The Lesson of
Easter Island
When European explorers first reached Easter Island in
the 1700s, there were an estimated 2000 or fewer people
living there. There were not many trees on the island, and
the native people, called the Rapa Nui, could only grow
enough food to support their small population. But the
island also had more than 800 moai statues, the largest
of which stands 10 meters (33 feet) high and weighs 75
metric tons (82 tons)—bigger than a two-story house!
28 Chapter 1
The large number of moai and other archaeological evidence suggest that the island may have
once supported as many as 10,000 people. What
happened to the large population that built the
moai, and how had so many people survived on
such a barren island?
SOUTH
PACIFIC
OCEAN
A Lost Jungle
KEY
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Proof in the pollen
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Easter
ByIsland
studying
18p x 18p
ancient coastal settlements,
archaeologists determined that the island
FINAL
natives likely arrived from Polynesia be2.25.10
tween a.d. 700 and 1100. Not much was
known however, about what the island
was like before that time. In the 1980s,
geographer John Flenley drilled long cylinders, or cores, of mud out of the bottom
of lakes on Easter Island. The mud contained fossilized pollen grains. How deep
the pollen was buried showed when
different plant species lived on the island.
By analyzing the pollen, Flenley found
that before people arrived, the island was
covered with a variety of large palm trees
and many other plants.
Pollen cores taken by Flenley and other researchers showed
that shortly after the Polynesians arrived on the island, all of
the tall trees had disappeared. By a.d. 1400, most species of
plants had vanished from the island as well. Some researchers hypothesize that the people on the island cut down the
trees, using them to build canoes and houses, and, most
likely, to transport the moai. In addition to overharvesting,
changes in climate may have contributed to the deforestation of Easter Island.
the decline
Without trees, the island’s soil washed away, disrupting fresh water sources and making it hard to grow food.
Famine and war reduced the native island population from
nearly 10,000 to 2000 or 3000 by the time Europeans arrived. The civilization that built the moai declined because
the resources it needed to survive disappeared, in part
because the people of the island had overused them.
One goal of environmental science is
to help us understand how our actions affect the environment. What could the people of Easter Island have done
differently to avoid what happened? Sample answer: If the
image is at 160%!
people of Easter Island had managed their use of trees, the soil
destruction would have been less severe.
An Introduction to Environmental Science 29