Coordinates: 27°7′S 109°22′W / 27.117°S 109.367°W / -27.117; -109.367
Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Rapa Nui ); (Spanish: Isla de Pascua ) is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeastern most point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile annexed in 1888, Easter Island is widely famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai (pronounced /ˈmoʊ.аɪ/ ), created by the early Rapanui people. It is a World Heritage Site with much of the island protected within the Rapa Nui National Park. Historically the island has experienced a collapse of its ecosystem, with extinction of many of its prehistoric species; these events were associated with over-exploitation of the island's resources. The underlying island geology is one of extinct volcanoes.
Name
The name "Easter Island" was given by the island's first recorded European visitor, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who encountered it on Easter Sunday 1722, while searching for Davis or David's island and named it Paasch-Eyland (18th century Dutch for "Easter Island"). The island's official Spanish name, Isla de Pascua, also means "Easter Island".
The current Polynesian name of the island, "Rapa Nui" or "Big Rapa", was coined by labor immigrants from Rapa in the Bass Islands, who likened it to their home island in the aftermath of the Peruvian slave deportations in the 1870s. However, Thor Heyerdahl has claimed that the naming would have been the opposite, Rapa being the original name of Easter Island, and Rapa Iti was named by its refugees.
There are several hypotheses about the "original" Polynesian name for Easter Island, including Te pito o te henua , or "The Navel of the World" due to its isolation. Legends claim that the island was first named as Te pito o te kainga a Hau Maka , or the "Little piece of land of Hau Maka". Another name, Mata-ki-Te-rangi, means "Eyes that talk to the sky."
Location and physical geography
Easter Island is one of the world's most isolated inhabited islands. It has a latitude close to that of Caldera, Chile; lies 3,510 km (2,180 mi) west of continental Chile at its nearest point (between Lota and Lebu) and 2,075 km (1,289 mi) east of Pitcairn. ( Isla Salas y Gómez , 415 kilometres to the east, is closer but uninhabited).
The island is approx 24.6 km (15.3 mi) long by 12.3 km (7.6 mi) at its widest point — its overall shape has been described as a perfect triangle. It has an area of 163.6 km² (63 sq mi), and a maximum altitude of 507 metres. There are three Rano (freshwater crater lakes), at Rano Kau, Rano Raraku and Rano Aroi, near the summit of Terevaka, but no permanent streams or rivers.
Climate and weather
See also: Climate of ChileThe island's climate is subtropical marine. The lowest temperatures are registered in July and August (18°C - 64°F) and the highest in February (maximum temperature 28°C - 82°F) ), the summer season in the southern hemisphere. The rainiest month is April, though the island experiences year-round rainfall.
Geology
Easter Island is a volcanic high island, consisting mainly of three extinct coalesced volcanoes: Terevaka (altitude 507 metres) forms the bulk of the island. Two other volcanoes, Poike and Rano Kau, form the eastern and southern headlands and give the island its roughly triangular shape. There are numerous lesser cones and other volcanic features, including the crater Rano Raraku, the cinder cone Puna Pau and many volcanic caves including lava tubes. Poike used to be an island until volcanic material from Terevaka united it to Easter Island. The island is dominated by hawaiite and basalt flows which are rich in iron and show affinity with igneous rocks found in Galapagos Islands.
Easter Island and surrounding islets such as Motu Nui, Motu Iti are the summit of a large volcanic mountain rising over two thousand metres from the sea bed. It is part of the Sala y Gómez Ridge, a (mostly submarine) mountain range with dozens of seamounts starting with Pukao and then Moai, two seamounts to the west of Easter Island, and extending 2,700 km (1,700 mi) east to the Nazca Seamount.
Pukao, Moai and Easter Island were formed in the last 750,000 years, with the most recent eruption a little over a hundred thousand years ago. They are the youngest mountains of the Sala y Gómez Ridge, which has been formed by the Nazca Plate floating over the Easter hotspot. Alternative explanation is the activity of the Easter Fracture Zone. Only at Easter Island, its surrounding islets and Sala y Gómez does the Sala y Gómez Ridge form dry land.
In the first half of the 20th century, steam came out of the Rano Kau crater wall. This was photographed by the island's manager, Mr Edmunds.
History
Main article: History of Easter IslandThe history of Easter Island is rich and controversial. Its inhabitants have endured famines, epidemics, civil war, slave raids and colonialism, and the crash of their ecosystem; their population has declined precipitously more than once. They have left a cultural legacy that has brought them fame disproportionate to their population.
Contemporary to the arrival of the first settlers of Hawaii, 300–400 CE was published as a date for initial settlement of Easter Island. Although some scholars argue for initial settlement of 700–800 CE, there is an ongoing study by archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo that states: “Radiocarbon dates for the earliest stratigraphic layers at Anakena, Easter Island, and analysis of previous radiocarbon dates imply that the island was colonized late, about 1200 CE. Significant ecological impacts and major cultural investments in monumental architecture and statuary thus began soon after initial settlement.”
The island was populated by Polynesians who navigated in canoes or catamarans from the Marquises islands (3200 km away) or Tuamotou islands (Mangareva, 2600 km away) or Pitcairn (2000 km away). When Captain Cook visited the island, one of his crew members, who was a Polynesian from Bora Bora, was able to communicate with the Rapa Nui. In 1999, a voyage with reconstructed Polynesian boats was carried out, reaching Easter Island from Mangareva in 19 days.
According to legends recorded by the missionaries in the 1860s, the island originally had a very clear class system, with an ariki , king, wielding absolute god-like power ever since Hotu Matu'a had arrived on the island. The most visible element in the culture was production of massive moai that were part of the ancestral worship. With a strictly unified appearance, moai were erected along most of the coastline, indicating a homogeneous culture and centralized governance.
For unknown reasons, a coup by military leaders called matatoa had brought a new cult based around a previously unexceptional god Makemake. The cult of the birdman (Rapanui: tangata manu ) seemed largely to blame for the island's misery of the late 18th and 19th centuries. Contradicting these "legends", however, Katherine Routhledge (who systematically collected the island's traditions in her expedition in 1919) showed that according to the natives, all these conflicts and misery are precisely dated to the period after the arrival of the Europeans. Regardless, with the island's ecosystem fading, destruction of crops quickly resulted in famine, sickness and death.
European accounts from 1722 and 1770 still saw only standing statues, but by Cook's visit in 1774 many were reported toppled.
According to Diamond and Heyerdahl's version of history, the huri mo'ai - the "statue-toppling" - continued into the 1830s as a part of fierce internecine wars. By 1838 the only standing moai were on the slopes of Rano Raraku and Hoa Hakananai'a at Orongo. However, there is little archaeological evidence for "internecine wars" in pre-European periods, and much less of pre-European societal collapse. In fact, bone pathology and osteometric data from islanders of that period clearly suggest few fatalities can be attributed directly to violence (Owsley et al., 1994).
The first recorded European contact with the island was on April 5 (Easter Sunday), 1722 when Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen visited the island for a week and estimated there were 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants on the island. The next foreign visitors (on November 15, 1770)
Easter Island Statues in Chile - Easter Island Moai - New Wonders of ...
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chile/easter_island « scorbs
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