What was the end result of Easter Island?

Around 1200 A.D., their growing numbers and an obsession with building moai led to increased pressure on the environment. By the end of the 17th century, the Rapanui had deforested the island, triggering war, famine and cultural collapse.

What was the impact the people of Easter Island had on their environment?

Increased exposure caused soil erosion and the leaching out of essential nutrients. As a result crop yields declined. The only source of food on the island unaffected by these problems was the chickens. The society went into decline and regressed to ever more primitive conditions.

Why did the population of Easter Island decreased?

A series of devastating events killed almost the entire population of Easter Island. Jared Diamond suggested that Easter Island’s society so destroyed their environment that, by around 1600, their society fell into a downward spiral of warfare, cannibalism, and population decline.

What did Easter Islanders eat?

Easter Islanders Ate Little Seafood – Archaeology Magazine. POCATELLO, IDAHO—An analysis of teeth from 41 individuals whose remains were found on Easter Island suggests that the Rapa Nui ate a diet of plants such as yams, sweet potatoes, and bananas, and terrestrial animals, including Polynesian rats and chickens.

Why do Easter Island heads have bodies?

The heads had been covered by successive mass transport deposits on the island that buried the statues lower half. These events enveloped the statues and gradually buried them to their heads as the islands naturally weathered and eroded through the centuries.

What went wrong on Easter Island?

In this story, made popular by geographer Jared Diamond’s bestselling book Collapse, the Indigenous people of the island, the Rapanui, so destroyed their environment that, by around 1600, their society fell into a downward spiral of warfare, cannibalism, and population decline.

What caused the population growth in Easter Island?

The climate change manifests itself as a long-term pattern of changes in rainfall over some 400 years. The population grew during this same period, and the islanders also increased and changed their use of natural resources and agricultural methods,” Lima explains.

Are there rats on Easter Island?

Rats accompanied the original settlers to Easter Island either as a source of food or as stowaways. The island is an ideal environment for rats: unlimited food, including palm tree nuts, and no natural predators except humans. Under these conditions rat populations can double every six weeks.

How did rats get to Easter Island?

Exactly how rats got on to the island is not known, although one theory is that they arrived as stowaways in the first canoes of Polynesian colonists. Once they arrived, the rats found palm nuts offered an almost unlimited high-quality food supply.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4U5Y7MSAJc