The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island [Kindle Edition]

Terry Hunt (Author), Carl Lipo (Author)

Book Description

The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the islands barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works? No such astonishing numbers of massive statues are found anywhere else in the Pacific. How could the islanders possibly have moved so many multi-ton monoliths from the quarry inland, where they were carved, to their posts along the coastline? And most intriguing and vexing of all, if the island once boasted a culture developed and sophisticated enough to have produced such marvelous edifices, what happened to that culture? Why was the island the Europeans encountered a sparsely populated wasteland?

The prevailing accounts of the islands history tell a story of self-inflicted devastation: a glaring case of eco-suicide. The island was dominated by a powerful chiefdom that promulgated a cult of statue making, exercising a ruthless hold on the islands people and rapaciously destroying the environment, cutting down a lush palm forest that once blanketed the island in order to construct contraptions for moving more and more statues, which grew larger and larger. As the population swelled in order to sustain the statue cult, growing well beyond the islands agricultural capacity, a vicious cycle of warfare broke out between opposing groups, and the culture ultimately suffered a dramatic collapse.

When Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo began carrying out archaeological studies on the island in 2001, they fully expected to find evidence supporting these accounts. Instead, revelation after revelation uncovered a very different truth. In this lively and fascinating account of Hunt and Lipos definitive solution to the mystery of what really happened on the island, they introduce the striking series of archaeological discoveries they made, and the path-breaking findings of others, which led them to compelling new answers to the most perplexing questions about the history of the island. Far from irresponsible environmental destroyers, they show, the Easter Islanders were remarkably inventive environmental stewards, devising ingenious methods to enhance the islands agricultural capacity. They did not devastate the palm forest, and the culture did not descend into brutal violence. Perhaps most surprising of all, the making and moving of their enormous statutes did not require a bloated population or tax their precious resources; their statue building was actually integral to their ability to achieve a delicate balance of sustainability. The Easter Islanders, it turns out, offer us an impressive record of masterful environmental management rich with lessons for confronting the daunting environmental challenges of our own time.

Shattering the conventional wisdom, Hunt and Lipos ironclad case for a radically different understanding of the story of this most mysterious place is scientific discovery at its very best.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A fascinating new chapter of the unwitting but tragic decimation of the native Rapa Nui populations, brought about unwittingly by cultural contact rather than the decline of their own society."

  -- Kirkus Reviews

The authors present a believable case to counter what has become the accepted narrative about Easter Island. The book is engaging even as it rescues Rapanui culture from being reduced to a cautionary environmental tale.

-- Archaeology Magazine, July/August 2011

Archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo in "The Statues That Walked," a fascinating entry in the pop-science genre of Everything You Know Is Wrong.
-- The Wall Street Journal, Charles, C. Mann

Shattering the conventional wisdom, Hunt and Lipo's ironclad case for a radically different understanding of the story of this most mysterious place is scientific discovery at its very best.
-- The Guardian

Recent discoveries suggest that the inhabitants of  Easter Island were actually devoted stewards of their island's natural resources. Archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo describe how they solved the mystery of the society's collapse.
-- Scientific American

"Hunt and Lipo make a major contribution to global history. They decipher the tangled skeins of Easter Island’s history with cutting edge scholarship and vivid writing. Their meticulous research tells a tale not of ecological armageddon, as so commonly believed, but of brilliant human achievement under difficult, isolated circumstances. This important book revolutionizes our understanding of ancient Polynesia and is a must-buy for anyone visiting this extraordinary place."

—Brian Fagan, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara and author of The Great Warming

“The Statues that Walked is an important book. Finally, a fair and balanced account of the deeper human and environmental histories of Easter Island by people who not only know the records intimately but also helped produce them. In the midst of an ocean of sensationalist accounts of these histories, The Statues that Walked rights many wrongs.”

—Donald K. Grayson, Professor, Department of Anthropology and Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington and author of The Great Basin: A Natural Prehistory

"A great read and a genuinely exciting account of how the science of archaeology is done at its best—head and shoulders above the storytelling in Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel or Collapse, and this is saying a lot."

—John Edward Terrell, Professor and Regenstein Curator of Pacific Anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History

“A revolutionary perspective of the most intriguing society on earth. Hunt and Lipo unite old and new research findings in a coherent, surprising account of the real reason for the collapse of Easter Island’s populations – it was not greed and shortsightedness. And, incidentally, a compelling account of what purpose those statues served and how they were moved.”

—Daniel Simberloff, Nancy Gore Hunger Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Tennessee

“There is more plausible information about the island, its people, and its remarkable stone monuments between the covers of this book than in all the many volumes written before. This is a must-read for all those interested in scientific sleuthing at its best.”--David A. Burney, Director of Conservation, National Tropical Botanical Garden, and author of Back to the Future in the Caves of Kaua`i: A Scientist’s Adventures in the Dark.

