51x02 - Easter Island Origins

[bunniefuu]

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Rapa Nui.

Also known as Easter Island.

This tiny little island in the
South Pacific is world—famous

For one thing.

The moai.

Moats are incredible.

The moai is the first part
that people see.

NARRATOR:
These enigmatic stone giants

Stand like sentinels
all around the island.

But what was their purpose?

And why have so many fallen?

It is easy to imagine
that this is the scene

of some catastrophe
where things fell apart.

NARRATOR:
For centuries,

Western researchers
have studied the moai,

Trying to answer
these questions,

and they've come up
with their own theories.

But now, new research
that looks beyond the moai

Is challenging those views.

TERRY HUNT:
In all the evidence that we saw,

We were seeing signs
of sustainability.

There was really
no evidence of collapse.

NARRATOR: And Rapa Nui
experts are reclaiming their heritage.

HETEREKI HUKE: For you, this
can be an ancient, abandoned village.

For me, it's the place
where my family used to live.

NARRATOR: Genetics is
revealing surprising clues

about the origins of
the island's earliest settlers.

ALEX IOANNIDIS:
When we first saw this,

we thought maybe we did
something wrong.

NARRATOR: From their
incredible engineering

To their beautiful
and unique writing...

HUKE: Some people say
that they contain legends.

NARRATOR:
...the real story of Rapa Nui

is finally coming to light.

"Easter Island Origins."

Right now, on "NOVA."

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Most visitors
come all the way to Easter Island

Because of these
stone statues: the moai.

HUKE:
Moats——

They are amazing
and they're outstanding.

And they are unique.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Constructed between


There are more than 1,000
of these giant carved figures

scattered across the landscape.

Cut from volcanic rock,

some are more than 30 feet high.

Overtime,

all of the moai
have fallen down.

The 50 or so that are
upright today

were put back up
in recent decades.

With their backs to the sea,

They stare impassively into
the island, arms held rigidly

By their sides.

Some stand on ceremonial
platforms known as ahu.

Others are sunk into the earth.

But for the people
who live on Rapa Nui,

Easter Island's true name,
the moai are just the beginning.

HETEREKI HUKE:
Moats are incredible.

But Rapa Nui is so
much more than that.

And its archaeology is so
much richer than just moats.

The moai is the first
part that people see,

but behind the moats
there is a big history.

[translated]:
Everywhere you walk,

you can find the remains
of the past.

And that's why for us
everything is always important,

not just the moai.

[translated]:
Our connection with each of

The archaeological sites has a
direct connection with family.

It's not a legend,
it's not a myth,

it's not a made—up story

or something discovered
by archaeologists.

It is something that belongs
to us.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: One archaeologist
who believes the story of Rapa Nui

Encompasses more than
just the moai

is Sonia Haoa Cardinali.

Born on Rapa Nui 70 years ago,

She has dedicated her entire
life to the history

and anthropology of the island.

SONIA HAOA CARDINALI:
I feel sorry

when they just
talking about the moai.


is surveyed,

more than 25,000
archaeological site.

So that's means not only
the sites,

It's mean also how people live,

what's they do,
the family, and everything.

NARRATOR: Sonia wants to
understand more about the moai,

But she
and other Rapanui islanders

see them as only
part of the puzzle.

There are
bigger questions to ask.

Who are the ancestors
of the Rapanui people?

Where did they come from?

And how did they survive
and thrive in this remote

And hostile land?

♪ ♪

[birds chirping]

The island
of Rapa Nui stands alone.

♪ ♪

The easternmost inhabited rock
of the Polynesian island chains,

it lies approximately


from the Tuamotu Archipelago
of French Polynesia in the west,

And Chile in the east,



Only 14 miles long
by seven miles wide,

Today most of the roughly


an extinct volcano on the
western corner of the island.

♪ ♪

First encountered by the Dutch
in 1722,

It was claimed by the Spanish
nearly 50 years later;

then annexed by Chile in 1888.

But when the original Rapanui
people first came to this land,

and where from,
remains hotly debated.

The general consensus is that
the first people to settle here

Were sailors from
other Polynesian islands,

Migrating east
sometime around 1200 CE.

We are Polynesians.

Our life was the canoe,
and our territory was the ocean.

Polynesians, we were populating

and colonizing
islands across the Pacific.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: That belief forms
the heart of Rapanui identity,

cherished by
Elders like Carlos Edmunds.

[translated]:
In ancient legends it is said

that in the month of October,

The Rapanui went out to sail

their boats to new lands.

[translated]: I am not surprised
by anything,

We're great sailors and that is

How we arrived to the island.

NARRATOR: It is the bedrock
of Rapanui oral tradition.

HUKE: There's knowledge in
the old people, in the oral history.

Behind every legend,
there's knowledge there.

NARRATOR: Legends handed
down from generation to generation

tell how and why their ancestors
came to this land.

They are retold even
today by Rapanui performers

Dedicated to keeping
the old traditions alive.

[man speaking Rapanui]

STORYTELLER [translated]:
Haumaka went into a spirit dream

looking for a new land
for the king,

till he found the navel
of the world.

