Easter+Island

Easter Island is a small sparsely inhabited island west of South America. It is located in the Pacific Ocean at 27 degrees south of the equator and some 2200 miles off the coast of Chile and its size is roughly sixty three square miles with three large extinct volcanoes making up a large portion of the island (Gray). Easter Island is most famous for its giant stone heads that are dotted about the island. The Easter Island heads have brought about questions and mystery to the island. People even wonder about the origin of the strange name. "Easter island was named on Easter Day, 1722, by the Dutch Navigator Jakob Roggeven" (Easter Island). When they first encountered a native man to the island in a canoe they welcomed him aboard and offered him wine. He took the glass and poured it on his head (Rapa Nui.). Its most early inhabitants have a different name for it though. This "oldest known traditional name of the island is Te Pito o Te Henua, meaning the navel of the world" (Gray). Easter Island has also been given other names by sailors and travelers. One such distinct recongnizable name is Rapa Nui, given by the poylnesians who linked it to one of their main islands of Rapa in the Bass islands (Gray). Easter Island present Day belongs to the South American country of Chile. "The inhabitants are citizens of Chile, but do not pay taxes and are not subject to military conscription" (Easter Island). Also the inhabatants nowadays are of Polynesian stock, farming and sheep raising are the only principal occupations with wool as the only export (Easter Island).
 * What is Easter Island?**

The giant stone statues on Easter Island are what give the island its fame. No one is for sure on the exact date on when these were built and the history of this is debated. These famous features of enormous stone statues are called Moai (Gray). "Nearly all the Moai Statues are carved from the tough stone of the Rano Raraku Volcano" (Gray). These stone bohemiths are in all different building stages scattered about the island. These Moai statues were no easy task to build either. "The average size is 14 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 14 tons. One of the statues quarried from the bedrock was 65 feet long and would have weighed an estimated 270 tons" (Gray). The knowledge and manpower to move and chizzle such colossal figures is astounding. "Even today to create such large statues would be a difficult task" (Gray). With such prehistoric tools and limited resources on the island it would have been nearly impossible. It would have taken an advanced culture to create such things (Rapa Nui). The giant stone Moai on the island are truly amazing, but what people could have been capable of creating such things. One theory is that the people came from Polynesian islands, and some scientists say their are DNA extracts form skeletons to prove this (Gray). This theory suggests that "Easter island was initially settled sometime around 318 AD by a small group of Polynesians lost on the open sea" (Gray). However Polyensians have been on the island only as early as the 300s AD, and the statues are said by some carbon datings to be much older some even a thousand years older (Rapa Nui). Easter Island is still thousands of miles from nearby inhabited islands. One likely source of Polynesian settlement would be the Marquesas. Still "a canoe sailing directly to Rapa Nui from the Marquesas, would have had to crossed 2000 miles of open ocean" (Finney). The exploring Polynesians would of also of had to of had knowledge of the winds in this westerlies zone or sailing their may have been impossible (Finney). This wouldn't have been the only problem either " to have been able to find an island in an immense ocean space without surrounding or screening at archipelagos like travel to other islands would of been incredibly difficult" (Finney). It would have been like trying to find a needle in a haystack, a really really big haystack. If Polynesians were to find it though they would probably been stuck. "A return voyage would have been difficult and the sailors would have needed the right winds and resources" (Finney). The origin and culture of the builders of there monuments has been debated. A once popular theory that contradicts the Polynesian settlement theory is that of Thor Hyerdahl was "that fair skinned invaders from the west carved the monoliths, and that later (c.1680) the present Polynesians conquered the island" (Easter Island) The Norwegian explorer Thor Hyderdahl got this idea from visiting the South American coast, and later Easter island (Easter Island). In his reports the Incan tribe he stays with on the coast of South America talked to him of a race of gods who taught them how to build their cities, and culture. According to legend they were described as tall, light skinned, bearded men. They one day left and headed east on the ocean (Gray). Hyerdahl believed it was those people who built the Moai statues, and that the Polynesians lacked the knowledge to do such things. Their is an early account of a Spanish monk asking the people of Easter Island who built these statues. He wrote down " the giant sculptures were the work of a former race; the present one came here more recently" (Gray). Details of people and culture of Easter Island are hard to find. "The spread of European Disease such as smallpox, and the raids of Spanish slavers reduced the population to slightly over than 100 by 1887" (Easter Island). This made any people remaining on Easter Island to lose their culture. However some scholars believe Easter Island was already on a decline. "Within a few centuries after the island was settled, the people of Easter Island destroyed their forests, degraded topsoil, wiped out their plant, and drove the animals to extinction" (Gray). When Roggeven reported the details on Easter Island he said "it produced large quantities of bananas and sugar cane of extraordinary thickness" (Gray). However when another explorer Captain Cook visited the island 100 years later, he was disappointed by what he perceived to be a barren impoverished island. No matter what people or culture made these there is no doubt it is an amazing feat.
 * What are the Giant Statues?**
 * Who were the people who built them?**


 * Citations**


 * Christophe, Vera & Jean. "At the Moai Workshop." __Flickr__. 20 June 2008. 18 May 2009. <[]>.
 * "Easter Island." __The Columbia Encycolpedia.__ The Columbia University Press, 2000. __Student Edition.__ Gale. SDLN, South Dakota State Library. 15 May 2009. [].
 * Finney, Ben. "Voyaging and Isolation in Rapa Nui Prehistory." __Polynesian Voyaging Society.__ 2007. __Polynesian Voyaging Society.__[]
 * Gray, Martin."Easter Island." __Places of Peace and Power.__ 2009. Martin Gray. 12 May 2009. < []>.
 * "Rapa Nui." __RapaNuiCentral__. 2005. 15 May 2009. <[]>.
 * Llanquileo, Eduardo. "rano rakaku." __Flickr__. 12 January 2009. 18 May 2009. <[|http://www.flickr.com][|/photos/39812232@N00/3192257447/]>.