Easter Island

For the distance of loneliness, difficult to find any place on Earth that comes close to Easter Island. South America is 4300 miles east, 2300 miles west of Tahiti.
But, although seemingly isolated from the most technologically advanced civilizations, the islanders have carved hundreds of giant monolithic statue in the shape of men, many of which are higher than a three-story building.
Also, in some way are transported through these insular island, they let many of them on the stone platform, and was put on top of giant blocks of red stone.
Statues were still standing in 1722, when explorer Jacob Roggeveen spotted the Dutch island of Easter Sunday (hence the name derives). Roggeveen writes: "These first images of great stones left us speechless, because I can not understand how it was possible that these people ... have been able to erect such statues."
Only 50 years later, Captain James Cook stopped briefly at Easter Island while he was looking for a continent that long talk (but that does not exist) in South Pacific. Cook was also delighted: "And we are unable to imagine how these island, without any mechanical power, could raise such extraordinary figure, and then decide on the cylindrical stones their heads."
Who built the statues of Easter Island, and why?
Many scientists assume that immigrants may have been the Polynesians, who arrived on the shores of the island after a long journey, but not impossible by any island in the west, probably in the Marquesas.
Very few people have taken seriously Heyerdahlin Thor, a Norwegian scientist who, at the end of the 40 formulated a theory that had been South American Indians who had established settlements in the Easter Island statues were set up.
To prove his theory, Heyerdahl decided to build a raft to traverse primitive and the Pacific. Heyerdahl initially thought his theory, as noted similarities between the legends of the inhabitants of Easter Island and the ancient Incas of Peru.
Island worshiping a white god, Tiki and considered the race of their creator, while the Incas spoke to a white God-Kon Tiki, which the ancients had them expelled from Peru to the Pacific.
Heyerdahl stated that the first Europeans who visited the island in the eighteenth century were left baffled by the mysterious presence there of some residents that differed lëkurëbardhë lëkurëerrët Polynesians. Kon-Tiki and Tiki should have been the same, and the whites of the Easter Islanders had to be his successor.
Other oral legends of the island support Heyerdahl theory. Speak to an island race "donkey" that pierced ears and hang heavy weights on his earlobes until they artificially prolonged.
Ruled the island until the ass, according to legend, came veshëshkurtërve fed up with them and overturned. While the statues have ears that go up to the shoulders, Heyerdahl naturally assumed that they were built by donkey. And they came from donkey? Island stories leave no doubt: the east, where the ocean just seemed ... and South America.
If the donkey, and Kon-Tiki Tiki or were able to travel the Pacific with a wooden raft, Heyerdahl thought, so he could do. So, he came into the Ecuadorian jungle, where he and the team that followed cut larger trees they could find.
Later, they built a raft, bringing hemp ropes only trees without using any nails and metal.Decided on an open cockpit made from bamboo, both directly and a square sail. He named Kon-Tiki vnë. In April 1947, together with five men and a parrot, Heyerdahl set out to sail the coast of Peru.
It was his naval adventure worthy to rival Moby Dickun. Only with fuzhnja, his crew fought a shark so big that when he swim raft down, head was visible on one side, while all the tails out the other side. Drinking water became poisonous after two months, however rifurnizoi rain. Often times, breakfast consisted of bonito's, and flying fish that were left on the raft uring the night.
Ocean currents and winds push the raft increasingly in the west, in fact far beyond Easter Island. After 101 days at sea, the raft was stopped in a deserted island in the South Sea east of Tahiti. All six had survived the trip, though a big wave had kidnapped parrot.
Heyerdahli could not conceal his enthusiasm: Kon-Tiki expedition confirmed that it was possible that a simple raft crossing the Pacific.
Faktiun but it could happen, did not mean that it had really happened. To prove that South American settlements were set on Easter Island, Heyerdahl had need for more evidence.
In 1955, he again went to Easter Island, this time on a fishing boat, and accompanied by a group of professional scientists. Ironically, those same scientists who initially defended Heyerdahlin, would in the end they will diskreditonin history.
First, determine the time of them with the radiocarbon method put people on the island in the 5 th century BC, the first statue to raise somewhere between 900 and 1000.However, the culture must have been in the mountains of Peru and Bolivia, where Heyerdahl believed that the island had originated, had not had an impact on South American shores until 1000 BC. How can these Americans had crossed the southern ocean, while neither had come down from the mountain?
In addition, the expedition found no trace of Easter Island pottery and textiles, two of the most characteristic product of Peruvian culture. Meanwhile, archaeologists in the Galapagos, a group of Pacific islands closer to South America, found many fragments poçesh, at least some of which closely resembled those made by American southerners before the Incas time.
