More on Easter Island not victim of 'ecocide'
It had been proposed that vast forests of giant palm trees were cut down by the people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) leaving them among other things without canoes. With no canoes, they could no longer fish so they ate chickens, rats and agricultural crops. New isotopic analyses of bones, soils and plant remains from Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) provide evidence contrary to the widely-held belief that the ancient civilization recklessly destroyed its environment [Credit: Terry Hunt] However, Rapa Nui is not a tropical paradise with fertile soils so crop productivity decreased. This 'ecocide' hypothesis attributes societal collapse on Rapa Nui to human overexploitation of natural resources. This new study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology challenges that interpretation and instead shows that the ancient population ate roughly equal amounts of seafood and terrestrial resources. Catrine Jarman, lead author of the study and PhD student at the University