“Easter
Island Origins” is a very recent documentary about the mysterious Rapa Nui
(Easter Island) in the Pacific Ocean. The island is almost isolated from the
rest of the world but famous due to its large stone statues (“moai”), remnants
of a vanished high culture. But perhaps Easter Island isn´t really that
mysterious. Maybe its people and culture have simply been mystified by outsiders?
Judging by this documentary, the answer is “yes”…but some of the new research
on the island have led to sensational results anyhow.
Controversially,
Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl claimed that Easter Island had been inhabited
by migrants from South America. While this is disproven (the earliest settlers
on Rapa Nui were certainly from other parts of Polynesia), DNA research
suggests that there actually might be a connection between the island and the South
American mainland. The documentary is somewhat unclear on this point, but if I
understand it correctly, the idea is that the *Polynesians* sailed to South
America, rather than the other way around.
Genetic markers typical of the Zenú
people in Colombia have been found among the peoples of the Tuamotu Islands,
the Marquesas Islands, Mangareva and Easter Island. The idea seems to be that
the Polynesians first colonized the two former, then reached the South American
mainland, only to return home (presumably with Zenú wives and/or mixed race children).
Some of these people with mixed descent participated in the somewhat later
discovery and settlement of Mangareva and Easter Island, explaining why the Zenú
marker is found there too. The sculptures in “medieval” Colombia had a strong
resemblance to those found in the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Mangareva and Rapa Nui
(although the moai at Easter Island are much larger in size).
The usual
Western picture of Easter Island is that of a downright irrational population who
cut down all trees and used up all rock (which could be used as fertilizer) in
a vain and manic pursuit of building larger and larger statues. War and
civilizational collapse promptly followed, and when the Europeans arrived, the
native Polynesians had already forgot their great traditions, lived in caves
and drank sea water.
“Easter Island Origins” contain interviews with
archeologists who deny this traditional picture. They believe that the
population of the island was always relatively small (and hence couldn´t
dramatically “collapse” in the first place), that there is no evidence of
warfare, nor of settlements being abandoned by people taking to the hills. There
*is* evidence of wide-spread deforestation, but this was due to rats, which lacked
natural enemies and hence proliferated en masse, consuming the seeds of the trees
in the process.
The real (human) population collapse took place after the arrival
of the European colonists, when various diseases to which the natives lacked
immunity killed off most of the population. *This* led to the great statues
being abandoned or destroyed during the 19th century. Easter Island
was also attacked by slave-raiders from Peru. The handful of survivors who were
able to return to the island carried smallpox with them and infected the rest
of the population. At its lowest, the native population was only 40 people!
Today, it´s back around 3000, approximately the same number as before Western
colonialism. The island has been controlled by Chile since 1888.
It´s a
tragic story of a people that actually reached the American mainland centuries
before Columbus made a landfall in the Caribbean…
And no, no evidence of Lemuria!
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