They were just giant heads. They didn't

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Speaker 1: have nacks, but they had these really long earlobes and

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Speaker 1: they were very stylized, and their features to their long

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Speaker 1: noses and their eyes are sometimes ornamented with coral or absitian,

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Speaker 1: but they look very phallic and perhaps archaeologists say that's

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Speaker 1: because the population was always struggling to reproduce, and they

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Speaker 1: were fertility gods. I believe they were. They were so

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Speaker 1: they could be phallic in homage to fertility GUIDs and um.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of which, because the population was so challenge they

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Speaker 1: had to inbreed. And so even to this day you'll

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Speaker 1: find some Easter Islanders who have six toes on each foot.

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Speaker 1: It's very interesting, and I guess it also probably stems

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Speaker 1: from the fact that they had a class system even

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Speaker 1: within this tiny island. Their population had a class of

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Speaker 1: like an upper class and a working class sort of thing,

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Speaker 1: and I imagine that contributed to separating how people bread.

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Speaker 1: I think so. And when it came to the moi,

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Speaker 1: this was such a manifestation of honor and spirituality. I

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Speaker 1: think everyone was a participant, no matter the class. I

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Speaker 1: don't know that for a fact, but I would assume

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Speaker 1: that people would come together and there was a very

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Speaker 1: specific process with creating the moi. The artist would start

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Speaker 1: in the quarry and start, you know, putting the rock

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Speaker 1: together and carving it down and chiseling it, and essentially

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Speaker 1: it would be sort of on like a little block

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Speaker 1: on the Tommey finished carving it, and they would create

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Speaker 1: these deep rivets alongside the block. So finally there was

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Speaker 1: just like a tiny little sliver of stone that connected

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Speaker 1: the head to the quarry and this was the keel.

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Speaker 1: And once they could sever the keel, they would lay

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Speaker 1: the head on a series of of logs. We'd imagine,

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Speaker 1: and archaeologists are in dispute about how they transported these heavy,

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Speaker 1: heavy monoliths. Yeah, and it's it's sort of like the

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Speaker 1: stone hinge of Easter Island, because people are historians are

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Speaker 1: boggled by the fact how could these people have the

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Speaker 1: technology in the in the in the ingenuity, I guess,

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Speaker 1: to move these humongous structures. And that's like a huge

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Speaker 1: feat it is. And so people either imagine that about

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Speaker 1: seventy men got together and pulled them with ropes fashioned

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Speaker 1: from parts of trees, or else they laid them on

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Speaker 1: a series of logs in which two layers of logs

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Speaker 1: to be perpendicular to each other. They'd grease them with

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Speaker 1: palm oil and they'd roll them on a platform. And

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Speaker 1: I imagine this was such a painsticking process. I think

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Speaker 1: that it could take up to two weeks to move

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Speaker 1: the MOI important to them exactly. It was very important

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Speaker 1: to them because they put such labor into it, and

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Speaker 1: their final resting spot were on ahu or platforms, and

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Speaker 1: the moi faced inland towards the island. It was obviously

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Speaker 1: meant to watch over the residents and to protect them,

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Speaker 1: so they put these around the perimeter, right, it's like,

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Speaker 1: and so all of these all around the perimeter, we're

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Speaker 1: looking inward. Yeah, and it's really interesting. We think over

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Speaker 1: the course of five years, about nine hundred of them

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Speaker 1: were car and you can see where the artists got

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Speaker 1: competitive because there were so many that were left unfinished

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Speaker 1: in the quarry and archaeologists found them later on um

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Speaker 1: ones that had a flaw maybe, or ones that were broken,

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Speaker 1: you know, whether in transit or whether in construction. They

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Speaker 1: were just abandoned completely. And they were perfectionists. They were perfectionist.

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Speaker 1: This is, you know, how they were expressing their division

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Speaker 1: to the gods. And they got bigger over time too.

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Speaker 1: They started out more modest, and then there was one

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Speaker 1: that they call El Gigante, and it's so big. Of

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Speaker 1: course it's in the quarry. No one could possibly have

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Speaker 1: moved it. But here in lies the problem with what

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Speaker 1: they were doing. Uh yeah, So if we go back

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Speaker 1: to how they transported them, they obviously can'd just suggested

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Speaker 1: that they were using logs and and it must have

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Speaker 1: taken a lot. And obviously they made a lot of

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Speaker 1: these moai, So they ended up cutting down a whole

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Speaker 1: lot of trees. And this ended up being their huge flaw.

