12 ms·

Rethinking Easter Island’s Historic “Collapse”

65 points by Hooke 6y ago

markdown 6y ago
> But the island, called Rapa Nui by its Indigenous people Then why have you titled it Easter Island? I'm inclined to agree with the idea that the destruction of the once-thriving island was caused by the arrival of Europeans, as it was elsewhere in the world... mainly by disease and enslavement. Blackbirding was in full swing in the Pacific: > Almost 150 men, women and children paddle out to the ship. Some swim. On board they are invited to share a feast (or, some say, view the wares) below deck. But as soon as they descend the stairs, the trapdoors slam shut and the ship sails away with about half the population of ‘Ata locked in its hold. - https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/currently-history/blackbirding-new-zealands-shameful-role-in-the-pacific-islands-slave-trade https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/currently-history/blackbir...
- trentnix 6y ago
  Then why have you titled it Easter Island? Because that's how most people interested in reading the article would recognize it. Had the title been 'Rethinking Rapa Nui's Historic "Collapse"', I would have certainly browsed right past. Perhaps many others might have as well.
  - SEJeff 6y ago
    Indeed, and that name makes the most sense. For the GP, the official name is not Rapa Nui, but Isla De Pascua as it is "owned" by Chile. The native inhabitants of this small island called it Rapa Nui after themselves. I've spent a week there in Hanga Roa and a few days in Tahai. It is a really special place to experience if you can.
    - markdown 6y ago
      > Indeed, and that name makes the most sense. How does that make the most sense? It is the indigenous inhabitants, and not foreigners who should get to name their land.
      - Nasrudith 6y ago
        Countries are already named on a per language basis and it isn't an exact process or accurate to the original. It would be like taking offense at referring to calling "Estados Unitos" offensive as a name for the United States or "Russia" offensive because the actual pronunciation is more like "Rossiya" and spelled Россия.
    - flobosg 6y ago
      > the official name is not Rapa Nui, but Isla De Pascua There was a proposal to change the official name to "Rapa Nui – Isla de Pascua" a few years ago but I am not sure if it went through.
- JetSetWilly 6y ago
  "Greece" is called "Hellas" by Greeks themselves - and nobody cares. A name doesn't have to be the same as that used by the natives, as the point of the name is not to be accurate to what natives call it, but to provide a commonly understood reference. In English names for places and things are quite often different to what it is called in other languages - that's fine. There's no central authority that mandates what syllables should be used to refer to things.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    No central authority, but there is a central reference, Wikipedia, which allows one to quickly translate between names for places and things, so the need for a canonical name is much less than in the days when one might need to consult a reference book or have various names in one's readily-accessible memory. İstanbul (not Κωνσταντινούπολη): "Why did Constantinople get the works?"
  - markdown 6y ago
    Sure, but surely in 2020 we can be more respectful of the wishes of the indigenous people. We should call people what they want to be called. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ibSvOWAMg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ibSvOWAMg
  - occamrazor 6y ago
    The Greeks cared enough to change the country code from ISO-3166 GR to EL in all Eurostat official statistics.
banku_brougham 6y ago
There are different theories of the cause of the civilizational collapse of the Rapanui. It is agreed that the approximate time was near, within a century or so, of first contact with western explorers. So knowing nothing else, perhaps their poor stewardship resulted in collapse a couple hundred years before Europeans arrived, or perhaps their fate after first contact followed a pathway down that we know all too well.
koboll 6y ago
The first European ships noted in their logs that the island was devoid of trees, and that this was unusual, as other large islands of Polynesia were not. This is supported by fossil evidence. The disappearance of trees would severely limit the inhabitants' ability to find food, both because forests support a more diverse ecosystem and because lumber is necessary to build fishing boats. It's unlikely that the island's trees would vanish for any reason apart from human deforestation -- in fact, there is evidence that a vast majority of them were cut down by humans: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440309003732?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030544030... It's certainly likely that European contact hastened the islanders' decline through diseases and other evils of colonization, but the theory here is built on... the fact that stone platforms were built after 1600? Okay. That doesn't really explain how the islanders cutting down all the forests on the island prior to European contact could have no effect on its population.
- anonAndOn 6y ago
  Not all of the trees were gone when the Europeans arrived, apparently. Sir David Attenborough has a toromiro wood carving. [0] [0]https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/apr/11/timradford https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/apr/11/timradford
