The Decline of the Rapa Nui People Linked to the Environment of Easter Island

Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, is famous for its strange statues that have remained standing for thousands of years. Now, scientists have uncovered a bit more about the indigenous society that inhabited Rapa Nui. It turns out that significant changes in land use and population dynamics could be to blame for the disappearance of these native people.

In this latest study, the researchers analyzed more than 400 obsidian artifacts from six sites around the island. They specifically focused on three sites where they recovered large samples of artifacts that had good information on soil chemistry and climatic conditions.

Obsidian actually absorbs more water after being exposed to air. This means that the researchers could measure the amount of water in the obsidian to determine when the tools were made. This, in turn, allowed them to estimate land use and population increases and declines based on the number of tools made in each period.

So what did they find? The first site on the northwest coast showed an increase in population between 1220 and 1650 before a rapid decline. The area was prone to drought due to its location. In the second site, which was wetter and less prone to drought, should an increase in use from 1200 to 1480 with a steady use until 1705 before it began to decline. In the third and final site, which was both rainy in fertile, researchers saw an increase of land use from 1250 that was consistent until about 1850.

What's interesting is that Europeans didn't arrive until 1722, but the first two sites showed that something was going wrong before then. This means that the Rapa Nui were struggling even before the European arrival.

"The results of our research were really quite surprising to me," said Thegn Ladefoged, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Indeed, in the past, we've published articles about how there was little evidence for pre-European-contact societal collapse."

The findings reveal that it's very likely that the people of Rapa Nui were reacting to environmental impacts long before they were devastated when European diseases arrived. This, in turn, suggests that there was a different reason for the collapse of the society on Easter Island.

Currently, the researchers hope to examine individual dwellings to better understand the interaction between Easter Islands' people and their environment.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).