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Speaker 1: They're they're huge mistake. You're right, because over time they

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Speaker 1: had such an abundance of resources. I think that they

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Speaker 1: used it throwing cautious the wind, and today we sort

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Speaker 1: of think of trees as the most renewable resource there is.

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Speaker 1: But of course, like on that isolated island, they must

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Speaker 1: have just used up. No, you're right. When you're living

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Speaker 1: in isolation like that, when you use up your resources,

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Speaker 1: and no matter how renewable it is, if you're not

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Speaker 1: getting any more seeds to plant and you're cultivating the landscape,

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Speaker 1: it's over. And that's what happened, because not only did

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Speaker 1: they cut down all the trees, but they essentially caused

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Speaker 1: all the top soil on the island to wash away

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Speaker 1: because the roots were in there to hold it down. Furthermore,

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Speaker 1: they were using the trees to make boats to go

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Speaker 1: out and fish for dolphins. And purposes. This is especially

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Speaker 1: said to me, it's just that they couldn't make boats anymore.

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Speaker 1: You know, they couldn't fish because they couldn't make boat

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Speaker 1: because they didn't have tree. And what's worse than that,

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Speaker 1: not only could they not fish, not only could they

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Speaker 1: not grow crops. After they realized that they had destroyed

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Speaker 1: their island and all the trees were gone, they didn't

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Speaker 1: have anything left to make boats with to flee the

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Speaker 1: isand they were prisoners of their own making. And that's

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Speaker 1: when things got really dark and really dangerous. Paul started starving.

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Speaker 1: Some scholars posit that maybe some may have resorted to cannibalism. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's true. And this is a point of contention because

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Speaker 1: some some historians, notably UM Jared Diamond says that these

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Speaker 1: Um Islanders resorted to cannibalism after, like other food sources

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Speaker 1: dwindled UM and he points to how cannibalism is the

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Speaker 1: their oral tradition. The islanders oral tradition is rife with

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Speaker 1: with cannibalism and talk of it. And there's a little

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Speaker 1: bit of archaeologic archaeological evidence that um human bones were

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Speaker 1: found in these pits of of garbage that where these

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Speaker 1: are the pits where they threw their their food trash

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Speaker 1: and so um. People like Jared Diamonds used this to

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Speaker 1: to say, oh, well, they must have resorted to cannibalism.

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Speaker 1: Other historians are like, oh, no, there's not enough evidence

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Speaker 1: to say that, and we shouldn't say that unless it's

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Speaker 1: unless for sure, and they say that maybe you know,

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Speaker 1: after people naturally died, they there were rituals that people

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Speaker 1: did with people's bones. We know that have and two.

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Speaker 1: So at the point of contention, so however you interpret

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Speaker 1: these relics of bones, you can look at the things

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Speaker 1: that are alongside them that the date to around the

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Speaker 1: same time, and you see that this is the first

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Speaker 1: time and Easter Island that they've manufactured weapons like spears

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Speaker 1: and arrows and things like this, so that there was

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Speaker 1: strive between the tribes were yeah, and we know that

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Speaker 1: when they came there were very very few of them around.

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Speaker 1: The population was somewhere from seven thousand to nine thousand,

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Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds. That was the height of the civilization. It

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Speaker 1: was around ten thousand in population then. But then when

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Speaker 1: things started declining and population started dwindling, we see that

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Speaker 1: people broke off into different clans and essentially they were

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Speaker 1: all fighting for the very tiny parcels of arable land

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Speaker 1: that were left. And it was very, very difficult to

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Speaker 1: stake a claim to this because I think that the

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Speaker 1: Eastern Islanders they were respectful of their gods and they're

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Speaker 1: respectful of women and children. Even the scholars who point

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Speaker 1: the fact that they may have resorted to cannibalism point

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Speaker 1: out that women and children never watched this happen, which

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that means that men were the

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Speaker 1: only ones who resorted to cannibalism if they ate it

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Speaker 1: in private, away from women and children, but I think

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Speaker 1: that they, you know, they were still trying to hold