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    Why do you assume the carving was of fresh wood?
    - teruakohatu 6y ago
      Wood can last a thousand of years, or even hundreds of thousands of years, in the ground under the right conditions (where it won't rot or mineralize into stone/petrified wood).
- dougmany 6y ago
  Trees are nice but not having trees does not automatically mean collapse. I found this paper had many more arguments then the article. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255726745_Ecological_Catastrophe_and_Collapse_The_Myth_of_'Ecocide'_on_Rapa_Nui_Easter_Island https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255726745_Ecologica...
melenaos 6y ago
I am always wonder how would these civilizations would be today if they left to grow alone, without the European affection and love. Like we couldn't even have access to them until we have satellite internet, human rights, European committee, global journalism, things that could hold the 'explorers' from committing civilization crimes and for completely vanish exotic cultures. What it would be like to have a conversation with a native american about their land and their forest, how far would Aztecs would reach, what relegion does the Rapa Nui people really had, and so many wonderful things we could get from people of Africa and all over the world. Even then, their ground would be taken, their villages would be burned down and nobody would know. Is it possible to leave such a big continent to people without guns? Is it possible to leave them live the natural life they choose to live, without forcing them to settle in a house like our ancestors did 12.000 year before? And because of that my back hurts, my body is stiff, I have anxiety for virtual things and my connection with the nature is broken. But no more cultures left to modernize in Earth, let's find another planet to help.
- cheesecracker 6y ago
  You may enjoy reading "The World Until Yesterday" by Jared Diamond.
  - melenaos 6y ago
    Great! Thank you for your suggestion. I have added to the readlist
- sbierwagen 6y ago
  >I am always wonder how would these civilizations would be today if they left to grow alone, There are a few uncontacted peoples left. Notoriously, the Sentinelese kill anyone who try to land on their island. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples Left alone, they appear to muddle along like any other hunter-gatherer tribe would: starving often, dying young, making no "progress" as we would call it. The native state of humanity without technology is certainly different from our life, I hesitate to call it "better".
TheGallopedHigh 6y ago
There is great new podcast that speaks about the collapse of civilizations, and the author does one about Easter Island https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7j08gxUcBgc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7j08gxUcBgc I’ve even mentioned it in another thread because the production quality is great. Enjoy!
cheesecracker 6y ago
How do they define collapse? The criterion in the article seems to be "building platforms occasionally" vs "not building platforms anymore"?
- NietTim 6y ago
  In order to build platforms occasionally you need structure in your society so people can make time to do that, that structure has collapsed
  - cheesecracker 6y ago
    I am not entirely convinced. By that definition, all Western civilizations have collapsed because we don't build platforms anymore.
    - yyyk 6y ago
      You're looking at the inverse logic rather than the right one. A => B, does not imply (not A) => (not B). Building platforms is a strong argument there's some organized society (since any such action would require coordination), but the opposite does not have to apply (not having platforms does not mean there isn't a society).
      - cheesecracker 6y ago
        But the logic of the article seems to be the Easter Island inhabitants stopped building platforms, so their civilization must have collapsed. I criticize exactly the faulty logic you describe.
        yyyk 6y ago
        My reading is a bit different. IMHO, the article is not making the assumption you believe it does. Article's logic: * Article assumes common knowledge of a collapse, and doesn't bother proving that. * So when did the collapse happen? * Well, the inhabitants were building statues during and right after contact. * So probably afterwards. That 'afterwards' could be right after inhabitants stopped building platforms, but it doesn't have to be for the article's logic to hold! If this is not the case (as you claim), than this just pushes the collapse date forwards from the point they stopped building (after contact). It can't push the date backwards (before contact), because they were building stuff previously (article's actual argument). So if the assumption you mentioned doesn't hold, the article's basic argument - collapse after contact, not as a result of ecological catastrophe - becomes more likely.
totetsu 6y ago
The post European contact Rapa Nui writing system is one of the neater additions to unicode http://www.unicode.org/L2/L1999/rongorongo.pdf http://www.unicode.org/L2/L1999/rongorongo.pdf
- flobosg 6y ago
  Whether rongorongo was created pre- or post-European contact is still a matter of debate. Unfortunately very little is known about it and the glyphs remain undeciphered, but I agree that the Unicode proposal is a good thing.

