ARTICLE AD BOX
The past Polynesians who settled the land of Rapa Nui – formerly known arsenic Easter Island – whitethorn person worked retired an ingenious mode to marque their iconic moai statues 'walk'.
It's not conscionable section legend; it's physics, accidental anthropologists Carl Lipo and Terry Hunt, and it could beryllium yet different crushed the self-destructive 'ecocide' theory of Rapa Nui is wrong.
In a caller paper, Lipo and Hunt reason the past radical of this distant land hadn't recklessly chopped down their trees to transport moai statues connected woody rollers, arsenic the fashionable communicative goes; they didn't request to – they had an easier option.
Related: Researchers Claim Long-Lost Technology Used to Build Iconic Pyramid of Djoser
For centuries, the Indigenous radical of Rapa Nui person shared a rhythmic opus that tells the communicative of their ancestors, who knew however to marque their statues walk.
Western scholars person agelong dismissed these oral narratives arsenic metaphorical oregon mythological, but successful 2012, Lipo (from Birmingham University) and Hunt (from the University of Arizona) collaborated with the archetypal Rapanui governor, Sergio Rapu Haoa, to revive the contentious vertical transport theory and springiness it caller legs.
According to their 3D models and experiments, the challenging portion is getting the large stone a-rocking, but erstwhile it's oscillating from broadside to side, the statue tin waddle guardant with small effort and immoderate guidance from enactment handlers.
A depiction of the moai statues 'walking' crossed the land. (Lipo, et al., J. Archaeol. Sci., 2025)Researchers cognize due to the fact that they've tried it. In 2012, 18 radical successfully 'walked' a 4.35-ton moai replica 100 meters (328 feet). It took them conscionable 40 minutes.
"The moai walked – the grounds is carved successful stone, validated done experiments, and celebrated successful modern Rapa Nui culture," write Lipo and Hunt successful a caller insubstantial that responds to their critics.
"The question is wherefore immoderate scholars, contempt claiming allegiance to technological principles, inactive garbage to judge this exemplary for the proscription of moai."
Evidence is now stronger than ever that the mysterious colonisation illness of Rapa Nui ne'er really happened. Recent genetic and archaeological probe suggests that the autochthonal radical of the land are incorrectly blamed for their ain demise, erstwhile their colonisation illness was much apt owed to slave raids and overseas disease.
In their caller paper, Lipo and Hunt instrumentality connected each of their critics, including writer Jared Diamond, who popularized the ecocide narrative of Rapa Nui successful his 2005 publication Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail oregon Succeed.
Diamond rejected Lipo and Hunt's mentation successful 2012 arsenic an "implausible look for disaster", which could excessively easy hazard breaking moai statues connected unpaved hilly terrain.
But moai statues did break, often successful akin ways. Some are abandoned on past roads that whitethorn person been somewhat formed by the march of the statues themselves.
"[Diamond's] statement ignores some the physics of controlled pendulum question and the archaeological evidence," write Lipo and Hunt. "His adherence to horizontal transport [on woody rollers] apt reflects a committedness to his 'collapse' communicative alternatively than empirical evaluation."
The iconic moai statues connected Rapa Nui are not symbols of biology self-destruction, reason Lipo and Hunt, but of resourceful ingenuity.
The survey was published successful the Journal of Archaeological Science.
