One thing that I didn't really understand until visiting Easter Island is that most of the sites are a landscape of wanton destruction on a disheartening scale. The image of Easter Island is the standing (and therefore recently restored) statues, but the real scene on most of the island is that of toppled moai, often with topknots lying nearby.
No one knows for sure why the society went into decline around 1500 A.D. However, one thing that is known, and which was almost certainly a factor, is that the population began to outstrip the natural resources of the island. The island's forests began to dwindle, which led to a shortage of building materials and firewood, and increased erosion. With a failing ecosystem unable to keep up with the population size, clan warfare broke out. It is not hard to imagine that this was over land, fishing grounds, and other resources. The stability of the preceding centuries disappeared, and the old order collapsed. During the period of warfare, it is believed that toppling a clan's moai was done in order to insult and demoralize them; after a few centuries of this, no moai were left standing.
Below is a trio of toppled moai; I'm leaning against a topknot.
Most of the moai are toppled face-down (presumably for added insult). Here's another angle on the moai above.
Here's another trio of toppled moai, with the sea-battered coastal cliffs in the background.
Here's a group of seven toppled moai. It's like this all over the island. At nearly every site, the moai are toppled.
Te Peu, in the northwest of the island, is a scene of major destruction. This was the only place we saw moai toppled face up.
The moai below, Te Pito Kura, is the largest moai ever erected and is believed to have been the last one toppled (during the 19th century). It is over 32 feet high, and its weight is estimated at 82 tons (with an 11.5 ton topknot to boot).
When Roggeveen first arrived in 1722, he reported destitute-appearing natives, but no toppled moai. Over the successive years, various European visitors reported a declining number of moai with each visit, with the last being thrown down some time during the 19th century. It's worth noting that while Europeans and South Americans would create much havoc in their own way (as I'll discuss shortly), the civil warfare that led to the toppling of the moai was not a result of outside influence. Instead, it appears to have been the self-caused collapse of a society that lived beyond the means of their ecosystem.
During the civil war period, new beliefs and practices arose from of the ashes of the old order. Let's learn about the Birdman Cult!
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All content copyright 2003 by Christopher A. Flaat.