65 points by Hooke 6y ago

> But the island, called Rapa Nui by its Indigenous people Then why have you titled it Easter Island? I'm inclined to agree with the idea that the destruction of the once-thriving island was caused by the arrival of Europeans, as it was elsewhere in the world... mainly by disease and enslavement. Blackbirding was in full swing in the Pacific: > Almost 150 men, women and children paddle out to the ship. Some swim. On board they are invited to share a feast (or, some say, view the wares) below deck. But as soon as they descend the stairs, the trapdoors slam shut and the ship sails away with about half the population of ‘Ata locked in its hold. - https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/currently-history/blackbirding-new-zealands-shameful-role-in-the-pacific-islands-slave-trade https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/currently-history/blackbir...

trentnix 6y ago
Then why have you titled it Easter Island? Because that's how most people interested in reading the article would recognize it. Had the title been 'Rethinking Rapa Nui's Historic "Collapse"', I would have certainly browsed right past. Perhaps many others might have as well.
- SEJeff 6y ago
  Indeed, and that name makes the most sense. For the GP, the official name is not Rapa Nui, but Isla De Pascua as it is "owned" by Chile. The native inhabitants of this small island called it Rapa Nui after themselves. I've spent a week there in Hanga Roa and a few days in Tahai. It is a really special place to experience if you can.
  - markdown 6y ago
    > Indeed, and that name makes the most sense. How does that make the most sense? It is the indigenous inhabitants, and not foreigners who should get to name their land.
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      Countries are already named on a per language basis and it isn't an exact process or accurate to the original. It would be like taking offense at referring to calling "Estados Unitos" offensive as a name for the United States or "Russia" offensive because the actual pronunciation is more like "Rossiya" and spelled Россия.
  - flobosg 6y ago
    > the official name is not Rapa Nui, but Isla De Pascua There was a proposal to change the official name to "Rapa Nui – Isla de Pascua" a few years ago but I am not sure if it went through.
JetSetWilly 6y ago
"Greece" is called "Hellas" by Greeks themselves - and nobody cares. A name doesn't have to be the same as that used by the natives, as the point of the name is not to be accurate to what natives call it, but to provide a commonly understood reference. In English names for places and things are quite often different to what it is called in other languages - that's fine. There's no central authority that mandates what syllables should be used to refer to things.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  No central authority, but there is a central reference, Wikipedia, which allows one to quickly translate between names for places and things, so the need for a canonical name is much less than in the days when one might need to consult a reference book or have various names in one's readily-accessible memory. İstanbul (not Κωνσταντινούπολη): "Why did Constantinople get the works?"
- markdown 6y ago
  Sure, but surely in 2020 we can be more respectful of the wishes of the indigenous people. We should call people what they want to be called. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ibSvOWAMg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ibSvOWAMg
- occamrazor 6y ago
  The Greeks cared enough to change the country code from ISO-3166 GR to EL in all Eurostat official statistics.

banku_brougham 6y ago

There are different theories of the cause of the civilizational collapse of the Rapanui. It is agreed that the approximate time was near, within a century or so, of first contact with western explorers. So knowing nothing else, perhaps their poor stewardship resulted in collapse a couple hundred years before Europeans arrived, or perhaps their fate after first contact followed a pathway down that we know all too well.

koboll 6y ago

The first European ships noted in their logs that the island was devoid of trees, and that this was unusual, as other large islands of Polynesia were not. This is supported by fossil evidence. The disappearance of trees would severely limit the inhabitants' ability to find food, both because forests support a more diverse ecosystem and because lumber is necessary to build fishing boats. It's unlikely that the island's trees would vanish for any reason apart from human deforestation -- in fact, there is evidence that a vast majority of them were cut down by humans: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440309003732?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030544030... It's certainly likely that European contact hastened the islanders' decline through diseases and other evils of colonization, but the theory here is built on... the fact that stone platforms were built after 1600? Okay. That doesn't really explain how the islanders cutting down all the forests on the island prior to European contact could have no effect on its population.

