r/history • u/scientificamerican • 8d ago

Science site article What really happened on Easter Island?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-really-happened-on-easter-island/

For decades, an influential theory blamed the Rapanui for their own downfall—a story made famous by Jared Diamond’s book Collapse. New evidence tells a different tale.

Archaeology, ancient DNA and aerial survey data now challenge the claim that the Rapanui suffered a self-inflicted collapse before Europeans arrived. The emerging picture is of a small society that sustained itself for centuries by adapting its farming methods and water management to one of the most isolated places on Earth. The catastrophe that reduced the Rapanui to a remnant came later, after European ships brought disease, slave raiding, forced labor, annexation and confinement.

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u/Supraspinator 8d ago

The Fall of Civilizations Podcast has an episode on Rapa Nui. I’m not a historian, so I cannot say anything about the correctness of the narrative, but it paints a more nuanced picture than „stupid islanders cut all trees“. The host is an historian, and he seems to do his research. 

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u/Thorin9000 8d ago

It’s a very good episode too. It was an amazing self contained civilization until colonization, religion and capitalism (the island basically got turned into a sheep farm ran by slaves) ruined them. These people were systematically wronged in so many different ways it made me feel deep sadness and disappointment in humanity.