Rethinking Easter Island’s Historic “Collapse” | Hacker News Reader

Rethinking Easter Island’s Historic “Collapse”

sapiens.org

65 pointsHooke42 comments

The first European ships noted in their logs that the island was devoid of trees, and that this was unusual, as other large islands of Polynesia were not. This is supported by fossil evidence. The disappearance of trees would severely limit the inhabitants' ability to find food, both because forests support a more diverse ecosystem and because lumber is necessary to build fishing boats. It's unlikely that the island's trees would vanish for any reason apart from human deforestation -- in fact, there is evidence that a vast majority of them were cut down by humans: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030544030...

It's certainly likely that European contact hastened the islanders' decline through diseases and other evils of colonization, but the theory here is built on... the fact that stone platforms were built after 1600? Okay. That doesn't really explain how the islanders cutting down all the forests on the island prior to European contact could have no effect on its population.

The inhabitants of Rapa Nui had an agricultural system with ingenious ways to fertilise its soil. It is currently still used here and there. The trees were mostly cut to make way to provide more land for agriculture, so that the population could be fed.

Rapa Nui's population eventually diminished by 90% after the first contact with Europeans, partly because of imported diseases and partly because inhabitants were captured and exported as slaves to South America, mostly Peru.

Sources: https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2017/07/12/rapa-nui-people-culti... https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Epidemics-of-introduced-...

Indeed, the inhabitants of Rapa Nui were well fed. I remember a archaeology paper that compared their nutrition with other pacific islands. The people of Easter Island were among the best fed peoples. IIRC, the women of Rapa Nui were only at the average level, but this was a social problem. The lack of trees did not impede the food availability.

Here is the conclusion of a recent (2017) study of their diet: "Our results point to concerted efforts to manipulate agricultural soils, and suggest the prehistoric Rapa Nui population had extensive knowledge of how to overcome poor soil fertility, improve environmental conditions, and create a sustainable food supply. These activities demonstrate considerable adaptation and resilience to environmental challenges ‐ a finding that is inconsistent with an “ecocide” narrative."

From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5637906/

Trees are nice but not having trees does not automatically mean collapse. I found this paper had many more arguments then the article.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255726745_Ecologica...

>> Trees are nice but not having trees does not automatically mean collapse.

No but the prior existence of trees means they were used and ran out.

Once you're done with trees, how do you replace your broken tools? Farming is hard even with plenty of wood.

Not all of the trees were gone when the Europeans arrived, apparently. Sir David Attenborough has a toromiro wood carving. [0]

[0]https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/apr/11/timradford

Why do you assume the carving was of fresh wood?

Wood can last a thousand of years, or even hundreds of thousands of years, in the ground under the right conditions (where it won't rot or mineralize into stone/petrified wood).

> It's certainly likely that European contact hastened the islanders' decline through diseases and other evils of colonization,

I think it is not quite so simple as the usual European-colonialism tropes here. I think it is more interesting than that. I visited Easter Island a few years ago and had a really interesting Rapa Nui guide who taught us a lot over several days. Her implication (although she never really said it outright) was that the "first contact" with Europeans actually triggered a huge social upheaval:

- The Rapa Nui people have been on their island doing their own thing for centuries without any outside contact, assuming they were the only people who existed on the only land that existed in an endless sea. They have a long-standing and established religion that prominently features the head status (Moai)

- The first European visitor (Roggeveen) turns up and is clearly visible to all inhabitants (i.e. no rumors) and was peaceful and basically just made a few observations, took a few measurements/charts, and observed that all of the head statues were still standing (i.e. at that stage there was no violence, no slave taking etc - that came later). Then they just went away as abruptly as they arrived.

- The Rapa Nui's world view has been totally shattered by the arrival of not only outsiders, but in totally unimaginable ships, clothing, skin colour, food, technology, weaponry etc. This was a collective "What the fuck?!" moment as the Europeans left them to deal with the consequences of this earth-shattering event (for them)

- ??? for the next couple of centuries.

- The next thing we know in the 1800s is that the old head statues have been abandoned and toppled, and an entirely new religion has taken over (Bird Man religion) and some really interesting things have happened, e.g. there is one of the statues that has a crude European ship carved onto its chest (1). Previously these statues were revered as the elders and ancestors etc, and yet this one ended up with the European's ship carved onto its chest. Was the statue abandoned and just re-used as a convenient blank canvas, or did the European ship somehow get woven into the existing religion? Fascinating.