[speaking Rapanui]

[translated]: He tells the dream to
the king, who summons seven scouts

and sends them in the direction
of the dream.

To find and explore the island.

[man speaking Rapanui]

[translated]: Hotu Matu'a and his
wife follow in a ship called Haua lki Nui.

[speaking Rapanui]

[translated]: The scouts call
down to him saying, "Turn back!

"Turn back! This is a bad land.

The weather changes all the time
and our crops cannot grow here."

Hotu Matu'a replies,

"We came from a bad land

"where the ocean kills
the people with great waves.

Let's make this
a good land for our people."

[speaking Rapanui]

That is the base
of all our history.

Fortunately today,

science and scientists
are helping us

to show how
oral tradition was the first,

the most, and the real history.

NARRATOR: That oral tradition
reflects a deep and fundamental truth.

For settlers migrating
from the warm, tropical islands

of Western Polynesia,

this windswept lump
of inactive volcanoes

In the southeastern Pacific
was a "bad land"

Where their crops
could not grow.

Rapa Nui is a subtropical
island.

So there's a big
difference in climate

To the tropical islands,
for example,

of French Polynesia.

The problem was that some
of those tropical species

just didn't grow
and didn't take.

NARRATOR: Because it's colder
here, the first settlers of Rapa Nui,

Traveling from
the Polynesian tropics,

would have struggled to grow any
plants they'd brought with them.

♪ ♪

One man who is fascinated
by how those settlers survived

on this "bad land" is
HETEREKI HUKE.

You know what, there's not that
much material...

NARRATOR: An architect
by trade, Hete started an office

in 2014 to record
Rapa Nui's heritage

through the archaeological
record.

At that moment,
there were not many

Young researchers in Rapa Nui.

They're releasing the...
[indistinct chatter]

NARRATOR:
So Hete turned to Terry Hunt

and Carl Lipo from the U.S.A.

HUKE:
We have been collaborating

With Carl and Terry
for a long time,

and we have done
so many things together.

They were a great support

during these fieldworks.

And that was amazing,
because with Carl and Terry

We could map the rocks
and at the same time,

We could have the legend
behind them.

And that, that is just
beautiful.

NARRATOR: One of the sites
they studied was Ahu Tepeu,

Which lies on the northwestern
coast of the island

and was a typical ancient
Rapanui settlement.

Central to its layout
is the ahu,

A raised stone platform.

At Ahu Tepeu,
there are five of these.

HUKE: Some of them with
moats, and some others without.

NARRATOR: Fanning out from the
ahu are the houses, chicken coops

And walled gardens
known as manavai.

And behind the houses lie the
fields that fed the community.

HUKE: For you, this this can
be an ancient, abandoned village.

For me, it's the place
where my family used to live,

and they still are here.

This place is quite alive
for us.

So the approach
of a Rapanui researcher,

or any Pacific researcher,

would be dramatically different
from a Western researcher.

NARRATOR: Rapanui and
Western researchers agree

That the ancient
settlers were Polynesian-—

but where did those
Pacific Islanders come from?

Some previous research
suggested that they came

from the islands of East Asia.

But in 1947,

a Norwegian explorer named
Thor Heyerdahl

launched an expedition called
Kon—Tiki,

Intended to prove a drastically
different view

Of where
the Polynesians originated.

[man speaking French]

[translated]:
Thor Heyerdahl proposed the idea

that the Polynesians actually

Originated in South America.

To demonstrate this,
he managed to build a boat,

or raft, made of balsa,

a South American wood.

He made the crossing
on this raft in a few weeks,

landing on
the Tuamotu Archipelago,

which is now
in French Polynesia.

NARRATOR: His theory
on South American origins

Flew in the face of
known linguistic evidence.

So Heyerdahl followed
this up with a series

Of archaeological
expeditions to Rapa Nui.

But despite years
of investigating the island,

he could never prove a definite
link to South America.

One Rapa Nui archaeologist
who worked with him

Was Sonia Haoa Cardinali.

CARDINALI:
I worked with Thor Heyerdahl

for almost ten years

and for me it's an honor
to work with him.

No matter how we think
about his theory,

never forget that
he's the one of the person

put Rapa Nui in the map.

NARRATOR I
In Heyerdahl's day,

experimental archaeology seemed
the only way

to explore possible links

between Polynesia
and South America.

But today we can use DNA——
which is a powerful tool

for tracing human ancestry.

So did the original
settlers of Rapa Nui

have links with South America?

One geneticist who set
out to answer that question

was Andrés Moreno Estrada.

ANDRES MORENO ESTRADA:
Genetics can be a powerful tool

to answer this big question
about whether

the Rapanui people made contact
or not

with Native Americans in
pre—history,

which has been a debate
that has been on for decades.

NARRATOR: Andres put
together an international team,

including researchers
from Hawaii and Rapa Nui,

to study the DNA of
the people of Polynesia.

And they reached out
to the community

to gain the support
of Rapa Nui's elders.

ESTRADA: Community
engagement is really

the essence of all
these approaches.

When you study
human genetic diversity,

it's all about humans, really.

