Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
Easter Island is a Chilean island and special territory in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southernmost point of Oceania's Polynesian Triangle. The name "Easter Island" was given to the island by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who discovered it on Easter Sunday, 5 April 1722. Rapa Nui, the island's current Polynesian name, was coined following the slave raids of the early 1860s.
Estimated dates of initial settlement of Easter Island have ranged from 300 to 1200 CE, the Islands colonization likely coincided with the arrival of the first settlers from Hawaii. According to oral tradition, the first settlement was at Anakena.
Easter Island's population grew from roughly 2,000 original settlers to an estimated peak of 30,000 before plummeting to under 1,000. There are numerous theories as to why this deforestation occurred. It is thought that residents on the island cut down all threes for transportation and the construction of massive stone figures known as Moai. The consequences of this Ecocide are undeniable. In the end, there was no one left on the island.
- When the last tree was cut down on the Easter Island, Jubaeas palm went extinct.
- There are nearly 900 Easter Island statues.
- The Easter Island heads have bodies under the ground.
- The spirits of ancestors are represented by the moai.
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