Perhaps the big changes in the Rapa Nui society were going to happen anyway, but for me to have the total earth-shattering revelation that there are not only other people in the world but that they are totally different only then to have them vanish as suddenly as they appeared with no explanation or way to contact them again etc and then being left alone in total isolation again has to to have a part to play.

You can totally imagine the same thing happen to the earth today - rather than some grandiose & reverential alien "first contact" scenario where the sparkly friendly aliens respectfully come in peace and wish to speak to our world leaders etc, but actually what we get is some indifferent & uninterested aliens who turn up out-of-the-blue in orbit around the Earth in a way that every person on the planet can clearly see them with their own eyes. "Hey nice planet you have here - we're just going to take some measurements and plot your planet's orbit. We were actually looking for something else and we're not really interested you guys soooo, er.... yeah, bye." And then poof they're gone - our entire society would be totally turned upside down. Who were they? Where did they come from? Where are they going? Can we talk to them again? What is their technology like? Are they god/gods? Are these things compatible with our religions/morals/ethics? Why didn't they care more about me/us/our history/our culture?

Cautionary tale? Perhaps. Would Christianity/Judaism/Islam/Buddhism/Sikhism/etc survive such an alien encountered unchanged/unscathed? I personally doubt it.

1 - https://imaginaisladepascua.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/M...

This reminds me of a short story I read a few years ago in a sci-fi anthology. Basic premise was aliens show up in the solar system to attack Venus, and Venus fights back. The story is written from an Earthling perspective, and addresses the existential concerns of a trivial Earth. Karl Schroeder -- The invasion of Venus in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_Infinity

"Cautionary tale? Perhaps. Would Christianity/Judaism/Islam/Buddhism/Sikhism/etc survive such an alien encountered unchanged/unscathed? I personally doubt it."

Not sure about the rest, but pretty sure Buddhism would remain mostly unchanged. It assumes a myriad of different beings living all over the universe and in different planes of existence.

I guess it depends on the timing and the extent of the decline of trees. Jared Diamond’s assumption that an unsustainable tree collapse occurred before European arrival is a good one but this paper challenges some of the supporting evidence.

As an alternative hypothesis, consider the impact of invasive species like rats on an island ecosystem. The tree level may have been very low but sustainable prior to the introduction of rats but the newly introduced perturbation may have caused full collapse.

Yeah the collapse theory is probably right in general if not the particulars, but don't underestimate European diseases. The Marquesans nearly got wiped out by them.

There is great new podcast that speaks about the collapse of civilizations, and the author does one about Easter Island

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7j08gxUcBgc

I’ve even mentioned it in another thread because the production quality is great. Enjoy!

The post European contact Rapa Nui writing system is one of the neater additions to unicode http://www.unicode.org/L2/L1999/rongorongo.pdf

Whether rongorongo was created pre- or post-European contact is still a matter of debate. Unfortunately very little is known about it and the glyphs remain undeciphered, but I agree that the Unicode proposal is a good thing.

I am always wonder how would these civilizations would be today if they left to grow alone, without the European affection and love. Like we couldn't even have access to them until we have satellite internet, human rights, European committee, global journalism, things that could hold the 'explorers' from committing civilization crimes and for completely vanish exotic cultures.

What it would be like to have a conversation with a native american about their land and their forest, how far would Aztecs would reach, what relegion does the Rapa Nui people really had, and so many wonderful things we could get from people of Africa and all over the world.

Even then, their ground would be taken, their villages would be burned down and nobody would know. Is it possible to leave such a big continent to people without guns? Is it possible to leave them live the natural life they choose to live, without forcing them to settle in a house like our ancestors did 12.000 year before? And because of that my back hurts, my body is stiff, I have anxiety for virtual things and my connection with the nature is broken.

But no more cultures left to modernize in Earth, let's find another planet to help.

>I am always wonder how would these civilizations would be today if they left to grow alone,

There are a few uncontacted peoples left. Notoriously, the Sentinelese kill anyone who try to land on their island. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples

Left alone, they appear to muddle along like any other hunter-gatherer tribe would: starving often, dying young, making no "progress" as we would call it. The native state of humanity without technology is certainly different from our life, I hesitate to call it "better".

I have read about this tribe, they kill every foreigner, this is why they keep their closed community like that. I wouldn't compare them to the native tribes of America, if they did the same they might have not been brutally murdered themselves.

If only they had made a TV show about this [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive

Cool! Haven't seen it!

The job of Progressor[1] in the Strugatsky Brothers' Noon Universe undergoes a shift over the course of the series. In the initial stories pretty heavy intervention is seen as beneficial. By the final stories, even light intervention has its ambiguities.

