Archaeologist J. Stephen Athens of the International Archaeological Research Institute conducted excavations on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu and found that deforestation of the Ewa Plain took place largely between and A.
There were no climatic explanations for the disappearance of palm trees, but there was evidence that the Polynesian rat Rattus exulans , introduced by the first human colonists, was present in the area by about A. Athens showed that it was likely rats that deforested large areas of Oahu. Paleobotanists have demonstrated the destructive effect of rats on native vegetation on a number of other islands as well, even those as ecologically diverse as New Zealand.
In areas where rats are removed, vegetation often recovers quickly. And on Nihoa Island, in the northwest Hawaiian Islands, where there is no evidence that rats ever became established, the island's native vegetation still survives despite prehistoric human settlement.
Whether rats were stowaways or a source of protein for the Polynesian voyagers, they would have found a welcoming environment on Rapa Nui—an almost unlimited supply of high-quality food and, other than people, no predators. In such an ideal setting, rats can reproduce so quickly that their population doubles about every six or seven weeks.
A single mating pair could thus reach a population of almost 17 million in just over three years. On Kure Atoll in the Hawaiian Islands, at a latitude similar to Rapa Nui but with a smaller supply of food, the population density of the Polynesian rat was reported in the s to have reached 45 per acre. On Rapa Nui, that would equate to a rat population of more than 1. At a density of 75 per acre, which would not be unreasonable given the past abundance of food, the rat population could have exceeded 3.
The evidence from elsewhere in the Pacific makes it hard to believe that rats would not have caused rapid and widespread environmental degradation. But there is still the question of how much of an effect rats had relative to the changes caused by humans, who cut down trees for a number of uses and practiced slash-and-burn agriculture.
I believe that there is substantial evidence that it was rats, more so than humans, that led to deforestation. Our work on Anakena, as well as previous archaeological studies, found thousands of rat bones. It seems that the Polynesian rat population grew quickly, then fell more recently before becoming extinct in the face of competition from rat species introduced by Europeans. Almost all of the palm seed shells discovered on the island show signs of having been gnawed on by rats, indicating that these once-ubiquitous rodents did affect the Jubaea palm's ability to reproduce.
Reason to blame rats more than people may also be revealed in the analysis of sediments obtained at Rano Kau, which, like the Hawaiian evidence, appears to show that the forest declined leaving less forest pollen in the sediment before the extensive use of fire by people.
By the time the second round of radiocarbon results arrived in the fall of , a complete picture of Rapa Nui's prehistory was falling into place. The first settlers arrived from other Polynesian islands around A. Their numbers grew quickly, perhaps at about three percent annually, which would be similar to the rapid growth shown to have taken place elsewhere in the Pacific. On Pitcairn Island, for example, the population increased by about 3. For Rapa Nui, three percent annual growth would mean that a colonizing population of 50 would have grown to more than a thousand in about a century.
The rat population would have exploded even more quickly, and the combination of humans cutting down trees and rats eating the seeds would have led to rapid deforestation. Thus, in my view, there was no extended period during which the human population lived in some sort of idyllic balance with the fragile environment.
Figure 8. New evidence casts doubt on the traditional history of Rapa Nui. The popular narrative of environmental collapse hinges on early colonization and a large peak population top.
A revised timeline that takes into account recent radiocarbon dates points to initial settlement around A. According to this version of events, the human population never grew much larger than about 3,, and rats played a dominant role in the deforestation of the island. In this scenario, the Rapanui culture did not decline significantly until after the arrival of Europeans.
Within about a century and half of initial contact, however, disease and enslavement reduced the Rapanui population to approximately It also appears that the islanders began building moai and ahu soon after reaching the island. The human population probably reached a maximum of about 3,, perhaps a bit higher, around A. The environmental limitations of Rapa Nui would have kept the population from growing much larger.
By the time Roggeveen arrived in , most of the island's trees were gone, but deforestation did not trigger societal collapse, as Diamond and others have argued. There is no reliable evidence that the island's population ever grew as large as 15, or more, and the actual downfall of the Rapanui resulted not from internal strife but from contact with Europeans. When Roggeveen landed on Rapa Nui's shores in , a few days after Easter hence the island's name , he took more than of his men with him, and all were armed with muskets, pistols and cutlasses.
Before he had advanced very far, Roggeveen heard shots from the rear of the party. He turned to find 10 or 12 islanders dead and a number of others wounded. His sailors claimed that some of the Rapanui had made threatening gestures. Whatever the provocation, the result did not bode well for the island's inhabitants. Newly introduced diseases, conflict with European invaders and enslavement followed over the next century and a half, and these were the chief causes of the collapse.
