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The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island
The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works? No such astonishing numbers of massive statues are found anywhere else in the Pacific. How could the islanders possibly have moved so many multi-ton monoliths from the quarry inland, where they were carved, to their posts along the coastline? And most intriguing and vexing of all, if the island once boasted a culture developed and sophisticated enough to have produced such marvelous edifices, what happened to that culture? Why was the island the Europeans encountered a sparsely populated wasteland?
The prevailing accounts of the island’s history tell a story of self-inflicted devastation: a glaring case of eco-suicide. The island was dominated by a powerful chiefdom that promulgated a cult of statue making, exercising a ruthless hold on the island’s people and rapaciously destroying the environment, cutting down a lush palm forest that once blanketed the island in order to construct contraptions for moving more and more statues, which grew larger and larger. As the population swelled in order to sustain the statue cult, growing well beyond the island’s agricultural capacity, a vicious cycle of warfare broke out between opposing groups, and the culture ultimately suffered a dramatic collapse.
When Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo began carrying out archaeological studies on the island in 2001, they fully expected to find evidence supporting these accounts. Instead, revelation after revelation uncovered a very different truth. In this lively and fascinating account of Hunt and Lipo’s definitive solution to the mystery of what really happened on the island, they introduce the striking series of archaeological discoveries they made, and the path-breaking findings of others, which led them to compelling new answers to the most perplexing questions about the history of the island. Far from irresponsible environmental destroyers, they show, the Easter Islanders were remarkably inventive environmental stewards, devising ingenious methods to enhance the island’s agricultural capacity. They did not devastate the palm forest, and the culture did not descend into brutal violence. Perhaps most surprising of all, the making and moving of their enormous statutes did not require a bloated population or tax their precious resources; their statue building was actually integral to their ability to achieve a delicate balance of sustainability. The Easter Islanders, it turns out, offer us an impressive record of masterful environmental management rich with lessons for confronting the daunting environmental challenges of our own time.
Shattering the conventional wisdom, Hunt and Lipo’s ironclad case for a radically different understanding of the story of this most mysterious place is scientific discovery at its very best.
7 pages, Audiobook
First published June 21, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews
January 12, 2017
I became interested in Easter Island and the South Pacific many years ago after reading Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl. In fact, it is a book I pull out and read every five years or so since about 1950. Easter Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean approximately 1500 miles from any neighbor. The Island is called Rapa Nui by its inhabitants. It is famous for its 900+ enormous stone statues called Moai which dot the landscape.
The authors are two archaeologist, Terry Hunt from the University of Hawaii and Carl Lipo from California State University Long Beach. They have lived on the Island for many years bringing graduate students to work on scientific exploration and archaeological digs. They describe the first colonists to the island in 1200 A.D. of 30 to 100 Polynesians. The climate of the island wasn’t conducive to their growth. Rats that came to the island with the colonists decimated the large palm trees. The authors claim it was the rats rather than over use of the land that led to the devastation of the land. They claim the building of the statues helped maintain social networks that allowed a small closely related population to stay alive and work cohesively. They found that the large statues protected the soil from erosion and regulated the temperature changes over the day and night. In addition, the cracked surfaces of the stone on open ground added essential mineral nutrients to the ground. They also build small walled gardens, called manavai, that protected crops from the wind. They also present their hypothesis of how the statues were moved to their final location. The visits by Europeans brought disease, violence and slavery to the Island.
The book is well written and researched. The authors present a different hypothesis to the environmental conditions of the island. Unlike prior authors they have conducted extensive, long term scientific exploration and analysis to the mysteries of the island. I found the book most interesting and it was easy for the lay person to read.
Joe Barrett does an excellent job narrating the book. Barrett is a theatre actor and award winning audiobook narrator.
The authors are two archaeologist, Terry Hunt from the University of Hawaii and Carl Lipo from California State University Long Beach. They have lived on the Island for many years bringing graduate students to work on scientific exploration and archaeological digs. They describe the first colonists to the island in 1200 A.D. of 30 to 100 Polynesians. The climate of the island wasn’t conducive to their growth. Rats that came to the island with the colonists decimated the large palm trees. The authors claim it was the rats rather than over use of the land that led to the devastation of the land. They claim the building of the statues helped maintain social networks that allowed a small closely related population to stay alive and work cohesively. They found that the large statues protected the soil from erosion and regulated the temperature changes over the day and night. In addition, the cracked surfaces of the stone on open ground added essential mineral nutrients to the ground. They also build small walled gardens, called manavai, that protected crops from the wind. They also present their hypothesis of how the statues were moved to their final location. The visits by Europeans brought disease, violence and slavery to the Island.
The book is well written and researched. The authors present a different hypothesis to the environmental conditions of the island. Unlike prior authors they have conducted extensive, long term scientific exploration and analysis to the mysteries of the island. I found the book most interesting and it was easy for the lay person to read.
Joe Barrett does an excellent job narrating the book. Barrett is a theatre actor and award winning audiobook narrator.
March 26, 2019
The tiny South Pacific Easter Island of“Rapa Nui”and the mysterious statues on it has intrigued historians from all over the world. In 1722, the first Europeans sighted these huge stone heads on this small and isolated island off of Chile.
Archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lido have retold the story in their terrific book that challenges the past theories after spending years of intensive field work there. Researchers in the past believed that in order to build these massive statues (called Moai) there must have been a huge population increase and destruction of forest to build and transport the statues. The ancient island people destroyed their trees, their environment and themselves. But this book disputes that idea and offers new fascinating scientific evidence.
The Polynesian prehistoric, Rapa Nui people had to find local solutions in their engineering, working of rock, and transporting of these seventy-five ton statues. They were hand carved out of the island's volcanic rock, built by the tribal culture and set on rock platforms. The “Moai” were religious ancestor statues of massive stone heads and there was almost 1,000 of them. They were transported over rough terrain, sometimes for a few miles.
In the old theories, how they moved the statues was thought to be that hundreds of people had to help with transportation. Instead looking at this issue with fresh research, this book reveals, it might have been just ten to forty islanders. These archaeologists and their team built a 3-D model and then after considerable experimentation could get the statue to rock back and forth and “walk” using ropes around the head. The original statues were engineered to do this “walk” and did not need any wood to transport them.
Also in this book, the authors surmise that instead of environmental destruction killing the islanders, it was the Spanish explorers bringing diseases to the island that wiped out some of the population. Then in the early 19th century, slave trading began and the island was raided on a regular basis. Unfortunately it was genocide not ecocide that killed off the local people.
The authors remind us that these ancient people survived for five hundred years on a remote island with very little contact. The island had mostly coconut trees that made building canoes for fishing not feasible nor did they have fresh water running streams for their crops. Yet they still survived by planting their crops in the volcanic soil.
These researchers feel we owe the current descendents of the islanders, who still live on the island, an explanation of what happened in the past. They believe the ancient islanders were not reckless or crazy or warlike nor did they cause their own demise. Instead they offer a different perspective and scientific evidence of Easter Island's history. I was very happy to read it and thought they did an amazing job. Four stars.
Archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lido have retold the story in their terrific book that challenges the past theories after spending years of intensive field work there. Researchers in the past believed that in order to build these massive statues (called Moai) there must have been a huge population increase and destruction of forest to build and transport the statues. The ancient island people destroyed their trees, their environment and themselves. But this book disputes that idea and offers new fascinating scientific evidence.