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Speaker 1: their civilization together, but it got harder and harder, and

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Speaker 1: finally there was this cult that rose out of all

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Speaker 1: the distress and was called the Birdman cult. And the

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Speaker 1: premise was pretty simple. Be the first person to grab

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Speaker 1: the egg from a city turned nest and you're gonna

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Speaker 1: be the leader for twelve moons. And that may sound

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Speaker 1: like a pretty simple feet, but the city turns nests

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Speaker 1: are in the highest cliffs on the islands. That would

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Speaker 1: involve like a swim and then rock climb and then

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Speaker 1: a massive truck back to be the first person to

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Speaker 1: have this egg. And if you lost this contest, it

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Speaker 1: was all that's off because the losers were typically expected

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Speaker 1: to stop themselves with spears. So the Barman cult does

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Speaker 1: sound pretty drastic, but through this there actually was a

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Speaker 1: rebirth and arable land end and cultivation of crops. I

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Speaker 1: think the sweet potato reared its head again, So I

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Speaker 1: think it's for tuvers. Yeah, and they were struggling. They

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Speaker 1: were they were still struggling to to um an extent,

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Speaker 1: and this is when you know, Europeans actually started stumbling

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Speaker 1: upon these people and they finally had sort of contact

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Speaker 1: and access to the outside world. But this ended up

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Speaker 1: causing a lot of harm as well as good um

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Speaker 1: because like obviously Europeans come uh with their own diseases

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Speaker 1: like that they have become immune to, and so they

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Speaker 1: exposed these diseases to the islanders at the time, and

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Speaker 1: so that hurt their population even more. And I think

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Speaker 1: that when the nineteenth century came around, the population had

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Speaker 1: dwindled to only gosh, just a little over a hundred

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Speaker 1: maybe a hundred ten Easter Islanders. And not only did

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Speaker 1: the Westerners bring their diseases, they also brought their religion

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Speaker 1: or ideas. And one of the reasons that it's called

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Speaker 1: Eastern Island is because when it was first discovered, I guess,

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Speaker 1: just governed by Europeans, was that it was Easter Sunday.

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Speaker 1: And it's interesting and throughout the the I guess the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century, eventually Christian missionaries did come over and start

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Speaker 1: and start converting the islanders um to uh, most of them,

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Speaker 1: I guess, and they ended up sacrificing a lot of

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Speaker 1: their culture, which is of course necessary when you sacrifice

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Speaker 1: um your religion. Right when the Christian missionaries came, the

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Speaker 1: exchange for giving up their religion and their culture like

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Speaker 1: their storytelling and their their tattoos and there everything else

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Speaker 1: was that they learned how to use their land to

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Speaker 1: be a ranch essentially, so they had livestock and they

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Speaker 1: were able to say, okay, so we have this very

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Speaker 1: treeless land. Now that's not good for much, but it

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Speaker 1: is good for using as a ranch. And at this

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Speaker 1: time the Easter Islanders, I think for the most part,

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Speaker 1: they were very wearied with their culture and when things

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Speaker 1: had gotten really dark, they turned to the Moai and

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Speaker 1: what and rather they blamed them, blame the gods for

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Speaker 1: what had befallen them, or whether they realized that it

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Speaker 1: was their own very overenthusiastic production of the sculptures that

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Speaker 1: brought them down and they started knocking them down, and

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Speaker 1: you know, like you said, like, we're not really sure

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Speaker 1: why it happened. I remember reading one theory was that

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Speaker 1: like when when the population split into different clans, one

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Speaker 1: clan would destroy those those statues because they believe those

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Speaker 1: were the source of their power of the opposite clans power,

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Speaker 1: and so there's all kinds of theories about this, but

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Speaker 1: um regardless, it is interesting that they made such amazing

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Speaker 1: feats and yet they ended up tearing it down. They did,

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Speaker 1: and you can see where they galuged at the eyes,

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Speaker 1: the name city and eyes, and they would arrange really

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Speaker 1: sharp stones underwear, the head would falls, and then when

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Speaker 1: they knocked from the yahoo the head with sever so

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Speaker 1: they were in essence decapitating these gods. And it wasn't

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Speaker 1: until archaeologists came back and tried to restructure them that

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Speaker 1: they were able to rehoist the moai. And I think

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Speaker 1: that today the Easter Islanders very much accept that as

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Speaker 1: part of their culture. But another thing that they lost

359
00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:02,119
Speaker 1: forever was their language, which was wrong goo, wrong goo,

360
00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:05,280
Speaker 1: and it actually came about from a very dirty trick

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Speaker 1: that the Spanish pulled back in seventeen seventy two. They

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Speaker 1: came over and essentially they tricked the tribal leader into

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Speaker 1: signing a treaty that turned Easter Island over to Spanish control.