It's a voluntary participation,
so it's really key

to talk
with the community beforehand.

And as we carry out
the research as well,

keep them informed
about the results of the study.

NARRATOR:
Collaborating with Andrés

is genetic data analyst
Alex IOANNIDIS.

IOANNIDIS: What I really love
about genetics is it's essentially

About participation
with the people

whose story you're telling.

It's their sample
that's telling the story.

NARRATOR: Stories like Bianca's——
the daughter of a Chilean father——

who moved back
from mainland Chile

and wanted to know if what her
mother had told her was true.

[translated]: When I arrived
here on the island,

everyone told me I was Chilean.

I was a mongrel.

So that's why I did the study,

because my mother
taught us our genealogy.

CARLOS EDMUNDS:
[speaking Rapanui]

[translated]: I am happy that

Andrés came to do this work

About the blood of the Rapanui,

where we descend from,

so that the Rapanui know

Where their current
ancestors are from.

TUKI [translated]: Andres
suggested we do the study to know

If we really have ancestry
from Polynesia.

PONT IKA [translated]:
It's absolutely important,

Since our ancestors know

they are Polynesian,

but if there is a study
that confirms it,

it's even more important.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: An individual's DNA
is contained within


known as a genome.

IOANNIDIS: And that's
your genetic fingerprint.

NARRATOR: When they began their
research, Andres and his colleagues

were expecting the Rapanui
fingerprint

to contain markers showing

Mostly Polynesian,
Spanish, and Chilean ancestry,

since these were the main
colonists of the island

in the last 250 years.

To extract the DNA,

they take swabs from their
volunteers in the field,

then take it back to the lab

in cold storage, for analysis.

MORENO—ESTRADA: DNA samples are
loaded into a sequencer so that we can get

the pieces of DNA that make up

the whole genome
of that individual.

NARRATOR:
This allows the researchers

To identify specific chains
of DNA

that can be attributed
to certain groups.

Red denotes Spanish ancestry;

Blue, Polynesian;
green, Chilean...

and yellow, other European.

MORENO—ESTRADA:
The process is very rewarding

Because participants are very
interested in knowing about

their own genetic origins.

And when they see
they actually they have

retained a lot of
the Polynesian roots

In their DNA,
it's something that helps them

to basically value
and identify their own lineages.

NARRATOR:
Most of the results

helped confirm the islanders'
beliefs

about their Polynesian origins

mixed with
more recent colonists.

ALVARO ATON:
I just found out the results.

I'm so mixed;
my mom is from Chile

And from England, and Scotland.

And my father is an islander,

but he's also mixed
with French and other people.

So it's very interesting
to know where you come from.

[speaking Spanish]

[translated]:
I'm very, very, very happy.

Because this is my
mother's story,

And this study from Andrés
proved it scientifically.

But my mother already said it
a long, long, long time ago,

since I was born.

NARRATOR: They did,
however, find some pieces of DNA

That they didn't expect.

IOANNIDIS:
When we first saw this,

we were really surprised,
and so we thought

maybe we did something wrong.

MORENO—ESTRADA: We thought,
"Well, let's double check this."

NARRATOR: These pieces of
DNA seemed to have their origins

In South America.

But when they tried to pinpoint
the source, they got a surprise.

They were quite different
from the more modern

Chilean ancestry found
in some volunteers.

We compared it to a panel
of indigenous groups

from across the entire Pacific
coast of South America

and the closest
match was the Zenú group.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The Zenú
are a Native American people

Who occupied the coast of
Colombia,

long before Chile
annexed Rapa Nui in 1888.

How could their genetic markers
wind up

In the DNA of modern
Polynesians?

And how many
generations back did they go?

Because each parent
only hands down

half of its DNA to the next,

Alex was able to figure out
when that piece

of pre—Colombian DNA
had been incorporated

Into Polynesian chromosomes,

by measuring its length.

IOANNIDIS:
We can actually look

at the length of those
individual pieces

and figure out how many
generations ago

This combination
of Native Americans

And Polynesians took place.

NARRATOR: The date they came up
with was much earlier than they expected.

IOANNIDIS: We saw
very small pieces indicating

that this ancestry
from the coast of Colombia

entered Rapa Nui
a long time ago,

Actually in a period
around what we would call

the European Middle Ages,
around 1200 AD.

NARRATOR: What's more, the
same identical DNA segments

Were often seen in volunteers
from different islands.

IOANNIDIS: Which means that these
segments came from the same ancestors.

And since they came from
the same ancestors,

we think that this means there
was a single contact event

Between indigenous Americans
from the coast of Colombia

and Polynesians.

MORENO—ESTRADA: This means that
a group of Polynesians met, somewhere,

With Native Americans,
had descendants,

and more likely,
this never happened again.

NARRATOR: By looking at the DNA
of people on other Polynesian islands,

the team traced the tell—tale
genetic markers

Back to the Marquesas
and Tuamotu Isles.

And were also able to plot
a timeline of migration

across Eastern Polynesia
to Rapa Nui from around 1100.

