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COLLAPSE: to fall or cave in; crumble suddenly.

Easter Island, or Rapa Nui in the local language, is a small island located west of the South American coast in the South Pacific Ocean. Easter Islanders are said too have come from other islands in the Pacific around 1200 years ago. When it was first settled, the islanders found a lush island, filled with giant palms and rich volcanic soil, which they used to make boats and farm. The plants they brought with them did very well in the volcanic soils and by AD 1550 population on the island hit between 7000 and 9000. Though their resources must of felt inexhaustible. They continued too destroy their way of life. As their culture lay in disarray a new force entered the scene, one which would deny the world of ever seeing the Rapa Nui’s real culture. The Missionaries arrived in Easter island whilst the Rapa Nui were in their most vulnerable state, and it did not take long before they were converted to Christianity and they were stripped of their previous culture. Eventually all Pure Rapa Nui blood died out. Was it only the destruction of their resources that caused the collapse of what was a complex yet happy society?

Jared Diamonds five point framework gives us a way to class societal collapse. His framework includes environmental damages, hostile neighbors, and loss of friendly trade partners, climate change and response to crisis. This helps us to understand how and why Easter Island collapsed.

ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGES
This was a major for Easter Island. The islanders forested almost everything on the island, leaving no trees what so ever. Also when they made their giant statues, they took all the top rock off, and the soil beneath was eroded with high winds and rain. They also used their water sources without care, as there were limited amounts of water supply on the island.

HOSTILE NEIGHBORS
Depending on your view of them, the missionaries could be seen as hostile neighbors. They did not fight with the Easter islanders, yet tales and myths of horrific things happening when they did not convert to god may or may not be true.

There are various accounts of English pirates, and Spanish that may have arrived before the missionaries. Ancient Spanish artifacts have been found on the island, and believe to have been ‘gifts’ to the Easter islanders. The English pirates though, are thought too have culled numbers of Easter islanders with superior weaponry and take off with food and other resources.

Slave raiders were thought too have come to the island also and left with huge amounts of Easter islanders as slaves.

CLIMATE CHANGE
Around 1700 AD, the started too become only slightly hotter, resulting in less rainfall on the island. This was also when the island was incredibly populated. This hinged on the water supply as Easter island is not exactly ‘huge’.

RESPONSE TO COLLAPSE
This is a Major one. The Easter islanders must have known when they depleted their resources that they would not be able too stay on the island for much longer. They has no shelter, no timber, and their island was eroding, loosing good crop growing topsoils, and making it possible they may be swept over by giant waves in freak storms. Nothing was ever found to suggest they had realized what was happening, or if they did, that they ever tried to rectify their huge problems. The lack of resources saw what was left vied for, and much warfare was created.

There is also one other contributing factor that does not belong in any of these categories, and this is where Jared Diamond has failed. In the late 1800 AD, European visitors came too the island and brought smallpox and tuberlicosis. These diseases were unknown to the islanders, and their immune systems could not fight them. Thousands of islanders died and the population was diminished to almost half.

Joseph Tainter is another historian that is interested in the collapse of ancient societies. This historian believes that societies become more complex as they try too work through any problems that are created. He also has a framework in which he thinks works for all societal collapse. His framework includes three points which are explained below.

THE DINOSAUR
Tainter’s first category is The Dinosaur. This is basically a large society that is readily depleting its resources but nothing is done to rectify the problem because the leaders of the society are unable to adapt too any change. This largely applies to Easter Island. They were quickly loosing sight of any way of change as time went on; they continued to de-forest their island, destroy topsoil which was needed for sufficient crop growth, and waste their precious water, all needed for the continuance of their culture.

RUNAWAY TRAIN
Tainter’s Runaway Train theory explains how he believes that a society that is based almost solely upon gain and becoming bigger cannot be sustained. This is evident in the Easter island story – The religious carved stone statues called the moai, were incredibly important to the Easter islanders. The faster they became efficient at producing these 30-60ft solid stone statues, the more were created. Tainter believes that most ancient societies were based upon the idea that growth was a more prosperous future, but it did not always lead to so. The societies became too big to handle, and collapsed.

