Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (98 page)

Chapter
2

The general reader seeking an overview of Easter Island should begin with three
books: John Flenley and Paul Bahn,
The Enigmas of Easter Island
(New York: Oxford
University Press, 2003, updating Paul Bahn and John Flenley,
Easter Island, Earth Is
land
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1992); Jo Anne Van Tilburg,
Easter Island: Archaeology, Ecology, and Culture
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994); and Jo Anne Van Tilburg,
Among Stone Giants
(New York: Scribner, 2003).
The last-mentioned book is a biography of Katherine Routledge, a remarkable En
glish archaeologist whose 1914-15 visit enabled her to interview islanders with per
sonal memories of the last Orongo ceremonies, and whose life was as colorful as a
fantastic novel.

Two other recent books are Catherine and Michel Orliac,
The Silent Gods: Mys
teries of Easter Island
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1995), a short illustrated overview; and John Loret and John Tancredi, eds.,
Easter Island: Scientific Ex
ploration into the World's Environmental Problems in Microcosm
(New York:
Kluwer/Plenum, 2003), 13 chapters on results of recent expeditions. Anyone who
becomes seriously interested in Easter Island will want to read two classic earlier
books: Katherine Routledge's own account,
The Mystery of Easter Island
(London: Sifton Praed, 1919, reprinted by Adventure Unlimited Press, Kempton, 111., 1998),
and Alfred Metraux,
Ethnology of Easter Island
(Honolulu: Bishop Museum Bulletin 160,1940, reprinted 1971). Eric Kjellgren, ed.,
Splendid Isolation: Art of Easter Island
(New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001) assembles dozens of photos, many in color, of petroglyphs, rongo-rongo boards, moai kavakava, barkcloth figures, and
a red feather headdress of a type that may have inspired the red stone pukao.

Articles by Jo Anne Van Tilburg include "Easter Island (Rapa Nui) archaeology
since 1955: some thoughts on progress, problems and potential," pp. 555-577 in
J. M. Davidson et al., eds.,
Oceanic Culture History: Essays in Honour of Roger Green
(New Zealand Journal of Archaeology Special Publication, 1996); Jo Anne Van
Tilburg and Cristian Arevalo Pakarati, "The Rapanui carvers' perspective: notes and
observations on the experimental replication of monolithic sculpture (moai),"
pp. 280-290 in A. Herle et al, eds.,
Pacific Art: Persistence, Change and Meaning
(Bathurst, Australia: Crawford House, 2002); and Jo Anne Van Tilburg and Ted Ral
ston, "Megaliths and mariners: experimental archaeology on Easter Island (Rapa
Nui)," in press in K. L. Johnson, ed.,
Onward and Upward'. Papers in Honor of
Clement W. Meighan
(University Press of America). The latter two of those three ar
ticles describe experimental studies aimed at understanding how many people were
required to carve and transport statues, and how long it would have taken.

Many good books accessible to the general reader describe the settlement of
Polynesia or the Pacific as a whole. They include Patrick Kirch,
On the Road of the
Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands Before European Contact
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000),
The Lapita Peoples: Ancestors of the Oceanic World
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), and
The Evolution of the Polynesian Chief-

doms
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Peter Bellwood,
The Polyne
sians: Prehistory of an Island People,
revised edition (London: Thames and Hudson,
1987); and Geoffrey Irwin,
The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). David Lewis,
We, the Naviga
tors
(Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1972) is a unique account of traditional
Pacific navigational techniques, by a modern sailor who studied those techniques
by embarking on long voyages with surviving traditional navigators. Patrick Kirch
and Terry Hunt, eds.,
Historical Ecology in the Pacific Islands: Prehistoric Environ
mental and Landscape Change
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997)
consists of papers about human environmental impacts on Pacific Islands other than Easter.

Two books by Thor Heyerdahl that inspired my interest and that of many others in Easter Island are
The Kon-Tiki Expedition
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1950)
and
Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1958). A rather
different interpretation emerges from the excavations of the archaeologists whom
Heyerdahl brought to Easter Island, as described in Thor Heyerdahl and E. Ferdon,
Jr., eds.,
Reports of the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition to Easter Island and the
East Pacific, vol. 1: The Archaeology of Easter Island
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1961).
Steven Fischer,
Glyph Breaker
(New York: Copernicus, 1997) and
Rongorongo: The
Easter Island Script
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) describe Fischer's efforts at deciphering the Rongorongo text. Andrew Sharp, ed.,
The Journal of Jacob Roggeveen
(London: Oxford University Press, 1970) reprints on pp. 89-106 the first
European eyewitness description of Easter Island.