IOANNIDIS: Polynesian
migrations spread east

into Tuamotu Archipelago
up to the Marquesas

and all the way down
to Mangareva,

and from there all the way out
to Rapa Nui around 1200.

the team traced the tell—tale
genetic markers

there's something else they all
have in common——

Something much bigger than DNA.

NARRATOR: Looking closely
at these particular islands,

Rapa Nui, and Raivavae,

have these very large stone
statues on them.

Where the idea of creating
large stone statues comes from,

IOANNIDIS: Most of these
islands—— the Marquesas,

and we can't say for sure

if these islands developed
the idea independently,

but the fact that they're all
existing together

in the same genetic cluster
suggested to us

that this culture
was developed once

and spread to all these islands.

NARRATOR: Sonia believes
that even if this culture

developed within
the Polynesian islands,

there was also some
influence from South America.

And behind the spectacular
Ahu of Tongariki,

she believes she has the
evidence to back up her hunch.

We see there
very good evidence

of influence of South America.

NARRATOR:
This single broken moai

has its hands across its body
in a style that can be found

in ancient Colombia.

♪ ♪

CARDINALI: If you compare
with the South America,

it's the same.

The hands and the description
of the arms, the body.

It's completely the same.

There is no doubt
the influence of South America.

In here, we have
the structural evidence.

I cannot lie you, that is,
that is look like a moai normal.

No. [chuckles]

No, maybe if I am blind, yes.

But, it's there.

NARRATOR: But this is
the only moai on the island

with arms across its body.

All others have
their arms by their sides.

So it cannot prove
that the template

for carving statues

in stone came
from ancient Colombia,

though the DNA suggests some
ancient, albeit isolated, link.

What is provable is
where the moai were created.

Almost all of the statues
scattered around the island

were carved from the volcanic
rock of Reno Raraku.

And on the slopes
of its massive crater,

about 400 statues can still
be found

in various states of completion.

High up on these slopes,

Carl and Terry can see evidence
of the skill

and ingenuity
of the Rapanui stonemasons.

TERRY HUNT: It's amazing
being up this high in the quarry

and all the work and quarrying

out of the bedrock
and statues this big

that way up here
had to be taken down the slope.

You can see
several moai being carved.

The large moai here,

and there you can see
the beginnings of moai

up on the side as well,
high up here in the quarry.

CARL LIPO: Yeah, What we're
seeing is the aggregate of events

that occurred...
HUNT: Yeah.

LIPO:
...over 500 years of activity

here at the quarry,
not a final product.

This is all the things
that happened here.

It's interesting
because the quarry,

it's kind of
a common area that's shared.

And so there's an understanding

that everyone on the island,
every community on the island

has access to the resource here.

NARRATOR: But rock isn't
just confined to the quarry.

All over Rapa Nui,
rock is spread across the land.

To Western explorers
like Captain James Cook,

who visited the island in 1774,

this looked like a wilderness.

JAMES COOK [re—enactment]: "The
ground had but a barren appearance,

being a dry hard clay, and
everywhere covered with stones."

HUNT:
The early European visitors saw

crops being grown in stones,

and they thought this was

somehow pathetic because

they're expecting to see

ploughed fields

and the agriculture of Europe.

NARRATOR:
How could the Rapanui survive

on what appeared to be such
a barren wilderness?

But this wasn't what it seemed.

HUNT: The soils on
Rapa Nui are nutrient poor.

There is an ingenious solution
to that,

and it's using rock mulch.

NARRATOR: Volcanic
rock is packed full of nutrients

that bring new life
into the world.

Somehow the ancient Rapanui
had learned

how to make the best of this
austere landscape

by fertilizing their fields
with stones.

HUNT:
And using rocks in cultivation

will release nutrients
into the soil

and make them
available to the plants.

NARRATOR: Sonia also sees lots of
evidence that the rock—strewn wilderness

described by Captain Cook
was actually fertile fields.

Here you see
a very nice complex.

And that's mean
you have everything here.

In the center part,

you can see they take
all the rocks,

and what you see in, in
the landscape around here,

it's like a garden, yeah?

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: This was
not the first or last time

that Western misconceptions
would color

the history of Rapa Nui.

Right from their very first
encounter on April 5, 1722,

the world—view
of its European visitors

would have
a profound effect on the island.

The name Easter Island
comes from the first Europeans

arriving here on Easter Sunday.

The modern traditional name
is Rapa Nui,

and the older traditional
name is Te Fire 0 Te Henua,

which really means
"the navel of the world,"

which probably reflects
the island's isolation

and—or its centrality
as the whole world.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The first encounter
between the Dutch explorers

and the local residents

was marked by curiosity

and a tragic misunderstanding.

KÜHLEM: There was a lot of
interest in, in the landing party.

There was a lot of interest in
the construction of the ships.

People swam out to the ships.

They went aboard.

They measured
every aspect of the ships.

And the landing party
was quite substantial.

[man shouting]

NARRATOR: The Dutch landing
party found themselves confronted

by a vibrantly painted man.

HUNT:
He performs what they perceive

as a very strange dance.

And this strange dance
was probably

really an important ritual

that the Rapanui
would have perceived as proper

in these people
coming ashore to their land.

