National Geographic’s “If They Could Only Talk” considers Easter Island’s many mysteries

National Geographic “If They Could Only Talk”

National Geographic Easter Island – Video: Testing a Walking Theory

The business about moving the statues is fun to think about, but the more interesting issue discussed here has to do with the rapid decline of the island’s earliest human inhabitants. The article does a good job of contrasting Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” theory of human-mediated ecological degradation with the more recently-proposed suggestion that invasive rats may have caused the loss of Rapa Nui’s forests.