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urbpanThis is taken pretty much directly and entirely from The Complete Guide to Easter Island by Shawn McLaughlin, with some information picked up from my tour guide Dale Simpson, and a bit of stuff from Jared Diamond’s Collapse. If you want to know about Easter Island, buy the McLaughlin book from The Easter Island Foundation. If you plan to go there, definitely buy the Mc Laughlin book--and try to get Dale to be your guide too.
Easter Island Timeline
2.5 million to 300,000 years ago—Three volcanoes push out of the Pacific Ocean to form the island.
300-400 CE—Polynesian people settle the island, part of an expansion from to all the lands in the Pacific, beginning about 40-50,000 years ago with Australia and finishing about 1000 years ago with New Zealand.
400-1500 —Culture of the island develops, flourishes, and begins to tax the resources of the island heading toward collapse. Typical Polynesian altar spaces called Ahu are erected, eventually being topped with ancestor statues called Moai. Early Moai are relatively small and naturalistic. As time goes on, they become larger and more stylized. Stone working techniques improve over time. Big heavy stones are moved great distances. By end of this period plants used to make tools and wild animals used as food are almost completely wiped out.
1600-1700 —“Decadent” or “Late Period.” Many Ahu Moai are abandoned or destroyed. Bird-man cult develops. Most petroglyphs are from this period.
1722 –Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovers the island on Easter Sunday, giving the island its most well-known name.
1770-1850’s —Series of ships from Europe and America contact the island, souring the natives on foreigners.
1800-1863 –Peru develops industry of stealing Easter Islanders to force them to work. Over time 1400 slaves are taken.
1860 –Tahitian sailors give the island the name “Rapa Nui” (Great Rapa) because it reminds them of a smaller island in French Polynesia. The name sticks as the name that the islanders use for not only the island, but also its people and their language. Current convention is to write the name of the place using two words, and the people and language as one word: Rapanui people speak rapanui on Rapa Nui.
1863 –Good people of Peru re-criminalize slavery, and return last surviving Rapanui slaves, who carry smallpox to their countrymen. 60% of the island’s population is wiped out.
1864-1868 –Catholic missionaries begin working on the island. Entire population baptized by 1868.
1868-1875 –Livestock managers arrive, dispel missionaries and relocate Rapanui people to one concentrated village, Hanga Roa.
1888 –Rapanui annexed by Chile.
1900-1935 –Sheep managers rule island (leased from Chile). Sheep denude landscape of native vegetation. Eucalyptus trees are introduced for shade and as windbreaks. Eucalyptus trees prevent other plants from growing near them (and present fire hazard). Chimango caracara (a small raptor) introduced to control introduced rats and sparrows (the raptors eat neither rats nor sparrows). Archaeologists and other scientists begin to arrive during this period. At the end of this period the sheep managers pull out or are forced out (Dale seemed to indicate they were forced out, and McLaughlin is unclear).
1955 –Thor Heyerdahl begins studying island, making it, and himself, household names. His theory was that Easter Island stonework was made by Ancient South Americans (who themselves had spread from Egypt (!)) Nonetheless, he establishes a chain of archaeological study and restoration that continues today.
1966 –Rapanui become Chilean citizens.
1967 –Airport opens on island. Piped water in Hanga Roa.
1970's -Electricity, hotels, etc.
1994 –DNA studies prove Polynesian origin of Rapanui people.
(By the way, whenever you see an "Easter Island head" it has either been buried up to its neck by time and soil drift, or it has been violently separated from its body)
Dale first took us to Vinapu. What looks at first to be a pile of rubble is a particularly old ahu (897 CE).
The site was in use for a long time, as evidenced by the late period stonework on the retaining wall. (The back of the ahu was built to hold the whole thing together, basically, and to form a sea wall.) On this ahu, the edges of the stone slabs fit together with no gaps.