anonAndOn 6y ago
Not all of the trees were gone when the Europeans arrived, apparently. Sir David Attenborough has a toromiro wood carving. [0] [0]https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/apr/11/timradford https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/apr/11/timradford
- andromeduck 6y ago
  Why do you assume the carving was of fresh wood?
  - teruakohatu 6y ago
    Wood can last a thousand of years, or even hundreds of thousands of years, in the ground under the right conditions (where it won't rot or mineralize into stone/petrified wood).
dougmany 6y ago
Trees are nice but not having trees does not automatically mean collapse. I found this paper had many more arguments then the article. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255726745_Ecological_Catastrophe_and_Collapse_The_Myth_of_'Ecocide'_on_Rapa_Nui_Easter_Island https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255726745_Ecologica...

melenaos 6y ago

I am always wonder how would these civilizations would be today if they left to grow alone, without the European affection and love. Like we couldn't even have access to them until we have satellite internet, human rights, European committee, global journalism, things that could hold the 'explorers' from committing civilization crimes and for completely vanish exotic cultures. What it would be like to have a conversation with a native american about their land and their forest, how far would Aztecs would reach, what relegion does the Rapa Nui people really had, and so many wonderful things we could get from people of Africa and all over the world. Even then, their ground would be taken, their villages would be burned down and nobody would know. Is it possible to leave such a big continent to people without guns? Is it possible to leave them live the natural life they choose to live, without forcing them to settle in a house like our ancestors did 12.000 year before? And because of that my back hurts, my body is stiff, I have anxiety for virtual things and my connection with the nature is broken. But no more cultures left to modernize in Earth, let's find another planet to help.

cheesecracker 6y ago
You may enjoy reading "The World Until Yesterday" by Jared Diamond.
- melenaos 6y ago
  Great! Thank you for your suggestion. I have added to the readlist
sbierwagen 6y ago
>I am always wonder how would these civilizations would be today if they left to grow alone, There are a few uncontacted peoples left. Notoriously, the Sentinelese kill anyone who try to land on their island. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples Left alone, they appear to muddle along like any other hunter-gatherer tribe would: starving often, dying young, making no "progress" as we would call it. The native state of humanity without technology is certainly different from our life, I hesitate to call it "better".

TheGallopedHigh 6y ago

There is great new podcast that speaks about the collapse of civilizations, and the author does one about Easter Island https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7j08gxUcBgc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7j08gxUcBgc I’ve even mentioned it in another thread because the production quality is great. Enjoy!

cheesecracker 6y ago

How do they define collapse? The criterion in the article seems to be "building platforms occasionally" vs "not building platforms anymore"?

NietTim 6y ago
In order to build platforms occasionally you need structure in your society so people can make time to do that, that structure has collapsed
- cheesecracker 6y ago
  I am not entirely convinced. By that definition, all Western civilizations have collapsed because we don't build platforms anymore.
  - yyyk 6y ago
    You're looking at the inverse logic rather than the right one. A => B, does not imply (not A) => (not B). Building platforms is a strong argument there's some organized society (since any such action would require coordination), but the opposite does not have to apply (not having platforms does not mean there isn't a society).
    - cheesecracker 6y ago
      But the logic of the article seems to be the Easter Island inhabitants stopped building platforms, so their civilization must have collapsed. I criticize exactly the faulty logic you describe.
      - yyyk 6y ago
        My reading is a bit different. IMHO, the article is not making the assumption you believe it does. Article's logic: * Article assumes common knowledge of a collapse, and doesn't bother proving that. * So when did the collapse happen? * Well, the inhabitants were building statues during and right after contact. * So probably afterwards. That 'afterwards' could be right after inhabitants stopped building platforms, but it doesn't have to be for the article's logic to hold! If this is not the case (as you claim), than this just pushes the collapse date forwards from the point they stopped building (after contact). It can't push the date backwards (before contact), because they were building stuff previously (article's actual argument). So if the assumption you mentioned doesn't hold, the article's basic argument - collapse after contact, not as a result of ecological catastrophe - becomes more likely.

totetsu 6y ago

The post European contact Rapa Nui writing system is one of the neater additions to unicode http://www.unicode.org/L2/L1999/rongorongo.pdf http://www.unicode.org/L2/L1999/rongorongo.pdf

flobosg 6y ago
Whether rongorongo was created pre- or post-European contact is still a matter of debate. Unfortunately very little is known about it and the glyphs remain undeciphered, but I agree that the Unicode proposal is a good thing.