The natives of Easter Island found paradise, and then destroyed it
From full forest living to cave dwelling cannibalism in just a couple generations
When Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen landed on Easter Island in 1722, he found the inhabitants subsisting on sea snails and rats. When they needed to fish, they paddled leaky, patched canoes mere yards offshore. The island itself was a desolate wilderness of scorched grasses and scrub brush.
Then Roggeveen discovered something that truly astonished him: Hundreds of massive stone monoliths littered the island. The statues (or moai) weighed up to 82 tons and featured striking artistic complexity. Who had created these works of art? Surely not the current half-starved islanders. And if it was an earlier people, how had they transported such leviathans? With what machines or timber?
The mysteries unfolded over time—and many still perplex us today—as distant explorers, tourists, and archaeologists visited Easter Island. According to scientist Jared Diamond, what emerged was a story of rapid and violent decline, from an industrious troupe of settlers to a destructive force of ecocide. Easter’s inhabitants had ruined their bountiful habitat. Over several generations, they felled every tree and wiped out dozens of native fauna species.
Between 900 and 1200 A.D.(though these dates are contested), a small group of Polynesians — maybe even a single family — traveled by sea to the 63-square-mile patch of land in the Pacific Ocean. The next nearest island is 1,100 miles away; the nearest continent, South America, is over 2,000. In small canoes that could hold no more than two people at a time, these people navigated using the stars and ocean swells to find Easter Island, which they called Rapa Nui.
They likely chose their new home for its fertile, volcanic vegetation, its mild subtropical climate, and its utter lack of predators. Giant palms towered over dense undergrowth of ferns, herbs, and tree daisies. The hauhau tree produced fibers for strong rope. The toromiro tree made for dry, mesquite-like firewood. One crater contained a mammoth reserve of fresh water. They had reached paradise.
Archaeological digs uncovered trash piles that were roughly one-third porpoise bones, belying a fishing culture that surely required strong boats. People also ate vast varieties of seabirds; up to 25 different nesting species called the island home, making it one of the richest breeding sites in all the Pacific. Finally, islanders consumed large quantities of Polynesian rats, which had stowed away during the initial canoe voyage.
The human population boomed. Soon tribes settled different parts of the island, linked by a religious bureaucracy. At its peak the population reached between 7,000 and 20,000.
Not only did the palm trees that littered the island produce nuts and sweet sap for wine and sugar, they grew to 82 feet tall — perfect for constructing machines and rollers to transport heavy rocks. Carbon dating puts peak moai construction between 1200 and 1500. Archaeologists believe it could have taken a team of 20 workers roughly one year to chisel the average statue, plus a few hundred people to drag it from the rock quarry onto a type of wooden sled. From there, palm rollers slid the moai to its location, where complex levers and pulleys hoisted it upright. More than 200 statues were transported this way; another 700 were abandoned in different stages of completion.
But by the 14th century, the majestic palm forest was completely destroyed. A combination of deforestation and rat infestation had prevented regeneration. This decimated the island’s rich population of birds, which had helped pollinate the ground vegetation that once flourished. Lush gardens and crops were eroded by the elements without a protective canopy of trees. Once wooden canoes fell into disrepair, porpoise bones disappeared from trash piles around 1500 A.D.
Tribes supplemented their diet with chickens, the only domesticated animal they’d brought on trip. In addition to rats, whose populations had multiplied unchecked, and various scavenged fruits, the islanders turned to cannibalism. Excavations found human bones in trash piles. Thus, one of the language’s most serious threats: “The flesh of your mother sticks between my teeth.”
Facing starvation and resource depletion, tribal government collapsed. A warrior class turned the once peaceful people into violent and fearful factions that lived in caves for protection. Embattled tribes toppled one another’s once-exalted moai statues.
By the time Roggeveen arrived on Easter day in 1722 (hence the island’s name), only some 2,000 inhabitants remained. Though some of the moai still stood upright at that time, by the 1800s they had all been pushed down.
Easter Island’s descent from abundant paradise to devastated wasteland is a dramatic example of societal collapse. But it didn’t happen all at once. For most of Easter’s inhabited history, deforestation was relatively gradual, and the people fell victim to “creeping normality,” gradual change that would be considered unacceptable if it happened all at once.
Still, scholars everywhere continue to wonder: What was going through their minds when they hewed the island’s last tree?
Perhaps we will never know. Easter’s period of war and famine also crippled what was likely a rich oral history. By the time the Dutch arrived, inhabitants weren’t sure other humans existed, much less that islanders had once feasted on porpoises and maple wine. They were merely left to survive on the remains of their ancestor’s fatal choices.