In the early s, more than a thousand Rapanui were taken from the island as slaves, and by the late s the number of native islanders numbered only around In , the island was annexed by Chile.
It remains part of that country today. In the s, French ethnographer Alfred Metraux visited the island. He later described the demise of Rapa Nui as "one of the most hideous atrocities committed by white men in the South Seas.
An ecological catastrophe did occur on Rapa Nui, but it was the result of a number of factors, not just human short-sightedness. I believe that the world faces today an unprecedented global environmental crisis, and I see the usefulness of historical examples of the pitfalls of environmental destruction. So it was with some unease that I concluded that Rapa Nui does not provide such a model.
But as a scientist I cannot ignore the problems with the accepted narrative of the island's prehistory. Mistakes or exaggerations in arguments for protecting the environment only lead to oversimplified answers and hurt the cause of environmentalism. We will end up wondering why our simple answers were not enough to make a difference in confronting today's problems.
Ecosystems are complex, and there is an urgent need to understand them better. Certainly the role of rats on Rapa Nui shows the potentially devastating, and often unexpected, impact of invasive species. I hope that we will continue to explore what happened on Rapa Nui, and to learn whatever other lessons this remote outpost has to teach us. Skip to main content.
Login Register. Page DOI: National Maritime Museum, London. Tom Dunne. Barbara Aulicino. Stephanie Freese and Amos Esty. Bibliography Bahn, P. Easter Island, Earth Island. New York: Thames and Hudson. However, the real meaning is still unknown to us as there was no contact with these inhabitants until the arrival of the Spaniards in Visitors to Easter Island can bask in the beautifully clear waters of the Pacific Ocean, which is said to be the most transparent in the world.
The water around the island has fantastic visibility, up to a depth of metres feet , creating the perfect conditions for snorkellers and scuba divers, who can enjoy swimming among corals and fish of all shapes and colours. We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements.
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Lucy Pierce. How did Easter Island get its name? Where is Easter Island? Up until today, the Rapa Nui people remember their lineage back to the time when King Hotu Matu'a disembarked at the beach of Anakena lifetimes ago. Southeast Asian settlers started expanding to the east into the Pacific Ocean. Being extremely isolated and located so far to the east, Rapa Nui was probably the last island to be settled in this expansion. Even today, linguistic traces can still be found in Southeast Asia from the time before the expansion to the Pacific Ocean had started, years ago.
The settlers reached Easter Island read more about the first settlers at Easter Island. They found it lush with palm trees and other endemic vegetation growing all over the island. After a while, a second migration of only men arrived to the island. The new inhabitants had a different appearence; they were short and wide. They had a tradition of elongating their earlobes so that they hung down to the shoulders - a tradition that was later practiced also by the first group of settlers.
To distinguish the two races they were given names. The first group was called Hanau Momoko - momoko being a duplication of the word moko - lizard - referring to that the people were tall and slender. The second group was called Hanau 'E'epe 'e'epe meaning broad or bulky. At some point in time, all but one of the Hanau 'E'epe were exterminated by the Hanau Momoko , which means that the Rapa Nui people of today are mainly descendants of the Hanau Momoko.
The early inhabitants of Te Pito o te Henua learnt about the nature of their island and did well in agriculture. The crops were abundant enough for them to invest work into things that didn't produce any food back, and so they developed a tradition of building big rectangular stone platforms called ahu where to bury their kings and important people. Probably during the 15th or 16th century, the civilization at this small and isolated piece of land was highly advanced. The crops were sufficiently abundant as to support a part of the population to concentrate entirely on building bigger and bigger statues.
These megaliths were bought by other tribes and put on the grave platforms ahu to commemorate those who had passed away. They called the statues moai - to exist. The islanders grew in numbers throughout the generations. Much of the lush palm tree forests were cut down and burnt to clear areas for crops.
During the era of moai building, big quantities of lumber was needed for transportation of the statues. This Day In History. History Vault. Early Settlement The first human inhabitants of Rapa Nui the Polynesian name for Easter Island; its Spanish name is Isla de Pascua are believed to have arrived in an organized party of emigrants.
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Easter Rising On Easter Monday, April 24, , a group of Irish nationalists proclaimed the establishment of the Irish Republic and, along with some 1, followers, staged a rebellion against the British government in Ireland. Machu Picchu Tucked away in the rocky countryside northwest of Cuzco, Peru, Machu Picchu is believed to have been a royal estate or sacred religious site for Inca leaders, whose civilization was virtually wiped out by Spanish invaders in the 16th century.
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