Easter Island Heads - History Forum ~ All Empires

The Polynesians are a pretty interesting people. It's amazing what they were able to achieve with what little technology they had available.

I think the statues were the cause of war and famine. The islanders cut down all the trees to use as rollers to move the statues, resulting in the irreversible erosion of the fertile soil

Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains!

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

I think I heard that the heads are meant to represent ancient chiefs. Those ancient chiefs must have been big heads then. LOL

And noses!

Timidi mater non flet

Originally posted by Nick1986

Here's a reconstruction of the heads as they originally looked. The eyes were made of coral and the hats were made of a type of red stone

Ah, Nick, what's that old saying again? If you want to get ahead get a hat. LOL

What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Originally posted by Nick1986

Thor Heyerdahl experimented with these statues in the 1950s. Using only logs and ropes he successfully moved a fallen statue and re-erected it in a pre-dug pit

Is there any evidence of pits being used when the heads were erected?

What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Originally posted by Nick1986

I believe so. While some statues are on plinths (and would have been put in place using earth ramps), others are half-buried in the ground

Only with the use of earth ramps or was there a possibility of "A" flames being in use too?

What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Originally posted by balochii

did Polynesians discover america?

There is indirect evidence (Chicken DNA comparisons) which supports that the Polynesians might have made landings in Peru. I do not think, however, that anybody has found actual artifacts that conclusivley demonstrate that the polynesians made it to Peru.

Though the "glory day" Polynesians clearly had the skills to sail to Peru, polynesian expansion across the pacific was not continous. Some groups lost the skills and recesources needed to make precision deep ocean voyages, especially the exceptionaly long ones. This resulted in islands being stranded.

The most famous stranded island was Easter Island. Even large groups such as the Hawaiian islands got stranded after about 1200 AD. They, however, large enough to avoid a social collapse. Other stranded islands include Henderson island (population got stranded and died out) and other islands where the stranded population was in a state of near total social collapse when the Europeans arrived.

I guess the mystery is: Did they make it to Peru before some groups (or many) started to run out of gas...

Edited by Cryptic - 20-Dec-2011 at 11:40

Some of the ( standing) statues on Easter Island are 10 metres (ca 33 feet) high or more. That makes them probably the largest ancient statues in the whole southern hemisphere. That is.... I haven't found larger/taller ancient statues in South America, Africa, Asia or anywhere else below the equator .

in re: "It's highly likely the Polynesians at least set foot in America. Rafts like the Kon-Tiki were more than capable of making long-distance ocean voyages"

Since the Polynesians were not known for making long sea voyages in rafts, I fail to see the connection. If central and southern coastal Peru lacks large forests with trees susceptible to being fashioned into ocean canoes, that is not the case with northern Peru and Ecuador, both of which wre within within the nothern limits of the Inca empire. As for the Kon Tiki, note that it was towed fifty miles out to sea to begin its voyage, due to currents off Peru's coast, something that pre-Colombian Peruvians would have had to contend with. So, while such rafts were theoretically capable of making long distance ocean voyages, it is far more likely they stayed in close to the coast and did not venture over the open sea.

I too believe that some Polynesians set foot in the Americas, but if they survived first contact with the locals, they were likely absorbed into those populations. Perhaps some future genetic study will establish a link with some central and northern south american Pacific coast areas.

Phong trần mài một lưỡi gươm, Những loài giá áo túi cơm sá gì

What makes the Olmec heads negroid? Take a look at some of the sculptured heads of Angor wat.

Phong trần mài một lưỡi gươm, Những loài giá áo túi cơm sá gì