An archaeological mapping of Easter Island is summarized in Claudio Cristino,
Patricia Vargas, and R. Izaurieta,
Atlas Arqueologico delsla dePascua
(Santiago: Uni
versity of Chile, 1981). Detailed articles about Easter Island are published regularly in the
Rapa Nui Journal
by the Easter Island Foundation, which also publishes oc
casional conferences about the island. Important collections of papers are Claudio
Cristino, Patricia Vargas et al., eds.,
First International Congress, Easter Island and
East Polynesia, vol. 1 Archaeology
(Santiago: University of Chile, 1988); Patricia
Vargas Casanova, ed.,
Easter Island and East Polynesia Prehistory
(Santiago: Univer
sity of Chile, 1998); and Christopher Stevenson and William Ayres, eds.,
Easter Is
land Archaeology: Research on Early Rapanui Culture
(Los Osos, Calif.: Easter Island
Foundation, 2000). A summary of the history of cultural contacts is to be found in
Claudio Cristino et al.
Isla de Pascua: Procesos, Alcances y Efectos de la Aculturacion
(Easter Island: University of Chile, 1984).

David Steadman reports his identification of bird bones and other remains ex
cavated at Anakena Beach in three papers: "Extinctions of birds in Eastern Polyne
sia: a review of the record, and comparisons with other Pacific Island groups"
(Journal of Archaeological Science
16:177-205 (1989)), and "Stratigraphy, chronol
ogy, and cultural context of an early faunal assemblage from Easter Island"
(Asian
Perspectives
33:79-96 (1994)), both with Patricia Vargas and Claudio Cristino; and

"Prehistoric extinctions of Pacific Island birds: biodiversity meets zooarchaeology"
{Science
267:1123-1131 (1995)). William Ayres, "Easter Island subsistence"
(Journal de la Societe des Oceanistes
80:103-124 (1985)) provides further archaeological
evidence of foods consumed. For solution of the mystery of the Easter Island
palm and other insights from pollen in sediment cores, see J. R. Flenley and Sarah
King, "Late Quaternary pollen records from Easter Island"
{Nature
307:47-50
(1984)), J. Dransfield et al, "A recently extinct palm from Easter Island"
(Nature
312:750-752 (1984)), and J. R. Flenley et al.,"The Late Quaternary vegetational and climatic history of Easter Island"
(Journal of Quaternary Science
6:85-115 (1991)).
Catherine Orliac's identifications are reported in a paper in the above-cited edited
volume by Stevenson and Ayres, and in "Donnees nouvelles sur la composition de
la flore de Pile de Paques"
(Journal de la Societe des Oceanistes
2:23-31 (1998)).
Among the papers resulting from the archaeological surveys by Claudio Cristino and his colleagues are Christopher Stevenson and Claudio Cristino, "Residential
settlement history of the Rapa Nui coastal plain
(Journal of New World Archaeology
7:29-38 (1986)); Daris Swindler, Andrea Drusini, and Claudio Cristino, "Variation
and frequency of three-rooted first permanent molars in precontact Easter Is
landers: anthropological significance
(Journal of the Polynesian Society
106:175-183
(1997)); and Claudio Cristino and Patricia Vargas, "Ahu Tongariki, Easter Island:
chronological and sociopolitical significance"
(Rapa Nui Journal
13:67-69 (1999)).

Christopher Stevenson's papers on intensive agriculture and lithic mulches in
clude
Archaeological Investigations on Easter Island; Maunga Tari: An Upland Agri
culture Complex
(Los Osos, Calif.: Easter Island Foundation, 1995), (with Joan
Wozniak and Sonia Haoa) "Prehistoric agriculture production on Easter Island
(Rapa Nui), Chile"
(Antiquity
73:801-812 (1999)), and (with Thegn Ladefoged and
Sonia Haoa) "Productive strategies in an uncertain environment: prehistoric agri
culture on Easter Island"
(Rapa Nui Journal
16:17-22 (2002)). Christopher Steven
son, "Territorial divisions on Easter Island in the 16th century: evidence from the
distribution of ceremonial architecture," pp. 213-229 in T. Ladefoged and
M. Graves, eds.,
Pacific Landscapes
(Los Osos, Calif.: Easter Island Foundation,
2002) reconstructs the boundaries of Easter's 11 traditional clans.

