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> and occasionally abruptly, in environmental or social shocks Reminds me of the history of what happened to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) after all the trees had b

> and occasionally abruptly, in environmental or social shocks Reminds me of the history of what happened to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) after all the trees had been cut down and the ecosystem significantly modified by human presence. The whole island was originally forested.

hyperhello 3y ago
This was shown to be kind of likely to have been rats that arrived with the settlers destroyed the defenseless palm trees in a matter of years. Since palm is a softwood and not suitable for building boats for deep sea fishing, the islanders switched to agriculture, growing taro and other plants in volcanic soil. They recognized the island had a maximum population capacity and socialized themselves to build statues from the quarry, instead of making babies. Very interesting.
- concordDance 3y ago
  > They recognized the island had a maximum population capacity and socialized themselves to build statues from the quarry, instead of making babies. That would be bizarre and completely at odds with what I know of human nature. Do you have a source?
atombender 3y ago
As far as I'm aware, this has been thoroughly debunked, especially by Hunt and Lipo [1], who have argued against the "ecocide" theory, pointing out that the deforestation appeared to have had a positive effective on the islander's agriculture, and that contrary to Diamond's claims, the population was increasing, not falling, at the time of European contact. The deforestation was almost certainly caused by the Polynesian rat, as archeological research has shown that the same type of deforestation happened on other islands where rats where accidentally introduced, but not on settled islands where there were no signs of rats having been introduced. I believe Diamond (or maybe it was Heyerdahl) claims the settlers chopped down the forest in order to make rolling logs for transporting statues, but we now know that statues were transported by "walking" them using ropes [2]. As a pop-sci counterpart to "Collapse", I recommend the podcast The Fall of Civilization's episode on Easter Island [3], which includes this newer research. The podcast is wonderful in general, and that episode is one of the best in the series. As far I'm concerned, Diamond has a lot to answer for in perpetuating these modern myths that get repeated long after they've been debunked. His narratives catch people's interest because they are simple explanations that "make sense", and come with a kind of moral component, one of dramatic irony (the settlers were so stupid to chop down their trees, just to make these useless statues!). Diamond also wrote about Greenland and argued for the same kind of story there, despite evidence to the contrary. There is an entire academic book [4] devoted to debunking Diamond's claims, which should tell you how annoyed real archeologists, anthropologists, and historians are with his books. [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2042672 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2042672 [2] https://youtu.be/YpNuh-J5IgE?si=arekVaU6AnwEvQwY https://youtu.be/YpNuh-J5IgE?si=arekVaU6AnwEvQwY [3] https://open.spotify.com/episode/0pGCsvdjo344EQ2dALE6dD?si=6J6i-7O4SY-7OEySXiyWGQ https://open.spotify.com/episode/0pGCsvdjo344EQ2dALE6dD?si=6... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questioning_Collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questioning_Collapse

hyperhello 3y ago

This was shown to be kind of likely to have been rats that arrived with the settlers destroyed the defenseless palm trees in a matter of years. Since palm is a softwood and not suitable for building boats for deep sea fishing, the islanders switched to agriculture, growing taro and other plants in volcanic soil. They recognized the island had a maximum population capacity and socialized themselves to build statues from the quarry, instead of making babies. Very interesting.

concordDance 3y ago
> They recognized the island had a maximum population capacity and socialized themselves to build statues from the quarry, instead of making babies. That would be bizarre and completely at odds with what I know of human nature. Do you have a source?

atombender 3y ago

As far as I'm aware, this has been thoroughly debunked, especially by Hunt and Lipo [1], who have argued against the "ecocide" theory, pointing out that the deforestation appeared to have had a positive effective on the islander's agriculture, and that contrary to Diamond's claims, the population was increasing, not falling, at the time of European contact. The deforestation was almost certainly caused by the Polynesian rat, as archeological research has shown that the same type of deforestation happened on other islands where rats where accidentally introduced, but not on settled islands where there were no signs of rats having been introduced. I believe Diamond (or maybe it was Heyerdahl) claims the settlers chopped down the forest in order to make rolling logs for transporting statues, but we now know that statues were transported by "walking" them using ropes [2]. As a pop-sci counterpart to "Collapse", I recommend the podcast The Fall of Civilization's episode on Easter Island [3], which includes this newer research. The podcast is wonderful in general, and that episode is one of the best in the series. As far I'm concerned, Diamond has a lot to answer for in perpetuating these modern myths that get repeated long after they've been debunked. His narratives catch people's interest because they are simple explanations that "make sense", and come with a kind of moral component, one of dramatic irony (the settlers were so stupid to chop down their trees, just to make these useless statues!). Diamond also wrote about Greenland and argued for the same kind of story there, despite evidence to the contrary. There is an entire academic book [4] devoted to debunking Diamond's claims, which should tell you how annoyed real archeologists, anthropologists, and historians are with his books. [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2042672 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2042672 [2] https://youtu.be/YpNuh-J5IgE?si=arekVaU6AnwEvQwY https://youtu.be/YpNuh-J5IgE?si=arekVaU6AnwEvQwY [3] https://open.spotify.com/episode/0pGCsvdjo344EQ2dALE6dD?si=6J6i-7O4SY-7OEySXiyWGQ https://open.spotify.com/episode/0pGCsvdjo344EQ2dALE6dD?si=6... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questioning_Collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questioning_Collapse