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Speaker 1: So while that in itself was not diplomatic to any extent,

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Speaker 1: it inspired the Easter Islanders to create their own system

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Speaker 1: of writing. And so there's still tablets today with wrong

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00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:27,440
Speaker 1: goo wrong but that exists, and I think Easter Islanders

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00:19:27,440 --> 00:19:30,280
Speaker 1: continue to carve these little symbols that no one knows

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Speaker 1: what it means, because again, part of giving up the

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Speaker 1: culture the Christian missionaries was getting you know, ranches established

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00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:41,399
Speaker 1: and getting their crops re established and essentially surviving. So

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00:19:41,520 --> 00:19:44,760
Speaker 1: they made that choice. That's interesting that both the introduction

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Speaker 1: of writing sort of hurt and helped them sort of

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00:19:47,359 --> 00:19:51,080
Speaker 1: in a way like, uh, it's certainly a nasty trick.

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Speaker 1: Could be like, hey, this is what writing is. Write

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00:19:53,359 --> 00:19:56,240
Speaker 1: anything on this line and you're sacrificing your island and

377
00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:58,520
Speaker 1: knowingly sort of thing. But if I also brought about

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Speaker 1: the faut at the Birdman cult to because the tribal

379
00:20:01,040 --> 00:20:04,800
Speaker 1: leader was able to reassert his power through riding. So

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00:20:05,320 --> 00:20:07,800
Speaker 1: it's just such an interesting history and the Easter Islanders

381
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Speaker 1: are very very proud of their history. I think that

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Speaker 1: today there are maybe around two thousand people on the island.

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Speaker 1: Their population is really rebounded. Thankfully they have and they

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Speaker 1: have I think joint citizenship with Chile, so they can

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Speaker 1: go back and forth. And if you want to go

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Speaker 1: to Easter Island, I think that you have to fly

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Speaker 1: to Chile first, and then there are flights certain days

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Speaker 1: of the week that go out to Easter Island. And

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Speaker 1: that's what I mean. It's awesome that Easter Island has

390
00:20:29,680 --> 00:20:32,560
Speaker 1: has um an airport now and so people can come

391
00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:35,480
Speaker 1: and they like archaeologists can study and tourists can can

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Speaker 1: find out the rich culture and it's pretty interesting. And yeah,

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00:20:38,760 --> 00:20:40,960
Speaker 1: they had Chili actually has control over it because they

394
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Speaker 1: annexed it in eighty eight. We should probably mention that.

395
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Speaker 1: But the culture of Easter Island is still alive. The

396
00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:49,240
Speaker 1: people are incredibly friendly and I think that people have

397
00:20:49,359 --> 00:20:51,960
Speaker 1: written that as they've traveled to Easter Island. If hotel

398
00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:54,840
Speaker 1: rooms are booked, you can stay with any Easter Island

399
00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:57,760
Speaker 1: family in their house and they'll happily welcome you. So

400
00:20:57,880 --> 00:20:59,760
Speaker 1: it's just it seems like such a great place to visit.

401
00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:02,400
Speaker 1: I can't wait to go. Mark my words. If I'm

402
00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:09,080
Speaker 1: not dairs, someone comes, shake make please. Okay. So, now

403
00:21:09,119 --> 00:21:12,159
Speaker 1: that we have gotten all of the background on Easter Island,

404
00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:14,760
Speaker 1: Candice and Jane really did talk quite a bit about

405
00:21:14,800 --> 00:21:18,240
Speaker 1: that log roller theory for transporting the meli out of

406
00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:22,000
Speaker 1: the quarry, plus how that heavy use of forest resources

407
00:21:22,080 --> 00:21:26,320
Speaker 1: could have eventually led to the islands environmental collapse. All