HOUSE OF CARDS
The House of cards is the last theory of Tainter’s model. It basically involved the society becoming too large with too many complex institutions that it collapses. Easter island has a frail environment because of its isolation. Deforestation led too no wood for fires/boats/hunting tools, and caused soil erosion. Warfare broke out over what was left – possibly killing or wounding each other. Diseases brought by foreign visitors left the island in disarray, halving the population. Together all these events caused to collapse of the Rapa Nui.


I believe for Easter Island, that Joseph Tainter’s model work just as well, if not better, than Jared Diamonds. It allows for more, such as disease, that Diamond’s does not, and is a different framework. Diamond’s outlines the reasons and causes of collapse. Tainter’s outlines the stages of collapse, and what happens in these stages.

Other than what is in the frameworks, there are also other ideas about how the Easter Islanders came to be on the island, and how they disapeared. Erich Von Daniken was a strong believer in the idea that the Easter Islanders were infact extra terrestrial beings from deep in space. He also believed that they created the Maoi to leave their mark upon earth, before disapearing back into space. Their is stronger evidence that The ideas I have put forward in the framework's are the truth, rather than a rash account of the islanders being 'aliens'.

Comparing Easter Island to another civilization, the Greenland Norse, draws similarities and diferences between the collapse of two different cultures. The Greenland Norse where part of the vikings civilization that settled in greenland. They deforested the landscape, overfarmed, and their social values didnt allow them to change. Once they had depleted rescources and destroyed their environment they eventually froze and starved to death. The plentiful seafood around them was religiously unacceptable in their culture, helping them to die a slow and painful death. One of the similarities between the Norse and Easter Island is that they both almost completely destroyed their environment. Whilst the Norse destroyed their environment to the pioint where they died, Easter islanders did destroy their island, yet were mostly finished of by disease brought from European visitors from other countries. Both had hostile neighbours, The Norse had the Innuit, and Easter island had the Slave Raiders.

“what can contemporary society learn from the collapse of this past society?”

Comparing what has happened in these cultures to what is happening in our world today can prepare us for what might come. For example Tainter’s idea the Runaway train is about the wants and needs to gain and grow, then become too big and collapse. At the moment in the world, it is human nature to ‘want’ things. With expensive toys and new technologies build everyday, we are overindulged. But this can lead too new and dangerous things discovered, such as nuclear weapons. The House of Cards theory is also relevant too today. In the more fertile parts of the world, we are highly over-populated, as these areas are the ‘deal’ places too live, with good climate and fertile soils. In these societies, some are acting almost exactly how Easter Island did. They are deforesting land, wasting resources, and basically heading the same way as the now extinct civilization. We can draw parallels between other civilizations and our world today, and we must learn from this.

On a positive note, we have in past times realized what has been happening, and prevented things from developing and become more serious. An example would be Germany and its forests. At one point it was de-foresting at an enormous rate, clearing its forests for timber. At the point of almost clearing all its land, Germany realized that it must stop, or risk destroying its eco-system. Its has been on a reforesting plan since early 1990, and recovered well. This is just one example of a society re-building itself from the verge of collapse.

In conclusion, great societies, such as Easter Island, have collapsed from things they had control over, like environment damage, and things that they had no control over, such as disease. What has happened in the past can be drawn to what is happening in today’s society. As the popular quote goes, “We must all Learn from our Mistakes, and from others”. Hopefully in the future we will be able to avoid what has happened in the past, by learning from it.



BIBLIOGRAPHY:
“Easter Islands End”, [1995], Discover Magazine,
'http://www.skeptically.org/env/id12.html

“Mysterious Places: Easter Island”, [2001], Cliff Wassman,
http://mysteriousplaces.com/Easter_Island/html/tour5.html

“Joseph Tainter”, [2007], Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter

“Ancient Cultures and Civilizations of the World”, [2000], Worldtreks
http://www.wandertheglobe.com/ancient/

“Rapa Nui”, [no date], Grant McCall,
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ogden/piir/pacific/Rapanui.html

“Germany: Reforestation”, [2006], Rhett Butler,
http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Germany.htm

“Societal Collapse”, [2008], Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse

Thanks to Kate for explaining about the Greenland Norse :)

The End.