He saw the possessions
that the Dutch had——

the clothes,
the hats, and the g*ns.

And he reached for the g*n...

[man speaking Rapanui]

KÜHLEM:
And several crewmen opened fire.

[g*nshots firing]

So the very first encounter

on the shores of Rapa Nui

was overshadowed by 12 islanders
dead and many more injured.

CAUWE:
[speaking French]

[translated]:
This story is a case

of misunderstanding,
a clash of cultures.

The islander is curious
and wants to know

what the soldier has in his
hands.

He wants to hold it, feel it.

Meanwhile, the soldier is afraid

he is trying to steal the g*n

and puts up a fight.

This is a clash of two
completely different worlds.

NARRATOR: The clash of
cultures that led to this m*ssacre

would profoundly affect the way
that Rapa Nui was perceived

by Western researchers
in the centuries to come.

HUNT: Western preconceptions
have colored the view

of Rapa Nui in many ways.

Seeing the moai,
seeing the monuments here,

they can't imagine how, uh,
people would move them,

with no wooden carts or wheels.

And because
they don't understand

how it could have been done,

it leads to notions
of the mystery of Easter Island.

And the mystery is really just
what visitors didn't understand.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Just as with Captain Cook,

Western visitors
saw a barren land,

covered in rocks,
and devoid of the trees

needed to make
wooden sleds or wheels.

But it wasn't always like this.

Researchers
found pollen evidence

in the fossil record,

suggesting that 1,000 years ago,

much of this land
was covered in dense forest.

[translated]: One millennium
later, the forests have vanished.

So, we have to ask the question:
what happened?

[bird chirping]

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
For many Western researchers,

the answer lay strewn
across the island

at sites like Ahu Tepeu.

LIPO:
These are pieces of moai,

the large statues that once
stood on top of the ah...

I don't know how many
statues there were here,

maybe four or five.

And it's easy to look
at these landscapes——

when you see the ahu,

when they're broken down,

and statues that
are fallen and broken

like this one here, which
has no head and just the body,

the head that's over here——

to imagine that
this is the scene

of some catastrophe
where things fell apart.

NARRATOR:
To Western eyes,

this was evidence
of a collapse of society.

So successive generations
of Western scholars constructed

a narrative.

It explained the barren,
rock—strewn land,

the collapse of the moai,

and the disappearance
of the trees.

LIPO: The collapse
story basically goes

that people got to an island
that was filled with trees,

palm trees,
other kinds of trees as well.

Sort of an earthly paradise

filled with food and
opportunities for,

for the people that were here.

The moai building
has often been portrayed

as some kind of frenzy,
as some kind of competition

between different clan groups,

where lots of trees
were cut down

in order to construct
and to transport the moai.

NARRATOR: Archaeologists
had long investigated

stone monument building

in places like ancient Egypt.

Westerners thought the moai

were probably moved
on wooden sleds or rollers

pulled by hundreds of men,

which required people and
trees——

lots of people and trees.

And these Westerners
assumed that moai building

had spiraled out of control.

People here kind of
got into a moai mania

that they started to
make bigger and bigger statues.

And at some point,
that overexuberance of

statue construction ultimately

depleted the island
of the resources needed

to make up ahu
in the first place.

NARRATOR:
According to this view,

moai building
deforested the island.

The soil was starved
of nutrients,

leaving a barren,
rock—strewn land.

Then, this theory goes,

things got worse.

KÜHLEM:
The scarcity of resources

resulted in a societal collapse.

The island erupted
into inter—tribal warfare

and led to
a very impoverished population

living on a barren island.

[translated]: And the
best evidence to prove this

was that all the statues
had been thrown to the ground.


must have happened.

And the one visible proof
we have today

is all the statues that were
toppled during these "wars."

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: This so—called
collapse theory posited

that the island once had
more than 10,000 inhabitants,

whose own folly
triggered a collapse

of the forest ecosystem
and reduced them

to a mere 3,000,
living on the scraps.

For many Western scholars,
it was a compelling narrative,

a morality tale for our times.

But for some researchers,
this idea had one big problem.

LIPO: When we looked at
the evidence on the ground,

we simply didn't
see evidence of warfare.

It looks like this one
is being dismantled,

because we find some of
these construction elements

in the other
features over there.

NARRATOR: For Hete, what were
once considered ruins at Ahu Tepeu

turn out to be evidence
of continuous use.

HUKE:
This is the head of a moai

that was part of the second ahu

in this ceremonial complex.

In the second ahu,
all of the moats

lay down
in the back of the platform.

And that is
because that second ahu

was being dismantled
to enlarge the first one.

NARRATOR: Pieces of
earlier moai were being reused

to create
an even more spectacular ahu.

HUKE:
From this particular ahu,

we couldn't say that
there's evidence of collapse.

There's evidence
of transformation

and human societies changing.

And that's beautiful.

Destruction
is recycling and creation.

It's part of a larger process.

And in a certain way,
this moai reflects that.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Across the island, what
some Western researchers had seen

as evidence of collapse
didn't stand up to scrutiny.