Studies in other disciplines continue to cast the theory of Heyerdahl. Botanists determined the totora reed found on the island was different from that found in Peru.Sweet potatoes on the island, which he used as evidence Heyerdahl links with South America, could have come from other countries Polinezisë. Even the linguistic analysis of lead in the west.
Many of the words the island had more similarities with their equivalents of the Polynesians, and the discrepancies could come due to long years in isolation. Writing 'Rongorongo "The island also had more similarities with Polynesians writings than those Peruvians.
Measurements of the skeletons also showed that the island had more similarities with Southeast Asians than South American, and most scientists concluded that early European visitors had exaggerated their descriptions lëkurëbardhë people.
Ultimately, only some of the early stories of Easter Island speak for white skin, others, like the famous Captain Cook wrote that "the color, language features and they have many similarities with the people of the islands on the west I could not suspect that they have the same origin. "
As for the old legends and the Kon-Tiki Tiki, these were simple tales, according to most scientists.
According to Paul Bahn, all should not be taken into consideration so much. Subway Heyerdahlin criticized for selective use that had become traditions, emphasizing those that support his theory, while others had ignored - for example what Hotu matu, the first king of the island, came from an island called Hiva. This is a common name in the Marquesas, 2100 miles northwest of Easter Island. Even travel Kon-Tiki's dramatic were not spared from painful attacks of science.
Indians before the Incas had used false and not sailing, say some, and the desert coast of Peru had not been easy wood needed for access pads or canoe. In addition, the Kon-Tiki was towing up to 50 nautical miles from shore, thus avoiding currents that would have led Heyerdahliin somewhere near Panama, and not in Polynesia.
Scientific analysis attacks that begin with Heyerdahlit expedition in 1955 - '56 brought a much wider consensus that the first inhabitants of Easter Island were Polynesians. Unlike the South American Indians, Polynesians had much experience in the seas, having colonized other islands like Hawaii and New Zealand. Some scientists went so far as to assume a mix of cultures that could have happened, because sailors Polynesians could have gone up in the New World and were turned away.
It's not at all consoled Heyerdahlin, who continued to insist that the discoverers had sailed to the West, not East. He continued to counterattack historiographical tide, visiting the island and defending his thesis although fewer ears listening.
However, this is not overshadowed his achievements. Heyerdahl was that organized the first expedition to Easter Island and that allowed the scientists who accompanied him to perform in an impartial study. And were his expeditions that inspired many other scientists to go and continue the search for giant statues sculptors.
Widespread view that the Polynesians were the first inhabitants of Easter Island offers a partial explanation for the giant statues. Worship was common in ancient Polynesia, so the statues may have been a kind of monument raised by the tribes of the island to honor the dead. Red blocks of stone placed over their heads may have come from the Marquesas, the tradition of placing a stone on the image of a dead man as a sign of mourning.
However, there was another mystery surrounding the statue, which Cook had noticed during the first visit. Many of them were overthrown by the platforms, and some were ex-head deliberately cut. Why a weary nation that former so hard to build had to kick out?What occurred between Roggeveen's visit in 1722 and the arrival of Cook in 1784?
Heyerdahl Polynesians blamed immigrants, he said that before Europeans arrived in the war against the descendants of early inhabitants of South American. He once again returned to the island legends that speak to revolt against rulers veshëshkurtërve ass island. Perhaps veshëshkurtërit statues toppled and their donkey, he speculated.
But again, the lack of archaeological evidence has weakened the theory of Heyerdahl.There are no architectural traces of a sudden inflow of new cultural influences at that point in the history of Easter Island. Archaeologists have found large quantities of engineered yeast spears and daggers belonging to the period before European discovery, reaching the conclusion that wars have had their part in bringing down the statues and the culture that worshiped them.
Most scientists believe that an ecological crisis made the island to fight for more resources insufficient. Overpopulation and deforestation were serious problems in the 16th century, when it raised some of the larger statues.
Some archaeologists have thrown the assumption that the spate of construction may have come because of any great desire for divine intervention. When the ancients failed to help the island may have lost faith in them, and angry may have broken statues.
Instead of the ancients or the island gods, were Europeans who intervened. Until the 19th century, missionaries and slave traders had erased what had remained from the original culture and religion of Easter Island.
However, Europeans and Americans have been credited for their efforts, though late, to maintain the original culture of Easter Island. In the '60s, scientists, including some members of the expedition of Heyerdahl, back in the old country many giant statues. They continue to stay on their feet and beyond, as always, is the Pacific Ocean.