How did the Rapa Nui people do it?

[central scrutinizer]

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/how-easter-islands-famous-statues-got-their-giant-stone-hats/

I’m going there in September, can’t wait!

[elehhhhna]

1. Nat geo or someone has a great doc we saw this weekend!

Answers/spoilers: EGO. RELIGION. Maybe slavery type labor, tree trunks as skids and levers, but for this, deforested - like Haiti. Crap soil. No good close-fishing/reef. Eventually no trees to make canoes so not enough subsistence fishing ... malnutritiom, starvation. Probable cannibalism.

Destroyed their climate by deforestation.



History repeats.

[elehhhhna]

2. Would love to see it but its a sad story. They didn't know better.

[grantcart]

3. Right, thriving population of 20,000 decimated it's forests taking the trees

To assist building religious monuments

[lapfog_1]

6. quite possibly our collective future.

if we cannot live sustainably and without destroying the environment that has allowed human population to explode to more than 7 billion.

[trixie2]

8. Exactly!

[jberryhill]

4. You know

Swamp gas and a reflection of Venus caused by a temperature inversion, Agent whoever you are.

[mahina]

5. Lucky you! Did you ever watch the documentary

180 degrees South?

Recommended!

Not to your point really but part of it is filmed there.

And to all a point to them as if we are so much smarter ecologically I say I really don’t think that we are, at least not yet.

[ProudLib72]

9. +1

180 Degrees South

[Snackshack]

7. It is amazing.

Plus the facts that some of those statues go pretty deep (20’+) into the ground.

It is amazing that these ancient civilizations made these structures with pieces that weigh 100 tons or more that are polished and fitted to amazing tolerances. Puma Punku is one of the ones I find most interesting. The precision on display is unbelievable. How they did it being supposedly a primitive civilization is confounding.

[trixie2]

10. Oooooh now I get to tell my conspiracy theory

It was aliens.

But seriously I saw House Hunters International a few years ago and they did a house on the island. The husband was not from there but the wife was and wanted to move back to her family home.

[Snackshack]

11. :)

They are big. I agree it must have been aliens. The kind ones, not the mean ones. 😉

https://goo.gl/images/2AtkNc