Even the island's caves,

long seen as refuges
against an enemy tribe,

appear to be
something very different.

LIPO: This is a great example of
a cave that has that construction

where they've taken a cave and
added these features to it.

HUNT: Yeah. It's not
a, it's not a refuge cave.

It's not a
hiding place.

It's a habitation.

So they made this
nice entrance

with paving stones
and everything.

LIPO: They've used
lots of different materials

like this paenga stone.

NARRATOR: Paenga are a kind of
foundation stone found in elite houses.

The holes bored into them acted
as bases for the wooden struts.

The use of these paenga
in cave walls was argued

to be evidence
of some last—ditch defense

against attack.

HUNT: Some people
think that this is evidence

of tearing down, uh,
elaborate or elite houses,

and, and reusing the stone
out of desperation.

But these stones
are reused everywhere.

LIPO: We see the reuse
of these paenga stones

not only in things like ahu,

but also in the chicken houses,
the hare moa,

as well as earth ovens.

So they're really used
in all kinds of contexts.

People use the stone
that was available to them,

and some of
that stone were paenga.

Reusing and recycling
stone materials here

is really the norm.

NARRATOR:
At another set of caves nearby,

Hete, Carl, and Terry
find yet more evidence

of a thriving community.

Here, the Rapanui even used
the collapsed lava tubes

as hothouses...

...fed by something rare

on an island
of permeable volcanic rock:

an abundant supply of water

in caverns
deep within the caves.

HUKE: In those caves,
we can find fresh water.

It was one of
the largest water reservoirs.

So, it's a very rich part
of the island.

NARRATOR: So Rapa Nui's
caves weren't just simple refuges.

They were complex,
sun—dappled ecosystems

that had been used
for centuries,

long before the collapse
that was supposed to have driven

people into them.

HUKE:
Nothing here in Te Pahu

or in the area that we worked

shows that people
were struggling.

On the contrary,
they were thriving.

We were seeing signs
of sustainability.

There was really no evidence
of collapse.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Even though Carl and Terry
found no direct evidence for collapse,

they would not dismiss the idea
without more research.

Especially when it came
to the population of the island

over time.

They started by mapping
all the moai

on one side of the island.

Then moved onto the settlement
and resource sites.

LIPO: Our goal is really
to sort of characterize

the settlement systems

and how people are distributed
across the landscape

and use resources there.

We've got a good sample
of the communities,

but we're continuing to do that
as an ongoing basis.

NARRATOR: They matched these
with carbon dates from the sites

to build up a pattern showing
when each settlement was in use.

Then they ran them
through a computer model,

which converted the carbon data
into population numbers,

by calculating
the highs and lows

of human activity on the island.

The results
confirmed their hunch.

It showed the population rise

from a small number
of first settlers,

continuing to grow steadily,

with no Sign
of collapse at any point.

HUNT: The population
could fluctuate slightly,

but its average maximum
is probably around 3,000.

Probably what
Europeans encountered

when they first arrived
on the island.

NARRATOR:
A maximum population of 3,000

was much smaller
than the numbers cited

in the Western collapse story.

HUNT:
The collapse theory proposed

all kinds of numbers: 7,000,


even up to 30,000

population
forth is small island.

NARRATOR: But Carl,
Terry, and their colleagues

found no evidence
that there were ever

that many people
living on Rapa Nui.

LIPO: The lack of huge
populations being on the island

sort of takes the wind
out of the collapse theory.

Because, in fact, there's
nothing from which to collapse.

There isn't a large population.

NARRATOR: But if you
don't have tens of thousands

of people living on the island,

how could the Rapanui build
and transport the moai?

For some Western researchers,

Rapanui oral history
suggested an answer.

[man speaking Rapanui]

STORYTELLER [translated]: There
are many stories about Tu'u ko Iho.

Some people say he was
in charge of the second boat

that brought people here.

Others believe
that he was the great king

who founded the island.

But all agree that it was he

who made the moai kavakava walk.

[man speaking Rapanui]

NARRATOR: This actually
referred to small wooden statues.

But some Westerners thought it
also described the stone moai.

Thor Heyerdahl
and his colleagues

attempted to move
the statues upright,

to effectively make them walk.

But the experiment
hadn't worked,

so most experts still believed

that they were dragged
on their backs.

But when Carl and Terry
analyzed the moai

lying by the roads
that led from the quarry,

they noticed
something significant.

These are impressive
things, aren't they?

HUNT:
We're looking right here

at the reason why they
were not transported

on logs on their backs.
That's true.

How would they be
in this position,

face down and
the neck broken?

Yeah.
It makes no sense.

That just simply
doesn't happen

if they're on
their backs on rollers.

NARRATOR: They also
noticed a structural difference

between moai lying on the road
and those standing on the ahu.

A moai on the ahu
has a flat base,

so the statue
stands straight up.

But most of the moai
lying on the road

have angled bases.

And Carl and Terry
believe that angle

had a very specific purpose.

LIPO: Road moai has to be shaped
in a way that can be transported.

They did it by shaping their
base so they leaned forward.

It enabled them to walk.

