Op Ed #2, Easter island
The latest National Geographic has a cover story about Easter island and it's famous statues. By now the general scientific consensus is that the satues were built and moved by the Polynisians who originally settled the island hundreds of years ago, although the hows and whys are still being debated. Since Western thought originally couldn't beliveve that a bunch of ign'rant,buck naked Godless heathens could do something that sophisticated, everything from space aliens to acient travelers from South America were postulated as the 'real' statue builders.
The focus on the article was mainly a new theory on how the statues were moved, but it also discusses to opposing theories about what exactly the history of the island is. The dominant theory was postulated by Jared Diamond in his excellent book Collapse, where he discusses how the original Polynisian settlers, trapped on a very isolated and harsh island thousands of miles from the nearest neighbor, systmaticly reproduced and deforested the island until there were no more trees, no way to build boats to flee, and no sources of protien except chickens, and each other. Repeated fighting, anarchy and cannibalism followed, until the population eventually stablized and the surviving people were able to scratch out a living on the denuded, barren island.
The fact that Easter island was lushly forested, and had a number of indigious birds, is a fact backed up by numerous archeological finds. There's no way anyone can deny that the forests and all the birds (every single one, not a single native species remains) vanished after the Polynesians arrived.
In the interest, I suppose, of political correctness, there's an opposing theory in the article showing the natives as a peaceful, happy agrarian society that lived within their means and developed ingenious ways to farm a marginal landscape. The demise of the trees and birds were soley the fault of introducted Polynisian rats (which doesn't really explain why other islands with the rat kept their trees and some birds). The stupidest statement (IMHO) is that the natives somehow limited population growth "people raised statutes rather than children." That's a really assinine thing to say. How did they manage that? Some kind of prehistoric birth control or absintance-only education? Lo-tech abortions? Or did they simply kill the female infants? (a practice that still goes on in a number of countries).
I guess it's logical for somone not to want to admit their ancestors destroyed their home in a short-sighted orgy of rampant population growth, deforestation and statue-building in an unsustainable manner. Makes me wonder who will get the blame from our ancestors a thousand years down the line? Maybe cockroaches? "No, the acient humans didn't kill the tigers. Uh, there were tons of cockroaches and they crawled down the tiger's throat and they all died. Yeah, that's it!"
The focus on the article was mainly a new theory on how the statues were moved, but it also discusses to opposing theories about what exactly the history of the island is. The dominant theory was postulated by Jared Diamond in his excellent book Collapse, where he discusses how the original Polynisian settlers, trapped on a very isolated and harsh island thousands of miles from the nearest neighbor, systmaticly reproduced and deforested the island until there were no more trees, no way to build boats to flee, and no sources of protien except chickens, and each other. Repeated fighting, anarchy and cannibalism followed, until the population eventually stablized and the surviving people were able to scratch out a living on the denuded, barren island.
The fact that Easter island was lushly forested, and had a number of indigious birds, is a fact backed up by numerous archeological finds. There's no way anyone can deny that the forests and all the birds (every single one, not a single native species remains) vanished after the Polynesians arrived.
In the interest, I suppose, of political correctness, there's an opposing theory in the article showing the natives as a peaceful, happy agrarian society that lived within their means and developed ingenious ways to farm a marginal landscape. The demise of the trees and birds were soley the fault of introducted Polynisian rats (which doesn't really explain why other islands with the rat kept their trees and some birds). The stupidest statement (IMHO) is that the natives somehow limited population growth "people raised statutes rather than children." That's a really assinine thing to say. How did they manage that? Some kind of prehistoric birth control or absintance-only education? Lo-tech abortions? Or did they simply kill the female infants? (a practice that still goes on in a number of countries).
I guess it's logical for somone not to want to admit their ancestors destroyed their home in a short-sighted orgy of rampant population growth, deforestation and statue-building in an unsustainable manner. Makes me wonder who will get the blame from our ancestors a thousand years down the line? Maybe cockroaches? "No, the acient humans didn't kill the tigers. Uh, there were tons of cockroaches and they crawled down the tiger's throat and they all died. Yeah, that's it!"