The Polynesian prehistoric, Rapa Nui people had to find local solutions in their engineering, working of rock, and transporting of these seventy-five ton statues. They were hand carved out of the island's volcanic rock, built by the tribal culture and set on rock platforms. The “Moai” were religious ancestor statues of massive stone heads and there was almost 1,000 of them. They were transported over rough terrain, sometimes for a few miles.
In the old theories, how they moved the statues was thought to be that hundreds of people had to help with transportation. Instead looking at this issue with fresh research, this book reveals, it might have been just ten to forty islanders. These archaeologists and their team built a 3-D model and then after considerable experimentation could get the statue to rock back and forth and “walk” using ropes around the head. The original statues were engineered to do this “walk” and did not need any wood to transport them.
Also in this book, the authors surmise that instead of environmental destruction killing the islanders, it was the Spanish explorers bringing diseases to the island that wiped out some of the population. Then in the early 19th century, slave trading began and the island was raided on a regular basis. Unfortunately it was genocide not ecocide that killed off the local people.
The authors remind us that these ancient people survived for five hundred years on a remote island with very little contact. The island had mostly coconut trees that made building canoes for fishing not feasible nor did they have fresh water running streams for their crops. Yet they still survived by planting their crops in the volcanic soil.
These researchers feel we owe the current descendents of the islanders, who still live on the island, an explanation of what happened in the past. They believe the ancient islanders were not reckless or crazy or warlike nor did they cause their own demise. Instead they offer a different perspective and scientific evidence of Easter Island's history. I was very happy to read it and thought they did an amazing job. Four stars.
February 28, 2025
In The Statues that Walked, archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo present their team’s findings to date concerning the history of Easter Island (now called Rapa Nui). They challenge commonly held theories and shatter a few myths. They demonstrate that rather than being victims of their own environmental destruction, the Rapa Nui people developed ingenious solutions to their island's limitations. One of the major revelations concerns how the moai statues were moved (I won’t spoil it).
The central premise is that this civilization was much more innovative than previously believed, and that it was not destroyed through hubris and mismanagement, which disputes Jared Diamond's "ecocide" theory. The authors cite the proliferation of invasive rodents, and other forms of contact by European sailing ships, as contributing factors to the environmental decline. The team’s findings have transformed our understanding of Rapa Nui from a cautionary tale of environmental collapse to a story of human adaptation. I only recently found out that the moai “heads” also had bodies, so I was interested to find out more. To me, their archeological research is fascinating.
The central premise is that this civilization was much more innovative than previously believed, and that it was not destroyed through hubris and mismanagement, which disputes Jared Diamond's "ecocide" theory. The authors cite the proliferation of invasive rodents, and other forms of contact by European sailing ships, as contributing factors to the environmental decline. The team’s findings have transformed our understanding of Rapa Nui from a cautionary tale of environmental collapse to a story of human adaptation. I only recently found out that the moai “heads” also had bodies, so I was interested to find out more. To me, their archeological research is fascinating.
January 19, 2022
While information is murky and subject to challenge, Rapa Nui (commonly known as Easter Island) was settled around 1200 CE meaning 800 years of human history are summarized in this one short volume. The authors present the brutal facts of life on Rapa Nui… life never gets better….
This 64 square mile island had water, wind, soil and other resource problems. The authors sort through this all this by summarizing studies of soil, roots, seeds, fossils, weather and comparisons with other Pacific islands.
Most interesting are the studies and opinions on the statues and what they meant for the community. It took a while to discover the “roads” used to take the statues to their “ahu” (pedestals/platforms). Once the road was found, various means of rocking the statues along were performed and a consensus was formed on the transport means.
I didn’t gather a clear consensus on the “why”, but the authors seem to think it had something to do with limiting the population size (important on a poorly resourced island). I am not sure this is the case. They cite (mal)nutrition studies showing Rapa Nui not to be anymore malnourished than inhabitants of other islands. Moving these statues would burn a tremendous number of calories.
Once the outsiders came, better written documentation makes the chapter “Collapse” the most interesting. This hardly sustainable society was fully vulnerable to the outsiders and once almost upon arrival, statue building stopped. There are paragraphs from the primary sources showing what was deemed a peaceable society (no weapons; skeletons had no signs of violent deaths) into a violent one.
The book has two appendicies: one on the environmental constraints and the other on the lithic mulching (getting soil nutrients from rocks) and another on Manavai (building a wall around the garden plot). Both show the difficulty of supporting life on this island.
The book is handy in its summaries but it has shortcomings. While short, it can be very wordy. Sometimes it is a long sentence, other times it is whole paragraphs such as in the discussion of why the Rapa Nui were peaceful before the arrival of the outsiders. The black and white photos can be so grainy or so lacking in contrast that they don’t serve their purpose very well.
While not a perfect book, it is a good book and it fills a need.
This 64 square mile island had water, wind, soil and other resource problems. The authors sort through this all this by summarizing studies of soil, roots, seeds, fossils, weather and comparisons with other Pacific islands.
Most interesting are the studies and opinions on the statues and what they meant for the community. It took a while to discover the “roads” used to take the statues to their “ahu” (pedestals/platforms). Once the road was found, various means of rocking the statues along were performed and a consensus was formed on the transport means.
I didn’t gather a clear consensus on the “why”, but the authors seem to think it had something to do with limiting the population size (important on a poorly resourced island). I am not sure this is the case. They cite (mal)nutrition studies showing Rapa Nui not to be anymore malnourished than inhabitants of other islands. Moving these statues would burn a tremendous number of calories.
Once the outsiders came, better written documentation makes the chapter “Collapse” the most interesting. This hardly sustainable society was fully vulnerable to the outsiders and once almost upon arrival, statue building stopped. There are paragraphs from the primary sources showing what was deemed a peaceable society (no weapons; skeletons had no signs of violent deaths) into a violent one.
The book has two appendicies: one on the environmental constraints and the other on the lithic mulching (getting soil nutrients from rocks) and another on Manavai (building a wall around the garden plot). Both show the difficulty of supporting life on this island.
The book is handy in its summaries but it has shortcomings. While short, it can be very wordy. Sometimes it is a long sentence, other times it is whole paragraphs such as in the discussion of why the Rapa Nui were peaceful before the arrival of the outsiders. The black and white photos can be so grainy or so lacking in contrast that they don’t serve their purpose very well.
While not a perfect book, it is a good book and it fills a need.
February 7, 2021
I thought the author did an excellent job talking abou the history of the island, the European "invasion" of the islands off the Chilean cost, the devastation that happened due to those invasions, and the current state of affairs on the island. I consider it a cautionary tale - when approaching an area you know nothing about, make sure to take the time to learn the customs and the rhythm of the world around you. Try to leave the environment better than you found it. If we all did that, I think it would make a huge difference.
February 11, 2018
I didn’t actually know much about Rapa Nui before I read this book, apart from knowing of the existence of the moai and a vague idea that their civilisation committed “ecocide”, stripping their island of too many resources for it to recover and impoverishing their local environment for good. Hunt and Lipo strongly suggest otherwise, talking about the evidence of clever farming techniques designed to get the best out of the soil, and discussing the actual culprit for the devastation (invasive species brought by boat). I didn’t know about lithic mulching before, for instance, a method of covering soil with broken-up rock in order to allow the elements to leach minerals out of it and into the soil.
