Paul Cooper’s Fall of Civilizations: How everything they told you about Easter Island was wrong (1.5 hrs).
In this episode, we take a look at one of archaeology’s most enduring puzzles: the mystery of Easter Island. Find out how this unique community grew up in complete isolation, severed from the rest of the world by a vast expanse of ocean. Discover the incredible story of how it survived for so many centuries, and examine the evidence about what happened to finally bring this society, and its statues, crashing down.
Kate – thank you very much for turning me on to this podcast. It is incredibly good – I listen to it on longs drives or long walks. Up to the Aztecs – which is another fascination story!
Not so sure they were as cut off as we think.. The Polynesians did manage to inhabit every island worth inhabiting in the Pacific.. But they missed North and South America?.. Not a chance.. If they are able to exploit a island they could surely exploit a continent..
Easter Island wasn’t random.. It was part of a trade network.. It had to be.. The idea that they chopped down all their trees and floated away on coconuts is wrong.. When trade collapses city states die.. Disease, famine, war, and who says whale fat doesn’t burn?.. Wood valuable, yes but grass huts and mud bricks go a long way.. The only thing you would really need wood for is boats and who says you cant build them where the wood is.. Trade network?..
As for as what’s left?.. Pretty much nothing but the Moai.. Mud brick, grass and wood, even the whale bones.. All dirt in a 100 years..
Then we show up a few thousand years later.. Derp.. and apply our thinking to what happened.. Maybe it was but its always a combination of things.. War brings partial collapse and famine and a tsunami washes away what’s left.. Float away on coconuts..
They speak/spoke an Austronesian language, Rapa Nui. These languages originated in present-day Taiwan and spread to Madagascar as well as Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Let that sink in.
Climate change … every human civilization in the history of the planet DIED OFF from … climate change. NASA scientists told me so. Real experts in climate. Real experts in temperature “smoothing”. They wouldn’t lie to me … would they? They’re scientists! The high Priests of our technologically advanced culture.
Everything they told me about Easter Island has had no discernible effect on how I live, so if any or all of it is wrong I don’t mind.
Every civilization in history failed due to the early forms of advanced socialism/fascism.
When the number of takers exceeded the number of producers.
Some just packed it in, others more often self-destructed due to a different form homelessness.
We live in the ever accelerating stage in the process of another self-destruction of civilization.
Not Easter Island. It was destroyed by South American slave traders from Peru. None of them were socialist or fascist.
No, the remnant population was wiped out by slave raiders. The culture and population had already collapsed long before.