Rapanui, Easter Island

Statues That Walked

Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island

Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo, 2011, West Slope 996.18 Hunt

Terry Hunt at UO

Hypothesis - Moai are multipurpose. They provide roosts for seabirds, safe from rats, and provide a little food and fertilizer (collects on ahu platforms?). Moai are "personalized" to be claimed by individuals or clan groups.

Hunt/Lipo studies in 2001

• p002 rolling hills, less than 1 MY old

• p004 Te Pito o te Henua, "navel of the world" or end of the world

• p004 double-hulled canoes soon after 1200AD, against prevailing winds and currents,
• p004 tacking four times further than straight-line distance, 12500 miles from Raritonga, 30 to 100 men and women
• p005 63 square miles, 14 mi E/W, 8 mi N/S
• p005 chief Hotu Matu'a, found island by following seabirds to their nests
• p005 taro, breadfruit, coconut, yams, bananas. sugarcane, tumeric, kava, chickens, maybe Polynesian rats (Rattus exulans)
  • pigs and dogs did not make it to islands
• p006 1722 Dutch Jacob Roggeveen Easter Sunda 1722 (treeless. 3000 healthy people)
• p006 1770 Spanish
• p007 1774 James Cook 700 destitute people
• p008 1786 La Perouse
• p009 1914 Katherine Routledge
• p009 1955 Thor Heyerdahl and Wulliam Mulloy
• p010 Heyerdahl putative AD 1680 event, hypothetical ecocide, then Diamond
• p013 Anakena Beach (middle of north shore) putative landing site
• p015 Excavating beach, found human evidence (charcoal, bones. obsidian) AD 1200, then root mold casts below, no humans
• p019 Millions of giant palms when first settlers arrived

• p021 Dutch saw distant woodlands, 1868 Palmer saw Jubaea palms in 1868

• p022 1977 John Flenley dates change to 1500, 1999 Mann and Rankin erosion and forest loss between 1280 and 1650

• p027 Steve Athens theory: Polynesian rats ("prodigeous climbers") ate seeds and nuts (like Lord Howe Island)

• p038 Manavai small rock-wall enclosures, 1 to 6 feet high, protect crops from wind and conserve moisture and nutrients, enclose 6.4 square miles

• p043 1996 Joan Wozniak lithic mulching
• p048 Hans-Rudolph Bork: more than a billion stones massing 2 million tonnes,
• islanders travelled 8 aggregate million miles over 500 years (not much! That's 40 miles per day summed over all islanders
• p057 El Camino de los Moai

• p079 1962 Czech engineer Pavel Pavel moved upright statues by rocking on base and turning, "walking" them 600 feet a day with small crews. neke-neke = walking without legs

• p085 Hunt/Lipo team studied abandoned statues, they fell down consistent with walking hypothesis, also conchoidal fractures on bases

• p091 probably 15 to 20 people

• p096 mata'a stones inconsistent with weapons, wear patterns consistent with cutting and scraping of plants

• p099 no evidence of defensive structures

• p111 Thomson 1886 identified 113 ahu (population 155 individuals (68 men 43 women)

• p113 some ahu faced with large precision stones

• p115 small groups working on single areas

• p117 material for plaza exceeded platform portion of ahu, Roggenveen observed rituals

• p123 hare paenga or hare vaka boat-shaped houses. 50 feet long, 15 wide, 9 high

• p132 Moai are "costly signalling"

• p148 islanders took hats from visiting Europeans

• p151 Moai "hats": pukao made from red scoria, coarse and porous, up to 8 foot high and 8 foot diameter

• p153 moai construction and maintenance ceased with European arrival, cargo cults emerged

• p182 coconut, kava, breadfruit won't grow on Rapa Nui. Taro, Yam, Sweet Potato, Banana, and Sugarcane might.
• p187 wind blows 5 to 35 mph