Hunt and Lipo discuss the moai as well, of course, discussing their purpose and how they were moved into place, but as part of the bigger context of the society on Rapa Nui and the challenges they had to deal with. I found it an enjoyable and evidence-based approach to a topic I didn’t know much about before — bravo.
Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.
Hunt and Lipo discuss the moai as well, of course, discussing their purpose and how they were moved into place, but as part of the bigger context of the society on Rapa Nui and the challenges they had to deal with. I found it an enjoyable and evidence-based approach to a topic I didn’t know much about before — bravo.
Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.
August 1, 2012
Easter Island was always a mysterious place I've wanted to see. Now that I'm getting older, it is officially a bucket list item. While still an exotic destination, this book has taken all the mystery away. Everything (the statues, the people, the deforestation) solved. Great to read about and glad to finally have answers but while all very interesting it lessens the appeal of one of my favorite places. A little mystery is good.
I don't have too much to say on this one without spoiling it, so I will sum it up with a quote from Commander Barclay of the HMS Topaz from the book. It is regarding the consequence of Europeans arriving on the shores of Easter Island.
"It is a sad fact that in these islands as in North America, wherever the white man establishes himself, the aborigines perish."
No matter how benign their intent, makes me wonder what would happen to us should aliens ever come to Earth.
I don't have too much to say on this one without spoiling it, so I will sum it up with a quote from Commander Barclay of the HMS Topaz from the book. It is regarding the consequence of Europeans arriving on the shores of Easter Island.
"It is a sad fact that in these islands as in North America, wherever the white man establishes himself, the aborigines perish."
No matter how benign their intent, makes me wonder what would happen to us should aliens ever come to Earth.
July 25, 2012
In this book, Hunt and Lipo make the claim that contrary to Jared Diamond's account of Easter Islanders committing "ecocide", they were actually very good caretakers of their environment and that in the end it was all the fault of the Europeans who came in and messed everything up.
I am not sure how much my reaction to this book was informed by having recently read Flenley and Bahn's more recent book on Easter Island. In particular, because it meant I knew more about the investigations about Easter Island than (I assume) they assumed their standard reader would. I occasionally got the feeling that the authors were more interested in pushing their new version of the story than in necessarily giving me a full exposition of all the research done on Easter Island.
Though Hunt and Lipo present their findings as revolutionary, I am not sure it is so far off from some of the other accounts of the island's history. For one thing, Flenley and Bahn agree that while the humans cut down the trees, it was the rats eating all the seeds and destroying the saplings that prevented the trees from regenerating. Flenley and Bahn describe the islanders' rock mulch techniques; Hunt and Lipo present this as new and surprising. Hunt and Lipo also agree that the forest was gradually cleared away for agriculture because that allowed the islanders to produce more food than the forest did. So they are not disagreeing with Diamond's claim that the islanders cleared the forest so much as reinterpreting it to fit their new theory of the islanders are careful caretakers of their environment.
All that said, the first half of the book is actually quite well argued, relying overwhelmingly on archaeological evidence. I think they do a somewhat better job of explaining the archaeological evidence and how it leads to the conclusions they draw than Flenley and Bahn do. (Flenley can get a bit technical.)
The second half of the book, in which they rely on evolutionary biology and written records from European explorers rather than hard archaeological evidence, is far less convincing, and the authors begin to draw more far-fetched conclusions from the scant evidence. They use game theory and evolutionary biology to "explain" why Easter Islanders chose to cooperate, when it seems that those theories could just as easily support the supposedly traditional view that they did not cooperate (and thereby destroyed their society).
Hunt and Lipo blame the entire collapse of Easter Island society on the arrival of the Europeans. While it seems certain that the arrival of uropeans and their diseases must have had a devastating effect on the native population, the authors give a version of events that seems rather too precise given the few records of European contact that exist.
One point that I don't quite understand: archaeologists have pointed to the existence of sharped bits of obsidian as evidence for inter-tribal warfare on the island. These were not necessarily pointed, but had a sharp cutting edge and would have been mounted to the end of a long pole. Hunt and Lipo claim that these were not weapons, but rather for cutting rope and scraping things. What I don't understand is: if you were going to make something to cut rope, why would you make a tiny blade and stick it at the end of a long pole? The authors claim that if these were weapons they would only be effective at slicing motions, not jabbing motions, but that still seems like a pretty effective weapon to me.
Finally, the authors make no mention of the Rongorongo rituals, which seem to provide some evidence for inter-tribal competition. This may or may not indicate inter-tribal warfare, but the omission is odd.
I am not sure how much my reaction to this book was informed by having recently read Flenley and Bahn's more recent book on Easter Island. In particular, because it meant I knew more about the investigations about Easter Island than (I assume) they assumed their standard reader would. I occasionally got the feeling that the authors were more interested in pushing their new version of the story than in necessarily giving me a full exposition of all the research done on Easter Island.
Though Hunt and Lipo present their findings as revolutionary, I am not sure it is so far off from some of the other accounts of the island's history. For one thing, Flenley and Bahn agree that while the humans cut down the trees, it was the rats eating all the seeds and destroying the saplings that prevented the trees from regenerating. Flenley and Bahn describe the islanders' rock mulch techniques; Hunt and Lipo present this as new and surprising. Hunt and Lipo also agree that the forest was gradually cleared away for agriculture because that allowed the islanders to produce more food than the forest did. So they are not disagreeing with Diamond's claim that the islanders cleared the forest so much as reinterpreting it to fit their new theory of the islanders are careful caretakers of their environment.
All that said, the first half of the book is actually quite well argued, relying overwhelmingly on archaeological evidence. I think they do a somewhat better job of explaining the archaeological evidence and how it leads to the conclusions they draw than Flenley and Bahn do. (Flenley can get a bit technical.)
The second half of the book, in which they rely on evolutionary biology and written records from European explorers rather than hard archaeological evidence, is far less convincing, and the authors begin to draw more far-fetched conclusions from the scant evidence. They use game theory and evolutionary biology to "explain" why Easter Islanders chose to cooperate, when it seems that those theories could just as easily support the supposedly traditional view that they did not cooperate (and thereby destroyed their society).
Hunt and Lipo blame the entire collapse of Easter Island society on the arrival of the Europeans. While it seems certain that the arrival of uropeans and their diseases must have had a devastating effect on the native population, the authors give a version of events that seems rather too precise given the few records of European contact that exist.
One point that I don't quite understand: archaeologists have pointed to the existence of sharped bits of obsidian as evidence for inter-tribal warfare on the island. These were not necessarily pointed, but had a sharp cutting edge and would have been mounted to the end of a long pole. Hunt and Lipo claim that these were not weapons, but rather for cutting rope and scraping things. What I don't understand is: if you were going to make something to cut rope, why would you make a tiny blade and stick it at the end of a long pole? The authors claim that if these were weapons they would only be effective at slicing motions, not jabbing motions, but that still seems like a pretty effective weapon to me.
Finally, the authors make no mention of the Rongorongo rituals, which seem to provide some evidence for inter-tribal competition. This may or may not indicate inter-tribal warfare, but the omission is odd.
April 1, 2019
Good place to start if you've not read a book about Easter Island. Better, more current research than earlier tomes contain.
***
https://news.yahoo.com/norways-kon-ti...
(3/28/19) - "Santiago (AFP) - Norway agreed Thursday to hand back thousands of artefacts removed from Easter Island by the explorer Thor Heyerdahl during his trans-Pacific raft expeditions in the 1950s.
