© Dale Simpson, Jr.
The geology of the stone tools used to make the stone statues on Easter Island delivers tantalising clues about a bygone culture.
The remote Easter Island, known locally as Rapa Nui, lies 2,300 miles off Chile's Pacific coast, a mysterious place best known for its giant stone statues. The common narrative states that the enormous heads were built by Polynesian seafarers who, the story goes, then
brought about the demise of their own society through internal squabbles and draining of the island's natural resources.
However,
a new study published in the
Journal of Pacific Archaeology suggests the true story of early civilisation on Polynesia's easternmost outpost is more complex.
Archaeologists found evidence of a sophisticated society where the people shared information and collaborated, by analysing the chemical make-up of the tools used to build the sculptures.
"For a long time, people wondered about the culture behind these very important statues," says Laure Dussubieux, one of the study's authors and a scientist at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. "This study shows how people were interacting, it's helping to revise the theory."
"The idea of competition and collapse on Easter Island might be overstated," adds lead author Dale Simpson, Jr., an archaeologist from the University of Queensland. "To me, the stone carving industry is solid evidence that there was cooperation among families and craft groups."
Comment: