Rapa Nui, Chile is home to a most enigmatic anthropological story trove of historical human behavior. Colonized sometime between 300 and 800 CE by nautical Polynesian settlers (Mieth & Bork, 2005), the triangular shaped island is no more than fourteen by seven miles around and is remarkably excluded from the rest of the Polynesian Triangle. The closest plots of land from either direction are 2,200 miles respective to Pitcairn Island and 1,200 Pacific ocean miles away from mainland Chile in South America (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2017). This most eastern island of Polynesia was imperialistically dubbed “Easter Island” by Christianized Dutch explorers of Jacob Rogaveen’s company on April 5, 1722 when they only nearly happened upon the locale…show more content… In the gist of the religiously significant holiday, they dubbed it analogously but did not actually encounter the island and its native residents for another five days (Mclaughlin, 2004). Upon entrance to the island, gigantic monolithic statues hand carved from a shroud of volcanic rock are seen gregariously standing on specialized ahu platforms. They are an average of 13 feet tall weighing a mean of 14 tons, but the largest figure stands 32.8 feet high and weighs an astonishing 72 tons (Calaway, 2012). The enormous moai statues number almost 1,000 (Puleston et al, 2017) effigies and each resembles a stoic face. Instead of looking outwards towards the sea, the emblems stare inward to the 63 square mile island. As a whole, the moai represent a feat of primeval human power in their enormity and a prosperous, artistically skilled…show more content… Today 90% of the island is monopolized by grassland (Jarman et al, 2017). Agricultural cultivation on Easter Island began at 1200 CE (Mann et al, 2008). From the sediment layers dated to 1250 and 1500 CE, charred endocarps of palms as well as burned soil layers and palm stumps occur; researchers demonstrate this is clear evidence of slash and burning methods (Mieth & Bork, 2009). Of course root casts can be seen in soil layers throughout the island, evidencing the previous generality of forested zones. In fact, 20 species of wooded taxa once grew on the island. They declined from about 1280 CE and were non-existent by about 1650 CE according to Hunt and Lipo (2007) and this is consistent across the scientific