An agreement was signed by representatives of Oslo's Kon-Tiki Museum and officials of Chile's culture ministry at a ceremony in Santiago as part of a state visit by Norway's King Harald V and Queen Sonja."
***
Link to Heyerdahl's Easter Island book : Aku Aku
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
***
https://news.yahoo.com/norways-kon-ti...
(3/28/19) - "Santiago (AFP) - Norway agreed Thursday to hand back thousands of artefacts removed from Easter Island by the explorer Thor Heyerdahl during his trans-Pacific raft expeditions in the 1950s.
An agreement was signed by representatives of Oslo's Kon-Tiki Museum and officials of Chile's culture ministry at a ceremony in Santiago as part of a state visit by Norway's King Harald V and Queen Sonja."
***
Link to Heyerdahl's Easter Island book : Aku Aku
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
October 13, 2018
A different point of view on Easter Island
Aliens once visited Earth and left their calling card on Easter Island in the form of giant stone statues. Yeah, sure. Maybe the giant statues are the remains of a lost continent like Mu. Yeah, right. The Incas floated 2,000 miles across the Pacific and built walls and the statues only to be displaced by newer immigrants. Nope. There were two groups of people on the island called “Long Ears” and “Short Ears” who eventually fought a terrible war after the island ecology was ruined. Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian adventurer, believed this. But this is fake news too.
What am I getting at here? Though there are still some questions and a few that will never be answered, Hunt and Lipo have come up with a most excellent and convincing work of research on the history of Easter Island. They explode most of the crackpot ideas and previous theories about the place. Easter Island was probably not settled till 1200 A.D. At that time it was settled by two groups all right; humans and rats. Though the humans did cut down a lot of the forest of giant palms that covered the 63 square mile island, it was the rats who ensured that no more trees would grow because they ate up all the seeds without fear of any predators. The humans, starting from a single small group of settlers, never expanded to great numbers. Did they settle in a town or develop a kingdom of any sort? No, there is no proof of this. So how did they manage to build the hundreds of statues and platforms that dot the island? And, also, how did they manage to move them around without wheels or any beasts of burden? Why were there so few people visible when the first Europeans arrived? Was there ever a bloody internecine war? Did people hide out in caves a lot (as Heyerdahl described)? What was the cause of the steep population decline between 1722 and 1887? The answers to these questions can be found in THE STATUES THAT WALKED, a most well-written and fascinating book on the so-called “mystery” of Easter Island or Rapa Nui as it is called in the local language. I really appreciated the way the authors wrote clearly and succinctly in language understandable to anyone and how they organized the book so well that by the end, you come away with a plausible and well-documented explanation of what transpired on that most remote dot in the vast Pacific. If Easter Island (Rapa Nui) ever interested you, this is your book. It turns out that the statues almost certainly did “walk”, but not under their own steam. How this happened is one more thing you will learn by reading the book.
Aliens once visited Earth and left their calling card on Easter Island in the form of giant stone statues. Yeah, sure. Maybe the giant statues are the remains of a lost continent like Mu. Yeah, right. The Incas floated 2,000 miles across the Pacific and built walls and the statues only to be displaced by newer immigrants. Nope. There were two groups of people on the island called “Long Ears” and “Short Ears” who eventually fought a terrible war after the island ecology was ruined. Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian adventurer, believed this. But this is fake news too.
What am I getting at here? Though there are still some questions and a few that will never be answered, Hunt and Lipo have come up with a most excellent and convincing work of research on the history of Easter Island. They explode most of the crackpot ideas and previous theories about the place. Easter Island was probably not settled till 1200 A.D. At that time it was settled by two groups all right; humans and rats. Though the humans did cut down a lot of the forest of giant palms that covered the 63 square mile island, it was the rats who ensured that no more trees would grow because they ate up all the seeds without fear of any predators. The humans, starting from a single small group of settlers, never expanded to great numbers. Did they settle in a town or develop a kingdom of any sort? No, there is no proof of this. So how did they manage to build the hundreds of statues and platforms that dot the island? And, also, how did they manage to move them around without wheels or any beasts of burden? Why were there so few people visible when the first Europeans arrived? Was there ever a bloody internecine war? Did people hide out in caves a lot (as Heyerdahl described)? What was the cause of the steep population decline between 1722 and 1887? The answers to these questions can be found in THE STATUES THAT WALKED, a most well-written and fascinating book on the so-called “mystery” of Easter Island or Rapa Nui as it is called in the local language. I really appreciated the way the authors wrote clearly and succinctly in language understandable to anyone and how they organized the book so well that by the end, you come away with a plausible and well-documented explanation of what transpired on that most remote dot in the vast Pacific. If Easter Island (Rapa Nui) ever interested you, this is your book. It turns out that the statues almost certainly did “walk”, but not under their own steam. How this happened is one more thing you will learn by reading the book.
August 8, 2011
The old story is that the crazy cannibal inhabitants of Easter Island cut down all their trees in order to make and move those giant statues, and then went about killing each other as their newly barren island could not support their population. The authors respectfully disagree. They argue that the Polynesian rat deforested the island (by eating the seeds of those palm trees that take 60 years to bear fruit), it only took a few individuals to move the statues refrigerator-style (rocking side to side in an upright position), and the population was always so small, so close knit, that true weapons and defensive structures never even developed on Easter Island, let alone war.
It's rare to find a nonfiction book written by specialists (as opposed to journalists) that is so concise and so easy to read for the layperson and which doesn't sound like someone's dissertation. Better still, Hunt and Lipo exemplify comic book superhero scientists. In the comic books, scientists seem to know everything, even though in the real world scientists are more specialized and have specialized knowledge (chemists vs. biologists vs. astronomers, etc.). But these anthropologists not only know their history and prehistory, they also show an amazing knowledge of geography, geology, botany, zoology, and even human anatomy. They might not be botanists or geologists themselves, but they've clearly done their homework so that they understand the science behind their arguments. That fact more than most makes their case compelling and their credibility top-notch.
It's rare to find a nonfiction book written by specialists (as opposed to journalists) that is so concise and so easy to read for the layperson and which doesn't sound like someone's dissertation. Better still, Hunt and Lipo exemplify comic book superhero scientists. In the comic books, scientists seem to know everything, even though in the real world scientists are more specialized and have specialized knowledge (chemists vs. biologists vs. astronomers, etc.). But these anthropologists not only know their history and prehistory, they also show an amazing knowledge of geography, geology, botany, zoology, and even human anatomy. They might not be botanists or geologists themselves, but they've clearly done their homework so that they understand the science behind their arguments. That fact more than most makes their case compelling and their credibility top-notch.
September 26, 2019
This is more of a anthropological study report than an investigation into the 'mystery' of Easter Island. Having read the book, you will likely think there is no mystery either.
I'm not saying that Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo have the answers but they have looked at the island in a variety of ways as anthropologists and archaeologists. The geology of the island - three volcanoes that last erupted hundreds of thousands of years ago - which had all the nutrients in the ash that could have sustained the lush vegetation rampant across Polynesia had been long leeched away by rainfall and erosion.
The palm trees that covered parts of the island when the soon-to-become natives arrived (not much earlier than 1280 according to research) was vigorously impacted not by the people cutting them down for the moai transport but likely due to rats imported with the natives, eating the nuts and seedlings.
