What Abundance Built · Episode 5 of 8 · 57 min
Easter Island Didn't Collapse: What Ancient DNA Just Overturned
Easter Island is the favorite parable of a people who used up their abundance and destroyed themselves. The episode tests that classic ecocide story against 2024 ancient-DNA and rock-garden studies that show a stable population of perhaps 3,000, no pre-contact collapse, and contact with the Americas before Europeans. The real catastrophe arrived by ship in the 1860s.
Who's who
- Jared Diamond+1 more episodeAuthor of Collapse, who popularized the ecocide story
- Terry HuntArchaeologist and leading revisionist
- Carl LipoArchaeologist and leading revisionist
- Jacob Roggeveen+1 more episodeDutch navigator who made first recorded European contact in 1722
- Pavel PavelExperimental archaeologist who showed a moai could be walked
- Eske WillerslevCo-author of the 2024 ancient-DNA study
- Anna-Sapfo MalaspinasCo-author of the 2024 ancient-DNA study
Where it happens
- Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile+1 more episodeIsland of the moai statues
- Rano Raraku, Rapa NuiQuarry where hundreds of statues were carved
- Peru+1 more episodeOrigin of the 1862-63 slave raids
Timeline
- c. 1200Best current evidence for Polynesian settlement
- 1722Roggeveen makes first European contact
- December 1862Peruvian slave raids carry off roughly half the population
- 1877Population reaches a low of about 110
- 1888Chile annexes the island
- 2024Ancient-DNA and rock-garden studies challenge the collapse story
Still debated
Deforestation is not in dispute, but whether it caused a collapse is. The 3,000 population is a model, the DNA result rests on fifteen mostly post-contact genomes, and why and when the moai were toppled is still debated.
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