Pääsiäissaari

Julkaistu 29.10.2017
We all know that the easter island heads have bodies – that’s not a mystery at all. But how did the easter island population build hundreds of statues? Scientists have recently solved this mystery and discovered where these people disappeared to and why.

For many decades, people's minds have been occupied with the mystery of Easter Island. A remote piece of volcanic soil, far away in the Pacific Ocean... But our planet hosts thousands of such lonely islands, what is so particular about this one?
The mystery is concealed not in the island itself but giant stone statues covering it. Who created the world-famous huge stone heads? Did they serve any specific purpose? Where did their creators arrive from and where did they disappear?
Well, it seems the answer is finally just around the corner!

TIMESTAMPS
What do we know about Easter Island? 1:05
Amazing facts about Easter Island 2:18
How have the statues been moved around the island? 5:25
How could create Easter Island monuments? 7:24
What happened to people on Easter Island? 8:09

SUMMARY
- Where is Easter Island located?
Rapa Nui (which is the name given to Easter Island by its first inhabitants) is the territory of Chile and is situated in the southern Pacific Ocean. And it is so, so far that you can easily consider it one of the most distant places on the world's map. It lies 1,200 miles away from Pitcairn, which is its closest neighbor.

- What's the main secret of the statues?
Most statues (834 out of 887) were carved from the material called tuff which is, in fact, compressed volcanic ash. Curiously, all the statues except one group face inland. It means their backs are turned to the ocean. Perhaps the reason for that was the belief that the statues were the protectors of the villagers that's why they overlooked the settlement. The only statues not fitting into this pattern can be found at Ahu Akivi, a sacred place for the people of Rapa Nui.

- Theories about how the statues had been moved.
One of the most popular ones among the lovers of mysteries was the belief that the statues had been created and moved by aliens. But even if you like this theory, we are sorry to debunk it. The stone the statues were built from originates from the island itself. The birthplace of most of the material was an extinct volcano situated in the north-east of Easter Island and not another planet.

- A new study about the island.
A new study has been conducted recently to specify the maximum number of the inhabitants in the heyday of the island's civilization.
The results arrived, and they were quite unexpected. It turned out that as many as 17 and a half thousand people could comfortably live on the island. At least 19 percent of the land could be covered with the fields of sweet potatoes that used to be the main source of food for the population. What is more, the islanders consumed quite a lot of seafood and fish.

- Why did people on Easter Island disappear?
At first, it was believed that the reason for such a decrease of the population was an ecocide. The natives cut out large forests and palm trees making spare room for moving the statues around as well as agriculture. They thought the trees were going to grow back fast enough. It was a misleading concept. The deterioration of the environment resulted in hunger. And this, in turn, led to wars and cannibalism.
Nowadays, however, such a theory has been proven wrong. First of all, Rapa Nui inhabitants seemed to be very talented agricultural engineers. They deliberately fertilized the fields with the volcanic rock. In fact, another research has shown that people had been living on the island for many centuries. And the population only started to decrease when Europeans began visiting.