
Easter Island’s society might not have collapsed - daegloe
https://phys.org/news/2018-08-easter-island-society-collapsed.html
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craftyguy
> "For everyone to be using one type of stone, I believe they had to
> collaborate. That's why they were so successful—they were working together."

> To Simpson, this level of large-scale cooperation contradicts the popular
> narrative that Easter Island's inhabitants ran out of resources and warred
> themselves into extinction.

Maybe I'm missing something, but this doesn't really indicate that the society
did _not_ eventually war themselves away. They could have gotten along for a
while, until forests/resources ran out, then fought.

~~~
laumars
Maybe I'm missing something, but I thought it was European explorers who
caused the most damage to the population of Easter island? At least that was
the opinion of the David Attenborough documentary I watched on it.

~~~
btilly
I have heard two versions of Easter Island history.

Version 1, in books like _Collapse_ by Jared Diamond, is one of a highly
functioning cooperative society that suffered an ecological collapse, that
destroyed the society. In this version, at the time that the stones were
created, there was cooperation. At the time that they were toppled and
population collapsed, cooperation had disappeared due to starvation. The cause
of the collapse was a combination of deforestation (some caused by people,
some by rats) taking away fishing, wiping out the nesting sea bird population,
and then soil erosion ruining agriculture.

Version 2, which can be found in places like [http://theconversation.com/the-
truth-about-easter-island-a-s...](http://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-
easter-island-a-sustainable-society-has-been-falsely-blamed-for-its-own-
demise-85563) instead says that a sustainable society got exposed to disease,
attacked by slavers, and collapsed under external pressure.

It sounds like the Attenborough documentary took the second view.

I have no evidence which version is more likely to be correct. I will submit
that which version seems more plausible to you will generally be some
combination of which you heard first, which aligns with your political
beliefs, and which experts you trust most. The actual truth is a question for
anthropologists and I'm not qualified to comment on it.

~~~
graeme
This article seems to be consistent with either theory, correct?

~~~
btilly
Yes, the actual evidence presented in the article is consistent with both
theories. However the lead author gives quotes supporting version 2 over
version 1. The title we have is drawn from the direction of the lead author's
comments.

Another author of the paper is quoted saying that the results should be
interpreted with care, evidence of cooperation is not necessarily evidence of
_voluntary_ cooperation.