At the end of the Ahu Moai period, the moai were deliberately toppled. Was it rival clans pushing down the ancestors of their enemies, or a culture disgusted with a belief system that let them down and left them to starve?
Looking down at Hanga Roa from an outlook to its south.
Next: the Bird-man cult.
Easter Island Timeline
2.5 million to 300,000 years ago—Three volcanoes push out of the Pacific Ocean to form the island.
300-400 CE—Polynesian people settle the island, part of an expansion from to all the lands in the Pacific, beginning about 40-50,000 years ago with Australia and finishing about 1000 years ago with New Zealand.
400-1500 —Culture of the island develops, flourishes, and begins to tax the resources of the island heading toward collapse. Typical Polynesian altar spaces called Ahu are erected, eventually being topped with ancestor statues called Moai. Early Moai are relatively small and naturalistic. As time goes on, they become larger and more stylized. Stone working techniques improve over time. Big heavy stones are moved great distances. By end of this period plants used to make tools and wild animals used as food are almost completely wiped out.
1600-1700 —“Decadent” or “Late Period.” Many Ahu Moai are abandoned or destroyed. Bird-man cult develops. Most petroglyphs are from this period.
1722 –Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovers the island on Easter Sunday, giving the island its most well-known name.
1770-1850’s —Series of ships from Europe and America contact the island, souring the natives on foreigners.
1800-1863 –Peru develops industry of stealing Easter Islanders to force them to work. Over time 1400 slaves are taken.
1860 –Tahitian sailors give the island the name “Rapa Nui” (Great Rapa) because it reminds them of a smaller island in French Polynesia. The name sticks as the name that the islanders use for not only the island, but also its people and their language. Current convention is to write the name of the place using two words, and the people and language as one word: Rapanui people speak rapanui on Rapa Nui.
1863 –Good people of Peru re-criminalize slavery, and return last surviving Rapanui slaves, who carry smallpox to their countrymen. 60% of the island’s population is wiped out.
1864-1868 –Catholic missionaries begin working on the island. Entire population baptized by 1868.
1868-1875 –Livestock managers arrive, dispel missionaries and relocate Rapanui people to one concentrated village, Hanga Roa.
1888 –Rapanui annexed by Chile.
1900-1935 –Sheep managers rule island (leased from Chile). Sheep denude landscape of native vegetation. Eucalyptus trees are introduced for shade and as windbreaks. Eucalyptus trees prevent other plants from growing near them (and present fire hazard). Chimango caracara (a small raptor) introduced to control introduced rats and sparrows (the raptors eat neither rats nor sparrows). Archaeologists and other scientists begin to arrive during this period. At the end of this period the sheep managers pull out or are forced out (Dale seemed to indicate they were forced out, and McLaughlin is unclear).
1955 –Thor Heyerdahl begins studying island, making it, and himself, household names. His theory was that Easter Island stonework was made by Ancient South Americans (who themselves had spread from Egypt (!)) Nonetheless, he establishes a chain of archaeological study and restoration that continues today.
1966 –Rapanui become Chilean citizens.
1967 –Airport opens on island. Piped water in Hanga Roa.
1970's -Electricity, hotels, etc.
1994 –DNA studies prove Polynesian origin of Rapanui people.
(By the way, whenever you see an "Easter Island head" it has either been buried up to its neck by time and soil drift, or it has been violently separated from its body)
Dale first took us to Vinapu. What looks at first to be a pile of rubble is a particularly old ahu (897 CE).
The site was in use for a long time, as evidenced by the late period stonework on the retaining wall. (The back of the ahu was built to hold the whole thing together, basically, and to form a sea wall.) On this ahu, the edges of the stone slabs fit together with no gaps.
At the end of the Ahu Moai period, the moai were deliberately toppled. Was it rival clans pushing down the ancestors of their enemies, or a culture disgusted with a belief system that let them down and left them to starve?
Looking down at Hanga Roa from an outlook to its south.
Next: the Bird-man cult.