HUNT:
This is a great example of, of

the forward lean of
these transport moai.

LIPO: So if you took the statue,
and we could put it back up,

it would be leaning
really far forward.

It means that as you
rock it side to side,

it falls forward across
that front edge... Yeah.

...and takes a step.
Yeah.

Without that, it would
just rock back and forth

and not really go anywhere.

And walking really describes
what these moai did.

NARRATOR:
To test their theory,

in 2012 Carl and Terry built a
model of a moai out of concrete,

carefully mixed
to match the fragile density

of the ancient statues'
volcanic rock

and made it walk.

[crowd chanting "heave h*"]

LIPO: In our experiments, we
found it took remarkably few people

to move the statue.

And we were terrible
at it, you know?

We were the least expert
of any people

who've ever moved a moai
in the world.

Uh, but we were able to do a
five—ton statue with 18 people.

NARRATOR: Not all are convinced
that the moai walked.

♪ ♪

But if they did,

trees were not needed
to move the moai.

And the Rapanui continued
to erect moai

long after
the trees had died out.

So why did the Rapanui go
to such lengths to build them

in the first place?

What were the moai for?

[birds chirping]

One tradition that might
one day tell us the answer

is being lovingly preserved
by Luis Huki,

a park ranger on Rapa Nui.

LUIS HUKI HINOJOSA:
[speaking Spanish]

[translated]: My name
is Luis of the Huki clan.

At the moment,
I'm carving rongorongo,

which is the tradition of

our forefathers, of my father.

And right now,

I'm following their tradition.

I've been making
rongorongo tablets for 25 years.

I like it
because it's a tradition

that at a certain time,

the translation was lost,

and now we must conserve it and
continue to make the rongorongo.

NARRATOR: Rongorongo is the
traditional writing system of the Rapanui.

It is inscribed
onto wooden tablets.

HINOJOSA:
[speaking Spanish]

[translated]: The process
starts with preparing the wood

and sanding it.

Once it's sanded,

the wood is traced
so you can start to draw on it.

And then, after that,
you carve the rongorongo.

NARRATOR: Luis is one of just a
handful of people still carving rongorongo.

He's doing this
to help preserve his culture.

[translated]: It's
unique, and if we lose it,

we lose part of
the history of Rapa Nui.

NARRATOR: No one knows how old
rongorongo is, or what it actually says.

But in a secluded
monastery in Rome,

Silvia Ferrara is studying
a remarkable wooden artifact

which might help answer
those questions.

This is the Échancrée tablet.

It's made of wood,
and it's one of the 27 tablets

written in this script,
which is still undeciphered.

NARRATOR: The Échancrée
tablet was gifted to the Bishop of Tahiti

in 1869 by Catholic converts
from Rapa Nui.

It is one of only 27 scattered
across museums around the world.

And the way its figures
are orientated

suggests a very unusual
reading method.

What you need to do
is turn the tablet

from one line to the next

in order to read it.

And this is a unique feature

of this writing system.

No other script
works in the same way

all over the world.

So it's really quite special.

NARRATOR:
Despite this unique system,

it has been said that rongorongo

was inspired
by European writing.

That's kind of a degrading
view of Rapanui ingenuity.

It's not only simplistic,
but it's patronizing.

It's one of
the most unique and beautiful

forms of knowledge
of art in the world.

Nevertheless,
we have to face critics,

or thoughts
that we were copying.

HUNT: The glyphs in
rongorongo are clearly connected

to the art on the island.

You see the glyph forms
in petroglyphs,

They don't imitate
European writing in any sense.

NARRATOR: To put the debate
to bed once and for all,

Silvia gained permission
to radiocarbon date this tablet.

FERRARA:
The radiocarbon date

points in the direction
of a 15th-century date,

which antecedes the arrival

of the Europeans
by more than 200 years.

NARRATOR: Silvia believes
this might make rongorongo

one of the few instances

of independently invented
writing in the world.

But what was rongorongo for?

Many believe that it contains
the secrets of Rapanui culture.

HUKE: Some people say that
they contain legends or rhythms

or encrypted instructions
of how to move moai,

or develop some technologies.

There are many, many
different theories about it.

But what we do know is
that they contain knowledge.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Until rongorongo
surrenders its secrets,

researchers are using tried and
tested scientific methods

to understand why the moai
and the ahu platforms

are located where they are.

HUNT: When we, we
look at the question of

where ahu are located,

why are they located there?

Why are some of them very large
and some of them smaller?

Why are there some ahu
in the interior,

while most of them
are on the shoreline?

LIPO: It's easy to describe
it as being religious.

Certainly,
that's part of the story.

But the question is
why would you invest

so much energy in doing these
over and over again?

NARRATOR:
They started with a map.

They marked out the locations

of all the ahu
on the east side of the island.

Then they began to compare them

with the locations
of vital resources.

They chose three
as the key sources

of sustenance: rock mulch,
seafood, and fresh water.

But when they tried to map
the ahu over the rock mulches,

a simple mismatch
became glaringly obvious.

LIPO: There's rock mulch
everywhere across the island,

but we don't see
ahu and moai everywhere.

