easter island what happened to the easter island people

Easter Island is an island in the South Pacific and one of the remotest places on earth. Today, information technology has the condition of special territory within Chile. The entire island became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995, with much of information technology protected inside the Rapa Nui National Park.

It is idea that the Rapa Nui, the inhabitants of the isle, came from other pacific islands in canoes between 700 and 1100 AD. There are suggestions that Polynesians arrived around the same time that Hawaii was settled, perhaps around 300-400 Advertising just this has not been verified. Radiocarbon dating from the earliest human being-made fabric found on the island would suggest 1200 AD to be accurate every bit the time of initial settlement.

The remains of a settlement on the eastern side of the island.

The first settlers are likely to have arrived from either the Gambier Islands (ii,600 km or 1,600 miles abroad) or the Marquesas Islands (3,200 km or two,000 miles away) to the west. Some theories propose the settlers really came from South America and the agronomical evidence of sweet potato may suggest this. At that place are distinct similarities betwixt the linguistic communication of Rapa Nui and Mangrevan, as spoken by the inhabitants of the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia. In fact, when Captain James Cook visited the island, a Polynesian crew member from Bora Bora was able to communicate with the Rapa Nui. A voyage undertaken for National Geographic in 1999 took only 19 days to travel between Mangareva in French Polynesia and Easter Island.

The Rapa Nui had an advanced class organisation with an ariki, or high chief, seen as the leader of the nine clans on the isle. The high chief was the eldest descendant through showtime-born lines of the island'southward legendary founder, Hotu Matu'a. The Rapa Nui created the impressive moai statues which however be today. It is believed they were built to honor ancestors.

Some of the legendary moai statues. There are 887 of them on the island.

The population on the island rose to fifteen,000 with settlements located mainly on the east coast. Originally, the island was habitation to a number of tree species including ane of the largest palm trees in the earth. There were also at least vi bird species. Because of the booming population, the inhabitants needed more resources. These resources came from the island itself. Trees were cut down to make style for farming land. The introduction of the Polynesian rat caused widespread ecological damage. As the deforestation continued, the residents could no longer build vessels of sufficient quality and their ability to fish was reduced. The deforestation also let to an increment in erosion, damaging agriculture. Over-hunting of birds led to their extinction.  By 1722 when the Europeans arrived, the population had fallen to but ii,000 due to deforestation and over-exploitation of the island's resources.

A lake in the crater of a volcano. There are 3 that created Easter Island and all are dormant.

Equally the population declined, the Antecedent Cult came to an end to exist replaced by the Bird Man Cult. Each yr, a warrior from each tribe would race in a competition to the remote Motu Nui islet to discover a rare egg. The first to render safely and hand the egg to their main would exist the winner and that master would reign as leader over the others until the next race the following year. This practise continued up until 1878.

The Bird Man ritual included pond out to the Motu Nui islet.

Helm Cook was one of the European explorers who visited the island however it was the Dutch who arrived first on Easter Sunday 1722 and hence the island became known as Easter Island. The Europeans who visited at this time reported on the isle's ruin due to the overuse of resources and even stated that the indigenous population had turned to cannibalism as a event. The Rapa Nui accept always denied this.

In the 1860s, Peruvian slave raiders captured 1,500 people and then outbreaks of smallpox and tuberculosis swept through Easter Island. Christian missionaries arrived and began converting the residents. In 1868, Jean-Baptiste Dutrou-Bornier arrived and bought upward most of the island to use as a sheep farm, leaving merely the surface area around Hanga Roa that were occupied by the missionaries. He sent some of the Rapa Nui to Tahiti to work on his farms there. In 1871, the missionaries moved all but 171 Rapa Nui to the Gambier Islands so as to protect them from Dutrou-Bornier. Those who remained were generally older men. Past 1872, the population stood at only 111 leaving the entire island practically abandoned apart from the sheep farm. Information technology is estimated that 97% of the island'southward cultural knowledge was lost.

In 1877, Dutrou-Bornier was assassinated and Alexander Salmon Jr came from Tahiti to manage the sheep farm. His sister was married to Male monarch Pōmare V and had get regent of Tahiti that same yr. During Salmon's time on the island, he purchased the remaining land. Unlike his predecessor, he had a genuine involvement in the welfare of the Rapa Nui and their culture. Their population slowly began to recover.

King Pōmare V was the brother-in-police force of Alexander Salmon Jr and the terminal king of Tahiti.

Salmon Jr sold the isle to Chile on 9 September 1888. The sheep farm remained, leased to a private visitor by Chilean regime. The Rapa Nui continued to inhabit the area around Hanga Roa. It was airtight in 1953 and the Chilean Army took over management of the island until 1966 when it was opened in its entirety. This didn't final long notwithstanding. Post-obit the 1973 Chilean coup d'état that brought Augusto Pinochet to power, Easter Isle was placed under martial police. Democracy returned in 1990 although issues still exist in relation to the treatment of the indigenous Rapa Nui inside Republic of chile. The island became a special territory inside Republic of chile on 30 July 2007.

Easter Island is still home to the moai, 887 monumental giant heads that lie scattered across the island. The Rapa Nui account for about 60% of the electric current population of vii,600. Its airport, Mataveri International Drome, is officially the world's most remote and welcomes big numbers of tourists to meet the Moai statues. Non Rapa Nui visiters are only allowed to visit the island for a period of 30 days or less.

The moai bring tourists from all over the world to ane of the remotest locations on the planet.

The following is an extract from mysteriousplaces.com

A precious stone of an island floating in an endless ocean. A seemingly never-ending supply of raw materials. Technological advances. Population growth. Depletion of resource. War. Collapse. Sound familiar? The Easter Isle story is a story for our times. Nosotros too are on an isle floating on an endless sea. There are differences, of course. Information technology could exist said that Easter Isle is tiny and that it was but a affair of time before the resources in such a closed organization were used upwards. Just there are parallels between the islanders' attitude towards their environment and our own, and this is the nearly frightening part of the story.

On an island every bit modest as Easter, it was easy to run into the furnishings of the deforestation as it was taking place. Only the inhabitants continued their subversive actions. They probably prayed to their gods to furnish the land and so they could continue to rape it, only the gods didn't answer. And still the trees came down. Whatsoever ane did to alter that ecosystem, the results were reasonably predictable. 1 could stand on the elevation and meet nearly every point on the island. The person who felled the last tree could encounter that information technology was the last tree.

Location: Easter Island, Chile 🇨🇱
Abandoned: 1870s

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Source: https://www.worldabandoned.com/easter-island

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