Popular theory claiming Easter Island’s population collapsed due to ‘ecocide’ is disproved
New archaeological research has disproved one of the world’s most famous historical narratives - the environmental cautionary tale that claimed that the ancient civilisation of Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean collapsed because the islanders destroyed its ecosystem.
The research instead reveals how that civilisation thrived through tenacity and innovation until it was ultimately destroyed not by Indigenous Polynesian environmental catastrophe, but by European aggression, disease and exploitation.
The archaeological investigation shows that the island’s population remained stable at around 3,000 until the arrival of often violent and disease-carrying European and European-originating whale-hunters, slavers and colonisers in the mid-19th century.
The population’s ability