What we find is, in fact,
that ahu and moai

are in particular locations,

independent of the,
of the mulch itself.

NARRATOR: Next, they looked
at resources from the sea.

LIPO: When you drive
around the island,

you see one after the other,
an ahu with moai,

all the way along the coast.

And, of course,

the coast has a lot of
resources.

Fish, shellfish, other kinds
of things

that would support populations.

NARRATOR:
But while the ahu on the coast

match sea resources very well,

this cannot explain the ahu

erected in the interior
of the island.

That left one final resource:

fresh water.

Most of the moai
are along the coastline,

with their backs to the sea.

At first glance, that
doesn't seem like a good place

to find fresh water.

But look a little closer.

The water's fresh.

You think this water's salty,
that it's seawater, but in fact,

this is a freshwater seep,
a source of water

that comes from
the interior of the island,

moves to the underground,
and then comes out at the coast.

It's a place where
Rapanui people

access water
for their daily lives.

HUNT: On a young
volcanic island like Rapa Nui,

the rocks are very porous.

The rainwater will enter
the island and flow through

the porous island
and into lava tubes, etc,

and will come down
to the level

and float on top of saltwater

and then enter
the ocean at low tide.

LIPO: When Captain
Cook arrived on the island,

what he saw was people

drinking straight
from the ocean.

And he thought, "This is crazy,
why would people do that?"

What he was actually
seeing is people

drinking water that comes
from these freshwater seeps

that emerge right at
the coast of the island.

NARRATOR: And when Carl and
Terry compared their map of ahu moai

with a map
of freshwater sources,

they got a roughly 90 percent
match.

HUNT: In fact, the
locations of freshwater

are the best predictor
of the locations of ahu

throughout the island.

NARRATOR: For many, this
near—perfect match is not surprising,

because ahu are usually linked
with settlements.

KÜHLEM:
Those hamlets or villages

are located, in many cases,
close to water sources,

which makes perfect sense that
the essentials for survival,

like your crops
and your drinking water,

is close to where
the people actually settle.

NARRATOR: Yet for Carl and
Terry, it's the precise location

of the moai
that is the key to this theory.

LIPO: One of the interesting
aspects about Rapanui people

is that they lived in
a dispersed settlement pattern

in which people used
the landscape around the ahu

in sort of a wide area.

But they're brought together
at the ahu and the moai.

NARRATOR: Again and again,
the ahu—— not the settlements—-

are closest to the water.

LIPO: So we find, in
fact, the ahu and the moai

right next to the critical
resource because, in fact,

that is the heart
of the community.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: It seems the
moai acted as a statement,

erected close to a community's
most vital resource.

But Rapanui tradition
would see this differently.

HUKE: They represent
the soul of a dead king.

So moats, their location
and eventual collapse,

is also related
with an evolution

of our political
and social structure.

The statement is
"We're honoring our ancestors."

And they might even say to us,
if we could time travel,

"Don't you honor
your ancestors in this way?"

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Looking at all
the archaeological evidence,

it seems more likely that,

rather than
a self—inflicted ecocide,

the true collapse
of Rapa Nui society

was caused
by outside influences.

HUNT: As time went on,
and the evidence accumulated,

we realized that a lot of
what people thought

was collapse was
something that actually happened

after Europeans arrived.

And it had an entirely
different cause,

and that was the introduction
of Old World disease.

HUKE:
There was the smallpox,

there was the Spanish Flu,

leprosy, sl*ve trading.

It was difficult to live here,

and it was more difficult
to keep the social structures

and the life as the way that we
knew it.

LIPO: Over time, we see people
sort of abandoning ahu and moai.

It's a loss of population.

There's just fewer people

because of
the effects of diseases.

So people
are not attending to the ahu

and rebuilding them in the way
that they did in the past.

NARRATOR: Things got
even worse in the 18605.

KÜHLEM: Peruvian sl*ve
traders captured about a third

of the population on the island

and forced them onto their ships
to work in Peru.

[translated]: There were
protests.

Even the Vatican got involved.

And consequently,
the companies were forced

to return the inhabitants
to the islands.

However, these people
had contracted smallpox

on the American continent.

Only 15 people made it home,

and this was enough
for an epidemic of smallpox

to break out there.

[speaking French]

NARRATOR:
By the time it was over,

there were less than


♪ ♪

The true story of Rapa Nui

is one of survival
against the odds

by an ingenious
and resilient people

who came to a "bad land"
and made it good.

But that story
has been overshadowed

by a Western fascination
with the moai.

And for Sonia and Hete,
that is the true tragedy

and triumph of Rapa Nui.

CARDINALI:
If we look only the moai,

we are not making
this place bigger.

We're making it small.

This mean you don't believe
in my capacity as a human being.

HUKE:
If there's one thing

that I would like people
to take from Rapa Nui,

it's that the history
has been narrated

by a very
selected group of people.

There are different realities.

The world is full
of beautiful, amazing stories

that deserve to be told,

and people deserve to hear.

Our history is not unique.

We share with many islands,

and we share a beautiful past,

a complex present,

and many, many tragedies
in the midway.

♪ ♪