408
00:21:26,320 --> 00:21:29,760
Speaker 1: these logs for the statues, no more trees, no more

409
00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:33,679
Speaker 1: comfy island. But last summer, a new study sponsored by

410
00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:37,159
Speaker 1: the National and Geographic Society and engineered by Terry Hunt

411
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:40,680
Speaker 1: from the University of Hawaii and Carl Lippo from California

412
00:21:40,840 --> 00:21:46,399
Speaker 1: State University Long Beach, suggested a new possible means of transport,

413
00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:50,760
Speaker 1: and that is rocking and rolling, or more simply, if

414
00:21:50,760 --> 00:21:53,399
Speaker 1: you think about it, it's walking. How if you can

415
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:57,960
Speaker 1: imagine one of these Easter Island statues just taking the stroll. Yeah,

416
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:00,720
Speaker 1: So this walking idea probably sound a little funny, but

417
00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:04,160
Speaker 1: just bear with us. Last summer, the researchers demonstrated that

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00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:07,520
Speaker 1: a five ton replica could be moved with a team

419
00:22:07,560 --> 00:22:11,480
Speaker 1: of eighteen people using ropes alone, by gently tilting the

420
00:22:11,560 --> 00:22:15,720
Speaker 1: statue back and forth, kind of shimmying it along this road,

421
00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:19,359
Speaker 1: taking advantage of its D shaped base, and it's a

422
00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:22,959
Speaker 1: big belly that allows for for total tilting, so that

423
00:22:24,040 --> 00:22:27,400
Speaker 1: unbalanced aspect of it actually works to their advantage. It does,

424
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:30,359
Speaker 1: and and something similar was done back in nine six,

425
00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:33,520
Speaker 1: but at that point the statue wasn't allowed to take

426
00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:36,240
Speaker 1: advantage of that big belly and lean forward. It was

427
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:39,560
Speaker 1: kept completely upright and it just twisted. So instead of

428
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:42,960
Speaker 1: that shimmying or the tilting back and forth, it was

429
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:46,760
Speaker 1: just twisting, and that ultimately damaged space. And they figured, okay,

430
00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:49,600
Speaker 1: this is not going to work. To really get a

431
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 1: good sense of this, it kind of helps if you

432
00:22:51,560 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 1: go watch a video and it's easy to find online.

433
00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:57,400
Speaker 1: We watched it before we came into recording, and it's

434
00:22:57,480 --> 00:22:59,639
Speaker 1: kind of it's kind of great to see one of

435
00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:02,600
Speaker 1: these eyes just moving down the road bit by bit,

436
00:23:02,720 --> 00:23:04,960
Speaker 1: but it is their striking looking. You have to wonder

437
00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:07,760
Speaker 1: how anybody thought of this in the first place. It

438
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:11,040
Speaker 1: came about when one of Hunt's colleagues, Sergio rapp, who

439
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:13,880
Speaker 1: who is an archaeologist and a member of the island's

440
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:18,560
Speaker 1: indigenous population, took Hunt and Lippo to see all of

441
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 1: those abandoned moi that Candice and Jane mentioned and pointed

442
00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:26,879
Speaker 1: out the seemingly specially engineered features like the D shape

443
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:30,240
Speaker 1: and the heavy belly, things that could allow these giant,

444
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:33,680
Speaker 1: upright statues to, like you said, shimmy along the road.

445
00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:37,360
Speaker 1: But if this theory is correct and the moi were

446
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 1: not moved with logs, that still leaves us with the

447
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 1: question why was the island's forests so totally decimated well,

448
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:48,240
Speaker 1: according to a National Geographic article by Hannah Block, Hunt

449
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:51,640
Speaker 1: and Lippo have also excavated the island's beach and believed

450
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 1: that in habits arrived much later than earlier believed a

451
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 1: d and since this would mean the environmental degradation had

452
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,480
Speaker 1: to happen at a faster pace, They've also suggested that

453
00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:05,680
Speaker 1: the trees weren't wiped out through slash and burn farming

454
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: or through rampant sledge and roller construction, but by rats

455
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:16,119
Speaker 1: grows so Polynesian rats specifically, whose bones litter those same

456
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:19,880
Speaker 1: trash heats discussed in the older podcast, and they would

457
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 1: have come aboard the very same canoes that the Polynesians

458
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 1: arrived in, and the inhabitants would have eaten them. You

459
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:28,560
Speaker 1: know that Candis and Jane mentioned that they brought chickens along,

460
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:32,400
Speaker 1: so um. They would have eaten the rats, but protein protein.