As for the construction of moai, that is a matter for supposition since no one 'knows' the reasons natives had but it was a cooperative, island-wide event. As for the moai 'walking' to their final location, there is numerous experiments that show that the low center of gravity (in their 'bellies') assisting in a rocking, pendulum-like forward movement.
Rapa Nui gets hit repeatedly with various horrors. Infections left by Europeans visitors including venereal disease. The population 'crashed' repeatedly and attempted to recover even as the next wave of invaders landed. Explorers and eventually the whaling trade which used the island for provisions, crew and entertainment. Slavery may have been outlawed in South America but that didn't stop ship captains and others from capturing natives and 'indenturing' them far from their home. There are even instances of people attempting to buy the entire island in order to gain their own fiefdom and import cows, sheep and other livestock that devastated the native plants and environment. Scars from overgrazing are still seen from satellite photos. Eventually the Chilian government annexed the island and it has only been in the past 50 years that the Rapanui have gained a form of independence.
The book finishes up with two appendixes:
One on environmental constraints - average rainfall, temperatures and evapotranspiration (the rate of which water is transferred from land to atmosphere - more water into the air means desert conditions). The main food plants used by Polynesian cultures and whether they were able to be grown on Rapa Nui along with average wind speeds which brings in the next appendix.
Lithic mulching and manavai (or short windbreaker-like walls to protect the plants from high sea-salt winds). Lithic mulching is the inclusion of small pebbles, stones, ash and cinder into the soil to increase moisture and prevent evaporation.
There is no mystery. Just a social anthropological revelation on the creative and tenacious people who lived and survived in this inhospitable island.
I would add one negative: the black and white photos - although originally likely clearly identifies or shows what the authors intend them to do, the paper and gray-scale make details blurry and don't really convey what they doubtlessly intended.
2019-134
I'm not saying that Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo have the answers but they have looked at the island in a variety of ways as anthropologists and archaeologists. The geology of the island - three volcanoes that last erupted hundreds of thousands of years ago - which had all the nutrients in the ash that could have sustained the lush vegetation rampant across Polynesia had been long leeched away by rainfall and erosion.
The palm trees that covered parts of the island when the soon-to-become natives arrived (not much earlier than 1280 according to research) was vigorously impacted not by the people cutting them down for the moai transport but likely due to rats imported with the natives, eating the nuts and seedlings.
As for the construction of moai, that is a matter for supposition since no one 'knows' the reasons natives had but it was a cooperative, island-wide event. As for the moai 'walking' to their final location, there is numerous experiments that show that the low center of gravity (in their 'bellies') assisting in a rocking, pendulum-like forward movement.
Rapa Nui gets hit repeatedly with various horrors. Infections left by Europeans visitors including venereal disease. The population 'crashed' repeatedly and attempted to recover even as the next wave of invaders landed. Explorers and eventually the whaling trade which used the island for provisions, crew and entertainment. Slavery may have been outlawed in South America but that didn't stop ship captains and others from capturing natives and 'indenturing' them far from their home. There are even instances of people attempting to buy the entire island in order to gain their own fiefdom and import cows, sheep and other livestock that devastated the native plants and environment. Scars from overgrazing are still seen from satellite photos. Eventually the Chilian government annexed the island and it has only been in the past 50 years that the Rapanui have gained a form of independence.
The book finishes up with two appendixes:
One on environmental constraints - average rainfall, temperatures and evapotranspiration (the rate of which water is transferred from land to atmosphere - more water into the air means desert conditions). The main food plants used by Polynesian cultures and whether they were able to be grown on Rapa Nui along with average wind speeds which brings in the next appendix.
Lithic mulching and manavai (or short windbreaker-like walls to protect the plants from high sea-salt winds). Lithic mulching is the inclusion of small pebbles, stones, ash and cinder into the soil to increase moisture and prevent evaporation.
There is no mystery. Just a social anthropological revelation on the creative and tenacious people who lived and survived in this inhospitable island.
I would add one negative: the black and white photos - although originally likely clearly identifies or shows what the authors intend them to do, the paper and gray-scale make details blurry and don't really convey what they doubtlessly intended.
2019-134
October 12, 2015
I try not to use superlatives in reviews as a rule, so that reduces me to one word to describe this book: Wow. Everything I thought I knew about Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is pretty much wrong. A lot of it has nothing to do with the statues, which of course everyone wants to hear about. A lot of it has to do with the assumptions people made, sometimes even despite primary sources, about the people of the island itself.
The received wisdom for the last several decades has been that the people of Rapa Nui cut down abundant palm trees in the quest to build the moai, the famous figures so well known as "The Heads Of Easter Island" and by dozens of other names. The islanders are being blamed for an ecological catastrophe that they supposedly brought on themselves by shortsightedness and sometimes sheer bloody-mindedness, more politely phrased in most sources but accused nonetheless.
I have always had a problem with this. For one thing, it seems once again to underestimate the intelligence of a people who could create civilizations across the Pacific. I loved reading Thor Heyerdahl as a kid, but even at age ten I could see some issues with his theories. To see many of them debunked in this book didn't surprise me at all.
Thankfully, Hunt and Lipo and their teams do not fall prey to the "primitive equals stupid" calumny. Instead, they point out the evidence that there was, in fact, no ecological collapse that killed off thousands of people before the Europeans found the island. They propose alternate explanations for the ways the people of Rapa Nui lived that don't involve warfare and violence, and go back to original sources to mark places where even the Europeans could see that these were a peaceful people.
I want people to read this book. I want people to look at the slander that has been leveled at the people of Rapa Nui over the years. On Native Peoples' Day, I honor the ingenuity and the brilliance of the island people and mourn the losses they suffered at the hands of the Europeans over the centuries. Sure, I enjoyed learning about the mosi - I've mentioned I grew up on In Search Of..., after all. But the new research on the art and religion of the Rapa Nui people was less moving to me than the evidence of how they lived in harsh conditions. May their spirits have peace.
Five of five stars.
The received wisdom for the last several decades has been that the people of Rapa Nui cut down abundant palm trees in the quest to build the moai, the famous figures so well known as "The Heads Of Easter Island" and by dozens of other names. The islanders are being blamed for an ecological catastrophe that they supposedly brought on themselves by shortsightedness and sometimes sheer bloody-mindedness, more politely phrased in most sources but accused nonetheless.
I have always had a problem with this. For one thing, it seems once again to underestimate the intelligence of a people who could create civilizations across the Pacific. I loved reading Thor Heyerdahl as a kid, but even at age ten I could see some issues with his theories. To see many of them debunked in this book didn't surprise me at all.
Thankfully, Hunt and Lipo and their teams do not fall prey to the "primitive equals stupid" calumny. Instead, they point out the evidence that there was, in fact, no ecological collapse that killed off thousands of people before the Europeans found the island. They propose alternate explanations for the ways the people of Rapa Nui lived that don't involve warfare and violence, and go back to original sources to mark places where even the Europeans could see that these were a peaceful people.
I want people to read this book. I want people to look at the slander that has been leveled at the people of Rapa Nui over the years. On Native Peoples' Day, I honor the ingenuity and the brilliance of the island people and mourn the losses they suffered at the hands of the Europeans over the centuries. Sure, I enjoyed learning about the mosi - I've mentioned I grew up on In Search Of..., after all. But the new research on the art and religion of the Rapa Nui people was less moving to me than the evidence of how they lived in harsh conditions. May their spirits have peace.
