Is Easter Island disappearing?
Rising ocean levels are causing waves to break on the statues and platforms built a thousand years ago. The island risks losing its cultural heritage. Again.
When did the Rapa Nui die out?
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.
How did Rapa Nui die?
Long before the Europeans arrived on Easter Island in 1722, the native Polynesian culture known as Rapa Nui showed signs of demographic decline. “The other side says it had nothing to do with cultural behavior, that it was the Europeans who brought disease that killed the Rapa Nui.
Why did the people disappear from Easter Island?
No longer could rope by manufactured to move the stone statues and they were abandoned. The Easter Islanders began to starve, lacking their access to porpoise meat and having depleted the island of birds. As life worsened, the orderly society disappeared and chaos and disarray prevailed.
Where did the rats come from and why did they have such a negative effect on the palm tree?
The number of palm trees decreases because of the increased number of rats that eats its fruits. Seed germination became frequently interfered because of this activity. However, the slow growth of palm trees was also blamed for the tree cutting off the people.
Did rats destroy Easter Island?
Around 1400 the Easter Island palm became extinct due to overharvesting and as Hunt argues, Polynesian rats, which severely reduced the palm’s capacity to reproduce by eating its seeds.
How were rats introduced to Rapa Nui?
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.
Where did the rats come from?
The rat originated in southeast Asia, it turns out, spread to northeast Asia around 200,000 years ago, rested and spread to the Middle East around 3,600 years ago. Then, the rat evolutionary tree shows, about 2,600 years ago rats reached Africa.