The Real Mystery of Easter Island

             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.