Five of five stars.
October 5, 2013
I'm going to Easter Island next month, in large part because of the description of the history in Jared Diamond's book Collapse. This book just told me that Jared Diamond was, in large measure, wrong. The story of the islanders, the destruction of their forest and the carving and erecting of the Moia told in this book makes the island that much more of a draw for me. It is amazing the detective work that was done to try to recreate the history of Easter Island. A must-read for anyone interested in Pacific history.
August 6, 2017
Easter Island, accidentally discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday in 1722, is the most remote island in the world. Now known as Rapa Nui, this tiny speck in the Pacific Ocean is famous for its 887 enigmatic stone statues that stand with their backs to the sea, gazing forlornly upon the barren island. Called moai by the islanders, they are giants, standing as high as 32 feet and weighing as much as 80 tons each. The islanders carved these giants in a stone quarry and moved them — without wheels or animals — to their final placements all around the island. Why were they created? How were they moved? As the story goes, the early Rapanui (as the islanders are now known) were a statue-making cult that felled the island’s once-luxurious palm forest to construct devices for moving more and more stone statues that became progressively larger and larger. As a result, this tropical paradise was transformed into an ecological disaster area, and without trees to construct new boats, the people were effectively marooned there. Hence, Rapa Nui is also famous as an example of ecological suicide.
But is this story about the decline and fall of Easter Island’s culture really written in stone, as it would seem? Not everyone in the scientific community agrees that the popular story is the true story. Two anthropologists — Terry Hunt, a professor at the University of Hawai’i, and Carl Lipo, a professor at California State University — set out to correct the record with their book, The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island [Free Press; 2011]. In this book, Hunt and Lipo, who conduct research on Rapa Nui, take a fresh look at the scientific evidence and argue that instead of an example of “eco-cide”, Rapa Nui is a monument celebrating the triumph of a small group of people who persevered together under challenging circumstances.
The book opens when Hunt and Lipo first began their archaeological studies on Rapa Nui in 2003. They were actually conducting a field school and general survey along with a few excavations on the island for a few grad students, expecting they would uncover a few minor details on the early history of this intensely-studied culture. But after Hunt and Lipo determine that the human settlers arrived in AD 1200 — much later than the previously accepted dates of AD 400 — they became curious. If the date of the original settlement was so far off, what else may be wrong? Then the authors found compelling evidence that the island’s deforestation was not a gradual process as the human population grew, but it began almost immediately after humans arrived and progressed rapidly. Why? Perplexed, they dug deeper.
As Hunt and Lipo tell us about their growing insights into the early Rapanui, they show how scientific questions can be answered with a high degree of certainty. Along the way, the authors find that, contrary to the popular view that the early Rapanui were irresponsible eco-cidal maniacs, they were clever and caring environmental managers, who devised ingenious methods for enhancing the island’s limited agricultural potential. Hunt and Lipo also found that the early Rapanui did not devastate the palm forest, and their culture did not descend into violence and cannibalism. But I was most surprised to learn that making and moving the enormous moai statutes did not require many people at all, nor did it monopolise the islanders’ precious limited resources. In fact, statue construction was intimately tied to the long-term success of their society.
Those statues are the central theme of the book, which shows how evolutionary theory explains moai construction as a typical feature of Polynesian society that became enhanced by the island’s isolation. Hunt and Lipo show that creating moai supported a peaceful and cooperative agrarian society that functioned well on the island. Further, the authors find compelling evidence for how the statues really did “walk” to their final locations.
The quality of the writing, combined with the authors’ meticulous research, show how exciting scientific research can be. This book shares Hunt and Lipo’s fascinating findings and re-evaluates previous archaeological data. Also interesting were the stories told to the authors by Rapanui who still live on the island as well as quotes from the writings of the early European explorers. All of these clues are woven together into an interesting story as Hunt and Lipo come to their original and startling conclusion about the mystery of what really happened on this remote island.
I highly recommend this engaging and readable story for those who are interested to learn the truth about Easter Island; for those who are curious about “how science is done” and for those who love to read a skilfully written true detective story. I think this book is a brilliant example of how an ancient people can speak to us across the chasm of time and space, and how they still have valuable lessons to teach us today.
NOTE: Originally published at The Guardian on 7 September 2011.
But is this story about the decline and fall of Easter Island’s culture really written in stone, as it would seem? Not everyone in the scientific community agrees that the popular story is the true story. Two anthropologists — Terry Hunt, a professor at the University of Hawai’i, and Carl Lipo, a professor at California State University — set out to correct the record with their book, The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island [Free Press; 2011]. In this book, Hunt and Lipo, who conduct research on Rapa Nui, take a fresh look at the scientific evidence and argue that instead of an example of “eco-cide”, Rapa Nui is a monument celebrating the triumph of a small group of people who persevered together under challenging circumstances.
The book opens when Hunt and Lipo first began their archaeological studies on Rapa Nui in 2003. They were actually conducting a field school and general survey along with a few excavations on the island for a few grad students, expecting they would uncover a few minor details on the early history of this intensely-studied culture. But after Hunt and Lipo determine that the human settlers arrived in AD 1200 — much later than the previously accepted dates of AD 400 — they became curious. If the date of the original settlement was so far off, what else may be wrong? Then the authors found compelling evidence that the island’s deforestation was not a gradual process as the human population grew, but it began almost immediately after humans arrived and progressed rapidly. Why? Perplexed, they dug deeper.
As Hunt and Lipo tell us about their growing insights into the early Rapanui, they show how scientific questions can be answered with a high degree of certainty. Along the way, the authors find that, contrary to the popular view that the early Rapanui were irresponsible eco-cidal maniacs, they were clever and caring environmental managers, who devised ingenious methods for enhancing the island’s limited agricultural potential. Hunt and Lipo also found that the early Rapanui did not devastate the palm forest, and their culture did not descend into violence and cannibalism. But I was most surprised to learn that making and moving the enormous moai statutes did not require many people at all, nor did it monopolise the islanders’ precious limited resources. In fact, statue construction was intimately tied to the long-term success of their society.
Those statues are the central theme of the book, which shows how evolutionary theory explains moai construction as a typical feature of Polynesian society that became enhanced by the island’s isolation. Hunt and Lipo show that creating moai supported a peaceful and cooperative agrarian society that functioned well on the island. Further, the authors find compelling evidence for how the statues really did “walk” to their final locations.
The quality of the writing, combined with the authors’ meticulous research, show how exciting scientific research can be. This book shares Hunt and Lipo’s fascinating findings and re-evaluates previous archaeological data. Also interesting were the stories told to the authors by Rapanui who still live on the island as well as quotes from the writings of the early European explorers. All of these clues are woven together into an interesting story as Hunt and Lipo come to their original and startling conclusion about the mystery of what really happened on this remote island.
I highly recommend this engaging and readable story for those who are interested to learn the truth about Easter Island; for those who are curious about “how science is done” and for those who love to read a skilfully written true detective story. I think this book is a brilliant example of how an ancient people can speak to us across the chasm of time and space, and how they still have valuable lessons to teach us today.
NOTE: Originally published at The Guardian on 7 September 2011.
Read
March 14, 2024read for my archaeology class. every time i read about easter island i become more and more fascinated with it.
