archaeology

22SPRING 2015Easter IslandDr Paul G BahnThe most remote permanently inhabited place in the world,the whole of this small island is an archaeological site.A source of constant mystery and wonder, it lies in the middleof the South Pacific, to the west of Chile (to whichit belongs).Easter Island received its name from the Dutch commander,Jakob Roggeveen, who encountered the island on EasterSunday, 5 April 1722. It is now often called Rapa Nui (bigRapa), because 19th-century Tahitian sailors thought itlooked like a large version of the island of Rapa. It wasfirst colonised by people from East Polynesia (perhapsMangareva), probably in the early centuries AD. Theyproceeded to produce the most amazing Stone Age culturethe world has ever known, with hundreds of massiveplatforms, up to a thousand huge statues, a wealth of rockart, and its own writing system.The platforms (ahu) are mostly located around the coast ofthis small triangular volcanic island (about 171km 2 ), andconstitute an archaeological wonder in themselves. Theycomprise a core of rubble held in place by a facing of slabs,some of them very finely cut. The statues (moai) were almostall carved from the soft volcanic tuff at the quarry of RanoRaraku. Those erected on platforms, always with their backto the sea, variedfrom 2m to 10m inheight, and weighedup to 82 tons. Thebiggest ever carved(‘El Gigante’),which is over 20mlong and probablyweighs 270 tons,still lies unfinishedin the quarryamong scores ofother statues inAn unfinished moai lying in the inner quarry of RanoRaraku; the crater lake in the background was one of theisland’s few sources of fresh water.every stage ofcompletion.The moai are allvariations on a theme: a human figure with a prominentangular nose and chin, and often elongated perforated earscontaining disks. The bodies, which end at the abdomen, havearms held tightly to the sides, and hands held in front, withlong fingertips meeting a stylised loincloth. They representedancestor figures.Easter Island also has the richest rock art in the Pacific,with beautiful paintings in caves and drystone houses,and hundreds of fine petroglyphs in caves and the openair. The finest collection of images is found at Orongo, theceremonial village built on a cliff-top between the ocean andthe huge crater of Rano Kau. Here the dominant motif is the‘birdman’, a half-human frigate bird in a crouching position,often holding an egg.The ‘rongorongo’ writing system survives only on 25 woodentablets scattered around the world’s museums. Debate stillrages as to whether the islanders developed it themselves,or whether it was inspired by their encounter with Europeanwriting in the 18th century.When the Polynesian colonists reached the island it wascovered with a dense forest, primarily of huge palm trees,and was also immensely rich in birdlife. Over the centuries,like Polynesian settlers elsewhere, they totally modifiedtheir environment, by wiping out the birds (apart from afew migratory maritime species), and especially throughgradually cutting down all of the forest cover to plant theircrops and to obtain timber. Their earlier way of life eventuallydeclined, statues ceased to be carved, and perhaps 1,000years of peaceful co-existence were shattered – hugequantities of mataa, spearheads and daggers of obsidian,were produced. Conflict led to the toppling of all the statues,and a new social system arose whereby, instead of havinghereditary chiefs from the royal clan, an annual leader or‘birdman’ was chosen by competition.When Europeans arrived in 1722 (or possibly earlier), therewere almost no trees left, which led the visitors to wonderhow the huge statues could possibly have been movedand raised. The islanders had managed to counter theenvironmental damage to some extent by the technique of‘lithic mulching’, spreading millions of stones over theirfields to retain moisture and protect their sweet potatoesand other crops. Eventually, this new contact with the outsideworld (the islanders having almost certainly been totallycut off from the rest of Polynesia from the start) broughtdiseases, oppression and many other negative consequenceswhich almost wiped them out. Fortunately, they survived andtoday take great pride in the spectacular remains of theirancestors’ culture. But had the Europeans not arrived, whatwould have happened? With no timber, the islanders couldnever have escaped from their home, and one severe droughtcould easily have finished them off. We shall never know.FURTHER READINGBahn P, Flenley J (2011), Easter Island, Earth Island (Rapa NuiPress)Flenley J, Bahn P (2003), The Enigmas of Easter Island (OxfordUniversity Press)