Most of us have seen pictures of
the gigantic statues of Easter Island, and a nig mystery has been this: Who
build the statues, and how were they moved? Recently, however, we’ve become
aware of an even greater mystery: What happened to Easter Island? What changed
it so drastically? Easter Iskand lies in the South Pasific about 2,300 miles
west of Chile, the coutry to which it belongs. According to current estimates,
it ws settled abiut the year 900 by Polynesians. If you go to Easter Iskand
today and visit Rano Raruku, the quarry where the statues were carved, you’ll
see almost 400 statues in various stages
of disrepair. On roads leading out from Rano Raruku, a volcanic crater about
600 yards across, there are about 100 more statues. Many if not most of these
statues are toppled over and damaged.
Else where on the island you’ll see more than 100 giganic platforms on which
the statues stood.
Easter Island was discovered by Dutch explorer Jacob
Roggeveen on April 5, 1722 Easter day. When Roggeveen landed, he saw the island
much as it is today: a rather desolate place covered mostly by grassland, with
no trees taller than 10 feet. It is clear today, however, that Easter Island
wan once much different: Most of it was a subtropical forest. At one time, the
island was home to as many as 15,000 people, while today there are onlyabout
200. What occured to cause such drastic changes?
Explorer Thor Heyerdahl theorized taht the building
and moving of the statues what some how linked with the activities of the Incas
and with the Egyptians and their Pyramids. Author Erich Von Daniken proposed
that extraterrestrials made and moved the statues. However, it is believed
today that the Easter Islanders did all the work themselves. But how could they
have done this? They didn’t have cranes, metal tools, large animals, or wheels.
(The wheel had been invented long before, but the Easter Islanders didn’t have
access to it). One very convincing explanation is that they invented their own
devices, called canoes rails, which are ladders with parallel wooden logs
connected by crosspieces. The islanders used the rails to drag the statues. But
large trees would have been required to build
the rails, along with other kinds of trees to provide bark to make rope
to pull the statues. Had such trees ever existed there?
Bontainish John Flenly and anthropologist Paul Bahn
have concluded that these trees did exist. Studies have established that the
island was once convered with forests. One of the principal trees was the
Chilean wine palm, which grows as high as 65 feet and as wide as 3 feet. The
assumption is that the trunks of the wine palm were used to lift and move the
statues and that the bark of other trees was used to make rope for hauling. But
what happened to the trees?
Today some consider the deforestation of Easter
Island one of the greatest environmental disasters of all time. The disaster
was almost certainly caused by humans. No one knows for sure how or why it
happened, of course, but it seem likely that a few hundred years after it was
settled, the island began to experience a decline. It came to be ruled by 11
chiefs, who apparently constructed the statues as competitive demonstrations of
their power. As the population increased, competition among the chiefs became
fiercer. More and more land was cleared to grow crops to feed the people, and
more and more trees were cut down to provide firewood and wood for use in
moving and raising the statues. This deforestation led to the drying of the
land, the loss of nutrients in the soil, and eventually less and less rainfall.
Ineffect, the climate was changed.
Why did the Easter Islanders allow the disaster to
happen? Did they simply fail to recognize an eventual problem? Was the problem
too far advanced to do anything about it when they figured out what was
happening? Perhaps more significantly for us, are there parallels today? Are we
acting as the Easter Islanders did, but on a global scale? For example, does
the push to cut down trees (such as in the Amazon rain forest) in the name of
jobs and economic development make environmental sense? Are we over-fishing the
ocean in our current belief that the supply of seafood is limitless? Are future
catastrophes in the works? We mustn’t shy away these questions.
Passive
Voice:
Ø Easter Island was discovered by Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen on
April 5, 1722 Easter day.
Ø One very convincing explanation is that they invented their own
devices, called canoes rails, which are ladders with parallel wooden logs
connected by crosspieces.
Ø The disaster was almost certainly caused by humans.
Sumber: Maurer, Jay. (2006). Focus On
Grammar. White Plains: Longman.