November 1, 2015
This book is subtitled "Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island", but that title misrepresents its scope: "Unraveling the Mysteries of Easter Island" would be more accurate. The authors avoid the temptation to consider EI as a single "Big Mystery"; rather, they deconstruct it into a series of interrelated "sub-mysteries", each of which they tackle as an individual chapter, in the interests of correcting the common (mis)understanding of the EI historical and cultural record. These sub-mysteries, in order by chapter, can be roughly summarized as:
1. When, and how, did the first inhabitants discover this completely isolated speck of land?
2. Who, or what, was responsible for the total destruction of the native megaflora following its colonization?
3. How did the inhabitants survive, despite being trapped on a tiny, biologically impoverished island cut off from all other human contact for centuries?
4+5: How were the famous moai constructed and moved, in the absence of mechanical and engineering techniques and tools as we know them?
6. How sound is the commonly held theory that the prehistoric Easter Island civilization diminished itself to near-extinction via internecine warfare?
7+8. Does the EI archaeological and anthropological record contain clues about the nature of prehistoric EI culture (and particularly, its political system) that might provide insight into the function of the moai within the culture?
9. Could the downfall of the prehistoric EI civilization in fact be attributable more directly to European contact than to any (speculated) events that may have occurred during the centuries of isolation that constitute the prehistory?
The authors address each of these questions by presenting an array of relevant and significant findings spanning disciplines from archaeology to paleobotany to game theory. Conceptually, I have no objections to their objective or their methods. Unfortunately, the entertainment value of the book, to an armchair archaeologist/anthropologist like myself, turns out to be less than zero: the answer to every single one of the above-mentioned sub-mysteries turns out to be shockingly straightforward-- and completely refutes the corpus of all accepted wisdom and popular myths surrounding EI. (Even anthropology all-stars like Jared Diamond and Thor Heyerdahl fall victim to the bloodbath of thorough debunking.)
After finishing the book, any intrigue that one formerly associated with EI in general and the moai in specific will be replaced by a sad, empty sense of "So... that's really all there was to it?" Considering the book as a work of scholarship, that's an admirable accomplishment. However, as someone who picked up the book simply because he found the topic intriguing, but who hoped that much of the "Big Mystery" would remain beyond the reach of rational explanation (and thus ripe for speculation/intrigue among future generations), I can't feel anything other than severe disappointment. The mundanity of the truth here turns out to have a grossly unfair advantage when pitted against the spectacular ignorance of the fiction.
1. When, and how, did the first inhabitants discover this completely isolated speck of land?
2. Who, or what, was responsible for the total destruction of the native megaflora following its colonization?
3. How did the inhabitants survive, despite being trapped on a tiny, biologically impoverished island cut off from all other human contact for centuries?
4+5: How were the famous moai constructed and moved, in the absence of mechanical and engineering techniques and tools as we know them?
6. How sound is the commonly held theory that the prehistoric Easter Island civilization diminished itself to near-extinction via internecine warfare?
7+8. Does the EI archaeological and anthropological record contain clues about the nature of prehistoric EI culture (and particularly, its political system) that might provide insight into the function of the moai within the culture?
9. Could the downfall of the prehistoric EI civilization in fact be attributable more directly to European contact than to any (speculated) events that may have occurred during the centuries of isolation that constitute the prehistory?
The authors address each of these questions by presenting an array of relevant and significant findings spanning disciplines from archaeology to paleobotany to game theory. Conceptually, I have no objections to their objective or their methods. Unfortunately, the entertainment value of the book, to an armchair archaeologist/anthropologist like myself, turns out to be less than zero: the answer to every single one of the above-mentioned sub-mysteries turns out to be shockingly straightforward-- and completely refutes the corpus of all accepted wisdom and popular myths surrounding EI. (Even anthropology all-stars like Jared Diamond and Thor Heyerdahl fall victim to the bloodbath of thorough debunking.)
After finishing the book, any intrigue that one formerly associated with EI in general and the moai in specific will be replaced by a sad, empty sense of "So... that's really all there was to it?" Considering the book as a work of scholarship, that's an admirable accomplishment. However, as someone who picked up the book simply because he found the topic intriguing, but who hoped that much of the "Big Mystery" would remain beyond the reach of rational explanation (and thus ripe for speculation/intrigue among future generations), I can't feel anything other than severe disappointment. The mundanity of the truth here turns out to have a grossly unfair advantage when pitted against the spectacular ignorance of the fiction.
July 17, 2011
I went through a swing of reading the Graham Hancocks and Sitchins of the world years ago, so it was nice to return to a crumb of that subject matter, albeit from a more sober and credible angle.
The authors dig around and make the case for tweaking the narrative of the pre-European history of the island. The presentation is methodical and understated, but never grinds to a halt.
Based on the premise of the book I was fearing that a bunch of Noble Savage-ish sentiment would be shoved down the reader's throat, but there wasn't much of that.
I'm so used to buying crusty old used books that it was almost a shock to see email and Google Maps mentioned in something I was reading.
Disclosure: I was formerly a work colleague with one of the authors; it had nothing to do with archaeology.
Codicil: While reading this I re-watched Chariots of the Gods on YouTube. When my father bought a VCR circa 1980 that was one of the few cassettes we had so I watched it many times. Seeing it again was awesome - the funky music, the narration that swings from farcical to ominous to disjointed, the globetrotting. The perfect way to get revved up to read this book, even though Easter Island only takes up less than 10 minutes of the movie.
The authors dig around and make the case for tweaking the narrative of the pre-European history of the island. The presentation is methodical and understated, but never grinds to a halt.
Based on the premise of the book I was fearing that a bunch of Noble Savage-ish sentiment would be shoved down the reader's throat, but there wasn't much of that.
I'm so used to buying crusty old used books that it was almost a shock to see email and Google Maps mentioned in something I was reading.
Disclosure: I was formerly a work colleague with one of the authors; it had nothing to do with archaeology.
Codicil: While reading this I re-watched Chariots of the Gods on YouTube. When my father bought a VCR circa 1980 that was one of the few cassettes we had so I watched it many times. Seeing it again was awesome - the funky music, the narration that swings from farcical to ominous to disjointed, the globetrotting. The perfect way to get revved up to read this book, even though Easter Island only takes up less than 10 minutes of the movie.
February 23, 2013
Friends, I freakin love history. Especially ancient, INTERESTING history. Now, my excitement cues up a notch when said history is the subject of a non-fiction audiobook. YOU GUYS! I was beyond pumped up for my purchase of The Statues That Walked: Unraveling The Mystery Of Easter Island by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo on audible during one of those super cheap sales. Unfortunately, the book was much cooler in concept than it was in execution and I ended up with a major case of eye glaze. You guys ever get that? When you get so excited about an academic topic, so you read a book about it and then you end up totally zoned out because it wasn’t what you expected. Like, I was expecting fascinating stories about the statues and why they exist, because let’s face it those statues are fricken cool. Alas. It was not meant to be.
Read the rest of my review here
Read the rest of my review here
April 19, 2015
This was a fascinating look at some of the most recent research into the past of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Some of the conclusions the authors and their research team came to overturn a lot of what was thought to be common knowledge about the islanders, especially what led to the collapse of their civilization. I read and enjoyed Jared Diamond's Collapse years ago, which has a chapter devoted to Rapa Nui, but the authors are pretty hard on his conclusions, namely the idea that the people recklessly caused the deforestation of their tiny isolated island, and that they became so overpopulated that warring for resources and cannibalism became commonplace. Without saying too much that might spoil the book, I'll just say that Hunt et al. come to a very different conclusion, one that implicates not the Rapa Nui people but years of European exploitation. A great read if you're into cultural anthropology, or just ever wondered how the heck they moved those giant statues.
