Easter Island

Within a couple of centuries of 900 A.D., a group of Polynesians probably numbering no more than several dozen undertook a long risky voyage against the prevailing winds, eastward from Polynesia into the unknown. They made landfall on what is now known as Easter Island (Rapa Nui), an isolated and heretofore uninhabited triangular island approximately 20 km on a side, located in the middle of nowhere in the South Pacific, 2,200 kilometers from the nearest land (a much smaller island) and 3,200 km west of Chile.

Recent archeological studies of bones in garbage piles and pollen in core samples of soil indicate that the Polynesians had discovered an island paradise with subtropical forests including 21 species of trees, a mild climate, and fertile volcanic soil. Wildlife included 25 species of seabirds, at least 6 of land birds, porpoises, and some fish, shellfish, and seals. The abundant forests provided firewood, food, and construction materials — timber and ropes. The population thrived in this pristine and luxurient environment and swelled in size to at least 7,000 and possibly several times more by the 1500s.

No indications of any contact with the outside world before the visit of the first Europeans in 1722 have been found. But by then, in spite of a promising beginning, only about 3,000 people remained, living in squalid huts or caves, a society in chaos, engaged in almost perpetual warfare and resorting to cannibalism in a desperate attempt to supplement the meager food supplies available on the island. They found grasslands devoid of trees. Except for domesticated chicken and rats that had stowed away during their original voyage, no animals larger than insects were observed.

The cause of this societal collapse puzzled these European visitors. But what amazed and intrigued them even more was evidence, among all the squalor and barbarism, of a once flourishing and advanced society. Over 400 massive carved stone statues, as great as 10 meters in height and weighing up to 80 tonnes, dotted the island's coastline. Another 500 statues in various states of completion had been suddenly but inexplicably abandoned in quarries or on the old roads between quarry and their final resting places.

When anthropologists began to consider the history and culture of Easter Island early in the twentieth century, most agreed on one thing: the primitive people living in such poverty-stricken and backward conditions when the Europeans first visited the island could not have been responsible for such a technologically complex and socially advanced task as carving these monoliths without metal tools, transporting them across the island without the benefit of wheels or draft animals, erecting them, and providing sustenance to the army of people necessary to undertake this work. Speculation of how this had been done ran rampant, including a suggestion that extraterrestrials had been involved. But further studies proved most were wrong. These "primitive people" had indeed been responsible for these feats.

So what explains the disintegration of their society that had such an auspicious beginning?

It appears that sometime after settling the island, the natural abundance the settlers found allowed them the time and resources to support the construction of stone statues to their gods, as their forefathers had done in their islands of origin. With time, these statues became larger and more elaborate, as about a dozen rival clans tried to excel each other. A complex political system to distribute locally available resources among the population and to integrate the economies of different parts of the island must have evolved.

But studies of pollen indicate that the expanding population was cutting forests quicker than they could regenerate themselves. Forests gradually disappeared as the land was cleared for gardening, for wood for cooking and cremations, and for timber for building canoes and for facilitating the arduous task of transporting and erecting the stone monoliths. By the 1400s, grasses had replaced the palms and other trees; the disappearance of materials for timber and rope forced the end to the construction and erection of the massive statues. Increased exposure of the ground to rain caused soil erosion and leached out essentials nutrients, resulting in reduced food yields.

The destruction of wildlife was as complete as that of the forest. Every species of land bird had become extinct. Bones of porpoises no longer found their way on garbage heaps, probably because materials to construct sea-going canoes were no longer available. Besides the intensified production of chicken, islanders turned to the largest remaining source of meat — human beings — whose bones then appeared more frequently in their garbage heaps.

With a dwindling food supply, the islanders could no longer support the chiefs, bureaucrats, and priests that kept the complex society running. Islanders meeting the first Europeans described local chaos replacing centralized government and a warrior class taking over from hereditary chiefs. People resorted to living in caves for protection against their enemies. By the time Captain Cook visited the island in 1775, the population had collapsed to 630. Rival clans then started toppling each other's statues, and by the mid-1800s, all had been toppled.

Easter Island provides the setting of a people who, over the centuries, developed one of the more advanced societies in the world with the technology available to them. But it also presents a striking example of the destructive and irreparable impact on a society that occurs when its population is so awed by its own dazzling accomplishments that it forgets that, ultimately, its survival is inextricably tied to the natural environment and that if this environment is excessively abused, it will ultimately collapse, dragging society down with it.

The Easter Islanders had a reprieve from their final destruction only because they were on an island in a sea of humanity — the rest of the World — some of which ultimately came to their rescue.

Today, doesn't mankind on Island Earth seem to be following in the same footsteps as the Easter Islanders, oblivious of its impact on the environment, squandering its natural resources, and expecting its technological prowess to solve all the problems it encounters? If it is, then as its technological "solutions" prove inadequate and fail — as many already appear to have — and the planet's agricultural and environmental base is destroyed, pulling all of humanity down with it, who in the solar system will be left to come to the rescue of Island Earth?

The description of Easter Island above is drawn in large part from Jared Diamond's book, "Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" (Viking Press, 2005)