The Easter Island Catastrophe
by
John Flenley
School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Easter Island is exceptionally isolated in the South Pacific. When Europeans first visited the island in 1722 AD, they found a population of about 4000 Polynesians scratching a living among what appeared to be the ruins of a collapsed civilization. Stone figures weighing up to 80 tonnes littered the landscape and there were also numerous bas-relief rock carvings. Ethnology and Archaeology have combined to reconstruct this lost civilization, which appears to have developed progressively fromc.700 AD to 1400 AD. At its height around 1500 AD there were perhaps 10, 000 people or more who constructed over 700 giant statues, transported them over distances of 10 km or more, and erected them on special platforms. There may even have been a form of writing developed.

Around 1680 AD the civilization appears to have collapsed. Palynology and charcoal analysis suggest that the island was initially well forested, but that almost all forest was destroyed by 1680 AD, and a palm tree previously dominant became extinct.. Bird fossils in caves show that the avian biodiversity was sharply reduced by the same date. Also the size of shellfish in middens diminished. Legends speak of famine and warfare. Obsidian spearheads became abundant.

Explanations proposed for the collapse have included both human over-exploitation and climatic change.. There is, however, no direct evidence for a Little Ice Age climatic change on the island, and its position on the fulcrum between East and West Pacific makes strong ENSO events unlikely also. It is concluded that human over-exploitation is the most likely cause.

Date received: March 28, 2002

Copyright © 2002 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caiq-91.