January 28, 2013
Two scholars who have done years of fieldwork on Easter Island have co-written this engaging and mostly satisfying study of the history of Easter Island and its magnificent statues. Plenty of maps and pictures keep the text lively and keep you focused on the island's central mystery: how the hell did people on that tiny, godforsaken island create and move all those hundreds of giant statues centuries ago?
Hunt and Lipo have done a lot of research and a lot of digging, and they have created a compelling narrative explanation for most of the mystery. The least plausible part of their argument was a laughable digression into game theory that should have been omitted from this otherwise evidence-based argument. Still, though, this was a great read for anyone interested in one of the world's enduring mysteries.
Hunt and Lipo have done a lot of research and a lot of digging, and they have created a compelling narrative explanation for most of the mystery. The least plausible part of their argument was a laughable digression into game theory that should have been omitted from this otherwise evidence-based argument. Still, though, this was a great read for anyone interested in one of the world's enduring mysteries.
July 10, 2012
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This is archaeology at its absolute best - deeply exploring a culture and history in a systematic and integrated fashion. The prose is reader friendly and the authors' willingness to question and test assumptions is refreshing. All of the theories expounded here may not hold up in the longrun, but if they are debunked with as much class and erudition than that will be a very good thing. So glad I finished this on my flight to Rapa Nui and can't wait to discuss all the interesting points with friends who read it.
August 24, 2023
I marveled reading about the archeological research started by the authors in 2001 on Rapa Nui.
April 4, 2023
Sets straight a lot of the myths and false information about the original inhabitants of the island, the reasons why they built the giant statues and how they were moved, as well as the "collapse" of their society: no "aliens," no magic or superpowers, they didn't ignorantly cut down all the trees and ruin the environment, etc. Rats (of the animal and human kind) take the blame. Rapidly multiplying rats, arriving with the first Polynesians, gorged on the seeds of the island's giant palm trees and any young seedlings that managed to escape them, thus eventual deforestation. And once Europeans arrived to explore, seek supplies for their ships, etc., they quickly spread germs that caused diseases against which the natives had no immunity, leading to a high death rate and societal disruption. Even without the impact of diseases, the mere presence of these newcomers and their new "technology," wardrobes, customs, dramatically altered centuries-old traditions, such as making and maintaining the giant statues. Oh, and Europeans also killed and enslaved countless Rapa Nui residents. If you want to get a scientifically based look at Rapa Nui, instead of relying on outdated and/or fanciful theories, start here.
July 21, 2017
"The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island" - written by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo and published in 2011 by Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster. Hunt and Lipo researched, ran experiments and thought very deeply about many aspects of the fascinating monoliths at Easter Island. They write, "To see these statues...is to sense a hidden drama of compelling human proportions calling out for explanation." Easter Island (Rapa Nui), visited by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722, is over 1,000 miles from the nearest island and sparsely vegetated - Captain James Cook noted, "Nature has been exceedingly sparing of her favours to this spot." The speculation about the creation of the statues is interesting, as is the fact that all of them had fallen by the 1860s. More time is spent describing the inhabitants of the island and their decimation, sadly due to European diseases and slavery. Currently, their accelerated way of life due to global tourism is a new and dangerous threat. This was a detailed but approachable discussion and I will think of the Rapanui people now as much as their ritual architecture.
March 10, 2023
A clear, well-paced book providing laypeople with both a survey of the human history of Rapa Nui (including the moia for which the island is famous), and a good overview of the archaeological work the author and his colleagues did on the island.
The book provides a detailed summary of the author's challenge to the the previously prevailing view of the "collapse" of the pre-European culture on the island. Instead of attributing this collapse solely to poor environmental choices (e.g., unsustainable use of the small island's limited resources) along the lines of the Jared Diamond account, the author provides evidence that the pre-European Polynesian inhabitants in fact managed their limited resources fairly well. In fact, the authors argue that the dramatic collapse on Rapa Nui should be blamed more on the impact of visits by European seafarers in the 18th and 19th centuries with their imported germs and viruses, as well as cultural changes (luxury goods, livestock and private land ownership).
The book provides a detailed summary of the author's challenge to the the previously prevailing view of the "collapse" of the pre-European culture on the island. Instead of attributing this collapse solely to poor environmental choices (e.g., unsustainable use of the small island's limited resources) along the lines of the Jared Diamond account, the author provides evidence that the pre-European Polynesian inhabitants in fact managed their limited resources fairly well. In fact, the authors argue that the dramatic collapse on Rapa Nui should be blamed more on the impact of visits by European seafarers in the 18th and 19th centuries with their imported germs and viruses, as well as cultural changes (luxury goods, livestock and private land ownership).
April 9, 2019
This seems to have been written mainly to refute the story of Easter Island retold by Jared Diamond in Collapse. Diamond later refuted a lot of Hunt & Lipo's theories, and then they came back and refuted his refutation. Man, these scientific types get into some serious grudge matches! I don't know if the Rapanui people ever resorted to all-out war and cannibalism, but I felt like the archaeologist might get into some of that next.
Some of Hunt & Lipo's ideas seem dubious; for example, there's no way rats caused the near total deforestation of the island. And while application of game theory is interesting, used in the chapter titled "A Peaceable Island," it's a pretty circumstantial and oblique support for a version of history.
The whole thing was interesting for me, since I went in without knowing much about Easter Island. Mulching with rocks! Who knew?
Some of Hunt & Lipo's ideas seem dubious; for example, there's no way rats caused the near total deforestation of the island. And while application of game theory is interesting, used in the chapter titled "A Peaceable Island," it's a pretty circumstantial and oblique support for a version of history.
The whole thing was interesting for me, since I went in without knowing much about Easter Island. Mulching with rocks! Who knew?
August 15, 2025
A fantastic book! Does such a wonderful job outlining the effects of European colonialism and how racist/eugenist ideologies can completely warp our perception of a culture to an extreme degree. To be a good archaeologist you need to not only ask the descendent populations but you need to actually listen to what they say, regardless of if it makes sense to you! I'm just disgusted that the Rapa Nui have been treated this way in history and on to the present. They are an incredibly resilient enginuitive group of poeple and I think we all need to do our part to pressure governments and others to return the stolen Moai. I think sending them home is the least we can do to begin atoning for all the damage we have caused past and present.
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December 20, 2020Genuinely fascinating depiction of primary and secondary research on Rapanui , “unravelling the mystery of Easter Island”. The archaeological evidence, supported by other studies and comparative examples from other islands, comes together in a compelling explanation of how the Rapanui people were able to construct, transport, and install the massive ahu. The chapter on the ethnographic history of the island is sobering, recognizing the continuing evolutionary struggle between humankind and disease pathogens.
May 12, 2023
A fascinating read that covers a large scope of the island's history and culture, while simultaneously correcting past harmful assumptions made about the native population. You do not have to be a scientist/archaeologist/anthropologist to understand and enjoy this book. I think the authors did a great job of displaying cultural humility and highlighting the resilience of Rapa Nui. Definitely would recommend to anyone interested in the moai, Polynesian colonization, or the island itself. 4.5 stars!
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