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The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island

Terry L. Hunt,

Carl Lipo

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May 29, 2018 Terri rated it really liked it

Shelves: archaeology-studies

The tiny South Pacific Easter Island of“Rapa Nui”and the mysterious statues on it has intrigued historians from all over the world. In 1722, the first Europeans sighted these huge stone heads on this small and isolated island off of Chile.

Archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lido have retold the story in their terrific book that challenges the past theories after spending years of intensive field work there. Researchers in the past believed that in order to build these massive statues (called Moa The tiny South Pacific Easter Island of“Rapa Nui”and the mysterious statues on it has intrigued historians from all over the world. In 1722, the first Europeans sighted these huge stone heads on this small and isolated island off of Chile.

Archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lido have retold the story in their terrific book that challenges the past theories after spending years of intensive field work there. Researchers in the past believed that in order to build these massive statues (called Moai) there must have been a huge population increase and destruction of forest to build and transport the statues. The ancient island people destroyed their trees, their environment and themselves. But this book disputes that idea and offers new fascinating scientific evidence.

The Polynesian prehistoric, Rapa Nui people had to find local solutions in their engineering, working of rock, and transporting of these seventy-five ton statues. They were hand carved out of the island's volcanic rock, built by the tribal culture and set on rock platforms. The “Moai” were religious ancestor statues of massive stone heads and there was almost 1,000 of them. They were transported over rough terrain, sometimes for a few miles.

In the old theories, how they moved the statues was thought to be that hundreds of people had to help with transportation. Instead looking at this issue with fresh research, this book reveals, it might have been just ten to forty islanders. These archaeologists and their team built a 3-D model and then after considerable experimentation could get the statue to rock back and forth and “walk” using ropes around the head. The original statues were engineered to do this “walk” and did not need any wood to transport them.

Also in this book, the authors surmise that instead of environmental destruction killing the islanders, it was the Spanish explorers bringing diseases to the island that wiped out some of the population. Then in the early 19th century, slave trading began and the island was raided on a regular basis. Unfortunately it was genocide not ecocide that killed off the local people.

The authors remind us that these ancient people survived for five hundred years on a remote island with very little contact. The island had mostly coconut trees that made building canoes for fishing not feasible nor did they have fresh water running streams for their crops. Yet they still survived by planting their crops in the volcanic soil.

These researchers feel we owe the current descendents of the islanders, who still live on the island, an explanation of what happened in the past. They believe the ancient islanders were not reckless or crazy or warlike nor did they cause their own demise. Instead they offer a different perspective and scientific evidence of Easter Island's history. I was very happy to read it and thought they did an amazing job. Four stars. ...more

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Shelves: scribd

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Shelves: history-non-fiction, year-2011, world-oceania-easter-island, anthropology, published-in-06june, s2, t3

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