461
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:37,280
Speaker 1: But with no other predators on the island besides the settlers,

462
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:41,880
Speaker 1: the rat population could have quickly exploded, and the hungry

463
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 1: rodents could have gone gobbling up all of the palm

464
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 1: nuts and stopping new trees from growing. Because of these

465
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,120
Speaker 1: forests are very slow growing and if the rats are

466
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:54,960
Speaker 1: eating everything, you're not going to have any new forests.

467
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: And plus, of course they would also eat things like

468
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:01,840
Speaker 1: bird bird eggs and further desks of mating the environment

469
00:25:02,359 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 1: of the island. Interestingly, Hunt and Lippo take things a

470
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 1: step further away from Diamond's poor stewardship theory by suggesting

471
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 1: that the islands people actually had a sustainable society. The

472
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:17,720
Speaker 1: rats just happened to mess them up really badly. For example,

473
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 1: just some things that support this, they built stone wind

474
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: breaks to protect crops and soil. They also fertilized with

475
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 1: ash and rocks from the islands inactive volcanoes, and they

476
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,399
Speaker 1: may have even been peaceful, which is a much different

477
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:37,840
Speaker 1: idea from the predominant competitive, warring and eventually cannibalistic historical

478
00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 1: telling of the situation, though some archaeologists like Rappoo think

479
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 1: that this is highly unlikely. I think that they probably

480
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:48,240
Speaker 1: still did compete over these statues and eventually went to

481
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:50,640
Speaker 1: war with each other. But I think what I find

482
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:54,120
Speaker 1: most interesting is that the story works as an environmental

483
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 1: parable of sorts. Either way. One the diamond theory is

484
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 1: about land management and resources is the newer idea is

485
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:05,120
Speaker 1: more about invasive species rats coming and messing everything up

486
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 1: for you and by a diversity and how fragile it

487
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:11,160
Speaker 1: can be on on island like this. And what's neat

488
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: is is that both of those theories do still tie

489
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: into very timely topics today. I think it is neat,

490
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 1: although I was thinking about a lot. I know, I

491
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 1: wish we didn't have problems with them, but yeah, it's interesting.

492
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 1: And one more point, in case you're wondering, walking the

493
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 1: moi does not look easy. It's dangerous, but possibly to

494
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 1: the theories credit, there are loads of dropped moi on

495
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 1: the road between the quarry and the statues. So and

496
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, especially if they were kind of a warring society,

497
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 1: what happened to those poor guys who dropped a moi

498
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,920
Speaker 1: on the road. I didn't even think of that until

499
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 1: you just set up you'd have to be in big trouble,

500
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 1: I think. So it was really fun to learn a

501
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:53,399
Speaker 1: little bit more about the story and find out that

502
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: people are still coming up with new theories about it,

503
00:26:56,560 --> 00:27:00,040
Speaker 1: and that they are so timely and rats are involved it.

504
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't really see that one coming when

505
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: I saw headlines about the mo i walked to their positions.

506
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 1: So anyway, if you want to learn a little bit more,

507
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 1: we do have the Easter Island article that Candice also wrote.

508
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 1: This was one of her favorite topics. I think I

509
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: actually updated her when I heard this news too, and

510
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: she was excited to know that that there's new ideas

511
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 1: about how the mo i got to where they were. Yeah,

512
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 1: and I mean, I guess we can look forward to

513
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 1: maybe more updates in the future really see how these

514
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:32,440
Speaker 1: pan out. But if you have any stories to share

515
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:35,920
Speaker 1: with us, or any suggestions about this topic or any

516
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 1: others that you want to hear, you can write to

517
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: us or a history podcast at Discovery dot com. We're

518
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:42,960
Speaker 1: also on Facebook and we're on Twitter at mist in History.

519
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:44,880
Speaker 1: And if you want to check out that article, it's

520
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: called how Easter Island Works and you can find it

521
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: by searching on our homepage at www. Dot hot works

522
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:59,880
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

523
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 1: is that how stuff Works dot com. M M