Why were the huge statues on Easter Island built? A new theory.
By Gary Sibio
@garysibi (702)
Chicago, Illinois
February 11, 2019 3:39pm CST
Easter Island (AKA Rapa Nui) is an island in the Pacific Ocean best known for its gigantic human-like statues. Archaeologists studied them trying to determine how they were built and why they were built. Carving one and getting it upright was a major undertaking for people who didn't have construction equipment.
A new theory about the "why" question has been proposed. You can read about it in more detail at but, in short, the statues were built to mark locations where fresh water for drinking was available.
Personally this seems like a lot of effort to mark locations of fresh water. The island is not big. You would think the people knew where the drinking water was. They were there before the statues.
However, if you are going to make the effort to put in the effort to build one of these statues, you are going to need a nearby source of fresh water for the workers. This seems to make more sense to me.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2019/02/06/easter-island-statues-may-erected-as-guardians-of-water-sources/#400d83594628
2 people like this
3 responses
@topffer (42155)
• France
11 Feb 19
To accept that you have also to tell (and they do it) that the emplacement of the springs have not changed since the moai were put there. Frankly, you cannot work on contemporary environmental data like they do for a study like this one, when we know that many climatic change happened on this island. They reject that quickly, at the end, like if it had no importance...
Poor American archeology !
Poor American archeology !1 person likes this
@topffer (42155)
• France
12 Feb 19
@garysibi I am an archeologist specialized in Roman archeology. The "new" archeology wave in the USA in the 1970's has been a disaster, and this article seems to be a sequel : they work far away of the island, perhaps without having never put a foot on it, and think that they can do better with an analysis of data collected from disparate sources than ground archeologists. Only in your dreams, guys.
@garysibi (702)
• Chicago, Illinois
12 Feb 19
@topffer I only went as far as getting a bachelor's degree since my wife and I wanted to start a family and that meant no more school so I haven't followed the field much other than to read articles when I come across them. I hadn't realized that the field had degenerated to that degree. I can't imaging how you can do research without actually being there. It's ridiculous.
1 person likes this
@garysibi (702)
• Chicago, Illinois
11 Feb 19
That's a good point. We don't know what the terrain looked like when the moai were erected.
I studied anthropology in college and that included archaeology. If you did a Venn diagram of what anthropology studies you'd have a circle for physical anthropology (the study of fossil hominids) and cultural anthropology (the study of the cultures of people who are still alive). Where they overlap is archaeology, the study of the cultures of societies which no longer exist. The cultural anthropologists warn us to not interpret other cultures in the light of our own but also tell us that this is an impossible goal. Archaeologists too often ignore that. It's been that way since the late 1960s.
1 person likes this
@garysibi (702)
• Chicago, Illinois
11 Feb 19
I started reading about these when I was in high school in the late 1960s. They are fascinating. I want to see them face-to-face, so to speak, someday.
@Missmwngi (12915)
• Nairobi, Kenya
11 Feb 19
Thats interesting. History sometimes can be interesting. For sure they are some work just for a marking
1 person likes this
@garysibi (702)
• Chicago, Illinois
11 Feb 19
When I was in school I hated history. I've grown to love it as an adult.