Dale Lightfoot, "Morphology and ecology of lithic-mulch agriculture"
(Geo
graphical Review
84:172-185 (1994)) and Carleton White et al., "Water conserva
tion through an Anasazi gardening technique"
(New Mexico Journal of Science
38:251-278 (1998)) provide evidence for the function of lithic mulches elsewhere in the world. Andreas Mieth and Hans-Rudolf Bork "Diminution and degradation of environmental resources by prehistoric land use on Poike Peninsula, Easter Is
land (Rapa Nui)"
(Rapa Nui Journal
17:34-41 (2003)) discuss deforestation and
erosion on the Poike Peninsula. Karsten Haase et al., "The petrogenetic evolution of
lavas from Easter Island and neighboring seamounts, near-ridge hotspot volcanoes
in the S.E. Pacific"
(Journal of Petrology
38:785-813 (1997)) analyze the dates and
chemical compositions of Easter's volcanoes. Erika Hagelberg et al., "DNA from an-

dent Easter Islanders"
(Nature
369:25-26 (1994)) analyze DNA extracted from 12
Easter Island skeletons. James Brander and M. Scott Taylor, "The simple economics
of Easter Island: a Ricardo-Malthus model of renewable resource use"
(American
Economic Review
38:119-138 (1998)) give an economist's view of overexploitation
on Easter.

Chapter 3

The settlement of Southeast Polynesia is covered in the sources for the settlement of
Polynesia as a whole that I provided under the Further Readings for Chapter 2.
The
Pitcairn Islands: Biogeography, Ecology, and Prehistory
(London: Academic Press,
1995), edited by Tim Benton and Tom Spencer, is the product of a 1991-92 expedi
tion to Pitcairn, Henderson, and the coral atolls Oeno and Ducie. The volume con
sists of 27 chapters on the islands' geology, vegetation, birds (including Henderson's
extinct birds), fishes, terrestrial and marine invertebrates, and human impacts.

Most of our information about the Polynesian settlement and abandonment of
Pitcairn and Henderson comes from the studies of Marshall Weisler and various
colleagues. Weisler provides an overall account of his research in a chapter, "Hen
derson Island prehistory: colonization and extinction on a remote Polynesian is
land," on pp. 377-404 of the above-cited volume by Benton and Spencer. Two other
overview papers by Weisler are "The settlement of marginal Polynesia: new evi
dence from Henderson Island"
(Journal of Field Archaeology
21:83
—102 (1994)) and "An archaeological survey of Mangareva: implications for regional settlement models and interaction studies"
(Man and Culture and Oceania
12:61-85 (1996)). Four papers by Weisler explain how chemical analysis of basalt adzes can identify on what island the basalt was quarried, and thus can help trace out trade routes: "Provenance studies of Polynesian basalt adzes material: a review and suggestions for improving regional databases"
(Asian Perspectives
32:61-83 (1993)); "Basalt pb isotope analysis and the prehistoric settlement of Polynesia," coauthored with Jon D. Whitehead
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA
92:1881-1885 (1995)); "Interisland and interarchipelago transfer of stone tools in prehistoric Polynesia," coauthored with Patrick V. Kirch
(Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, USA
93:1381-1385 (1996)); and "Hard evidence for prehistoric interaction in Polynesia"
(Current Anthropology
39:521-532 (1998)). Three papers describe the East and Southeast Polynesia trade network: Marshall Weisler and R. C. Green, "Holistic approaches to interaction studies: a Polynesian example," pp. 413-453 in Martin Jones and Peter Sheppard, eds.,
Australasian Connections
and New Directions
(Auckland, N.Z.: Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland, 2001); R. C. Green and Marshall Weisler, "The Mangarevan sequence and dating of the geographic expansion into Southeast Polynesia"
(Asian Perspec
tives
41:213-241 (2002)); and Marshall Weisler, "Centrality and the collapse of