(anyone else see a parallel between Надежда from Жук в муравейнике and reactions to coronavirus measures?)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noon_Universe#Description

You may enjoy reading "The World Until Yesterday" by Jared Diamond.

Great! Thank you for your suggestion. I have added to the readlist

There are different theories of the cause of the civilizational collapse of the Rapanui. It is agreed that the approximate time was near, within a century or so, of first contact with western explorers.

So knowing nothing else, perhaps their poor stewardship resulted in collapse a couple hundred years before Europeans arrived, or perhaps their fate after first contact followed a pathway down that we know all too well.

How do they define collapse? The criterion in the article seems to be "building platforms occasionally" vs "not building platforms anymore"?

In order to build platforms occasionally you need structure in your society so people can make time to do that, that structure has collapsed

I am not entirely convinced. By that definition, all Western civilizations have collapsed because we don't build platforms anymore.

You're looking at the inverse logic rather than the right one. A => B, does not imply (not A) => (not B).

Building platforms is a strong argument there's some organized society (since any such action would require coordination), but the opposite does not have to apply (not having platforms does not mean there isn't a society).

But the logic of the article seems to be the Easter Island inhabitants stopped building platforms, so their civilization must have collapsed. I criticize exactly the faulty logic you describe.

My reading is a bit different. IMHO, the article is not making the assumption you believe it does.

Article's logic:

* Article assumes common knowledge of a collapse, and doesn't bother proving that.

* So when did the collapse happen?

* Well, the inhabitants were building statues during and right after contact.

* So probably afterwards.

That 'afterwards' could be right after inhabitants stopped building platforms, but it doesn't have to be for the article's logic to hold! If this is not the case (as you claim), than this just pushes the collapse date forwards from the point they stopped building (after contact). It can't push the date backwards (before contact), because they were building stuff previously (article's actual argument).

So if the assumption you mentioned doesn't hold, the article's basic argument - collapse after contact, not as a result of ecological catastrophe - becomes more likely.

> But the island, called Rapa Nui by its Indigenous people

Then why have you titled it Easter Island?

I'm inclined to agree with the idea that the destruction of the once-thriving island was caused by the arrival of Europeans, as it was elsewhere in the world... mainly by disease and enslavement.

Blackbirding was in full swing in the Pacific:

> Almost 150 men, women and children paddle out to the ship. Some swim. On board they are invited to share a feast (or, some say, view the wares) below deck. But as soon as they descend the stairs, the trapdoors slam shut and the ship sails away with about half the population of ‘Ata locked in its hold.

- https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/currently-history/blackbir...

Then why have you titled it Easter Island?

Because that's how most people interested in reading the article would recognize it. Had the title been 'Rethinking Rapa Nui's Historic "Collapse"', I would have certainly browsed right past. Perhaps many others might have as well.

Indeed, and that name makes the most sense. For the GP, the official name is not Rapa Nui, but Isla De Pascua as it is "owned" by Chile. The native inhabitants of this small island called it Rapa Nui after themselves.

I've spent a week there in Hanga Roa and a few days in Tahai. It is a really special place to experience if you can.

> the official name is not Rapa Nui, but Isla De Pascua

There was a proposal to change the official name to "Rapa Nui – Isla de Pascua" a few years ago but I am not sure if it went through.

> Indeed, and that name makes the most sense.

How does that make the most sense? It is the indigenous inhabitants, and not foreigners who should get to name their land.

Countries are already named on a per language basis and it isn't an exact process or accurate to the original. It would be like taking offense at referring to calling "Estados Unitos" offensive as a name for the United States or "Russia" offensive because the actual pronunciation is more like "Rossiya" and spelled Россия.

"Greece" is called "Hellas" by Greeks themselves - and nobody cares. A name doesn't have to be the same as that used by the natives, as the point of the name is not to be accurate to what natives call it, but to provide a commonly understood reference.

In English names for places and things are quite often different to what it is called in other languages - that's fine. There's no central authority that mandates what syllables should be used to refer to things.

No central authority, but there is a central reference, Wikipedia, which allows one to quickly translate between names for places and things, so the need for a canonical name is much less than in the days when one might need to consult a reference book or have various names in one's readily-accessible memory.

İstanbul (not Κωνσταντινούπολη): "Why did Constantinople get the works?"

Sure, but surely in 2020 we can be more respectful of the wishes of the indigenous people. We should call people what they want to be called.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ibSvOWAMg

The Greeks cared enough to change the country code from ISO-3166 GR to EL in all Eurostat official statistics.

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