Journal daniil's Journal: On the fall of Easter Island 3
Some of you are probably familiar with Jared Diamond's thesis of the human destruction of the ecosystem on Easter Island. According to Diamond, "In just a few centuries, the people of Easter Island wiped out their forest, drove their plants and animals to extinction, and saw their complex society spiral into chaos and cannibalism." But now, in American Scientist, Terry L. Hunt offers an alternative explanation to the collapse of the Easter Island civilization. He presents new carbon dating evidence showing that the human colonization of Easter Island took place about four hundred years later than previously thought. Hunt then argues that contrary to previous estimations by Diamond and others, the human population of Easter Island reached a maximum of about 3,000 and remained "fairly stable" until the Europeans arrived. The actual downfall of the Rapanui resulted not from internal strife caused by a rapid degeneration of the ecosystem as previously thought (by Diamond and others), but from contact with Europeans.
Hunt finds that the deforestation cannot be explained with human activities alone. Instead, he claims that much of the damage was caused by the rats introduced to the island by the first colonists. "It was genocide, not ecocide, that caused the demise of the Rapanui. An ecological catastrophe did occur on Rapa Nui, but it was the result of a number of factors, not just human short-sightedness."
obvious extrapolation (Score:2)
Ice Cream Crapping Taco (Score:2)
Funny, but before I read your comment I was just thinking of an episode of South Park that I saw recently.
(I don't have cable.)
I would describe myself as an extra-terrestrial agnostic, but I a fan of Clyde Lewis, and it is fun to come up with alien conspiracy theories for everything under the sun.
I remember a few years ago hearing something on the radio about the rise of obesity, and talking abou
I KNEW it. (Score:1)
(Eth: I'm JOKING.)