Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island

So my last post was about rats and the role they may have played in deforestation on Easter Island. As you may have noticed, a great deal of the rat debate comes from the archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo, (who I think I take far too much information from!). Upon searching the news for stories related to Easter Island I came across this blog entry on the courier-journal.com, reviewing one of Hunt and Lipo's latest books "The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island," written in 2011. As Peter Smith at the courier-journal reviews, the book goes into great detail looking at the entire Easter Island story, reviewing (and rejecting) evidence for the traditional explanation (ecocide) and instead suggesting that rats drove deforestation the island and that contact with Europeans led to the island's ultimate collapse.

Mr. Smith makes a closing point which I think is very important: assuming ecocide was not the cause for the collapse on Easter, the alternative story still offers lessons: "Live within your means. Watch out for invasive species. And especially invasive people," (Courier-journal.com 2012). The impact invasive species can have on ecosystems, as I have discussed, can be potentially catastrophic, so if we can't learn a lesson about human driven environmental degradation from Easter, we can certainly be more cautious about this one. Especially as humans have time and time again ruined the biodiversity of numerous ecosystems by introducing outside species into them - e.g. introduction of the Nile Perch into Lake Victoria in 1955 devastated native fish populations. Anyway, I highly recommend both Hunt and Lipo's book and the courier-journal.com, which seems to offer news and posts related to almost anything I can think of let alone Easter Island!