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Maybe, this was not the best source, but there are articles disputing that the population decreases happened before the first contact with European explorers in
by seren 7y ago
Maybe, this was not the best source, but there are articles disputing that the population decreases happened before the first contact with European explorers in 1722.
http://islandheritage.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/RNJ_23_2_Mulrooney_Etal.pdf http://islandheritage.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/...
I don't think it does challenge the idea that the deforestation led to the collapse, but maybe it was not the only cause.
- graeme 7y agoThanks, that paper is much clearer. It seems their argument is that deforestation was not a factor in collapse, as land use didn't shift and no big decrease in toolmaking was seen before 1800, post contact. Certainly plausible. To know beyond that point we'd need a subject matter expert and possible original investigation. In other words it's possible Diamond's tree narrative is correct but not his war narrative. I think that doesn't undermine it so much for the purposes of discussing the possibility that we may use all of a certain resource. But it is indeed a caveat worth noting.