"A must read...Hunt and Lipo have harnessed the power of science to show the true history of Easter Island--which is more compelling and amazing than doomsday theorists have led us to believe.”--Patricia A. McAnany, Kenan Eminent Professor, Department of Anthropology,

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

From the Author

Easter Island holds a truly remarkable place in human history.  The island boasts an archaeological record like nowhere else on earth, including a large number of megalithic statues or moai on large constructed stone platforms or ahu.  Despite the prominence of this archaeological record it is unknown exactly how or why ancient Polynesians moved more than 25 million pounds of stone in this particular island.  The environment of Easter Island does not obvious provide an obvious explanation for the massive investment in statue construction and movement.  Easter Island is located in the vast the southeastern Pacific; its nearest neighbors are nearly 2,000 miles away.  And Easter Island is small; the island is approximately 171 sq-km, -- about the size of Catalina Island, California.  Easter Island is also environmentally-impoverished and lacks regular rainfall, permanent streams, and a tropical climate.  The limited climatic record for the island shows that rainfall can fluctuate dramatically, and devastating droughts would have been a significant problem in the island's past. 

In this way, the prehistory of Easter Island presents us with a paradox.  On an extremely isolated island with limited resources and uncertain fluctuations in climate and agricultural productivity, the pre-contact population of Easter Island invested huge amounts of effort into monumental architecture and statuary.  In fact, the per capita investments in the Easter Island monuments likely stand as the greatest anywhere in the ancient world.  These remarkable achievements, however, are set against a backdrop of limited resources and dramatic environmental variability.

See all Editorial Reviews

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Product Details File Size: 3263 KB Print Length: 256 pages Publisher: Free Press (June 21, 2011) Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc Language: English ASIN: B003V1WXEG Text-to-Speech: Not enabled X-Ray: Not Enabled Lending: Not Enabled Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #112,627 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #27 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Ecology #27 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Biological Sciences > Ecology #36 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Archaeology

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Customer Reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars

(27)

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“ This book is accessible to anyone with a casual interest in archaeology and those who like real-life mysteries. ” Stephen Pletko  |  9 reviewers made a similar statement

“ I was especially keen to read this book since I know the island and can pictures places mentioned. ” Jack E. Levic  |  3 reviewers made a similar statement

“ The book provides thought-provoking possibilities for the motives of that small culture to expend the energy and sacrifice to create the statues. ” JOHN  |  2 reviewers made a similar statement

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars New direction for viewing Easter Island June 18, 2011

By Anthony Cagle

Format:Hardcover

The main text is only 180 pages so it's eminently readable without an overbearing commitment of time, and it's directed at an interested lay public rather than strictly academics so anyone can easily follow it without fear of getting bogged down in a lot of jargon and ten thousand references. It does have references, but not too many and they pertain to key issues that allow the interested reader (albeit one with access to a university library for the most part) to follow up on certain topics. I was interested in some of the paleopathology studies that were referenced, so it was useful in that regard.

As they note, they didn't start working on Rapa Nui to decipher much of anything about why the moai were made, how they were moved and erected, or to develop a completely new perspective on the cultural and ecological history of the place; they were conducting a field school and general survey along with some excavations, assuming that they'd be filling in a few details here and there on the prehistory of what is probably one of the most studied specks of land on earth. What seems to have kicked off the more intensive study: determining a much later date for initial occupation (AD 1200 as opposed to the previously accepted dates of AD 400). If the date of initial occupation was so far off the accepted chronology, what else was?

The structure of the book is directed at examining what is really known about various aspects of the island's pre-/history both from early literary accounts and from past archaeological work (both normal dirt archaeology and of the experimental sort) and then adding in results from their own work over the past few years.... The part that I think is most valuable is that they actually quote the early explorers and evaluate them seriously in light of the archaeological evidence, especially the revised chronology. This not only puts the archaeological work in context with historical observations, but also suggests why we have viewed Easter Island the way we historically have. Ferinstance, the early chronology suggested people had been around for a good eight centuries before the extensive palm forests had begun to disappear, but their more recent dating work suggested deforestation began shortly after. . . .1200. Thus, with the new later chronology, deforestation seems to have started almost immediately upon arrival rather than after a long, uneventful habitation followed by intense statue-building. The process seems to have taken some time since the first European explorers in 1722 in fact noted that some "tracts of woodland" were still there as well as in 1868 during a British visit. Hence, the trees didn't apparently disappear in an orgy of statue construction but faded away in a more gradual process.

I actually found the early explorers' observations interesting from a, for lack of a better word, psychological perspective. The notion that there was something of a "golden era" of statue construction that resulted in environmental depredations started early with the Cook expedition of 1774 when the naturalist on board noted that the Easter Islanders seem to have degraded from more "happy and opulent times." This is echoed a few years later by a French explorer who noted that the relatively barren nature of the island was due "to the imprudence of their ancestors". So the idea that the Rapanui "did it to themselves" was set early on. Of course, none of them had any direct evidence for such; they were doubtless exhibiting the normal cultural imperialism of the day along with a healthy dose of Romanticism. But once the idea got written down it seems to have become the default explanation for most subsequent work and went largely unquestioned, at least in its basics, for the next 200+ years.

The rest of the book builds an archaeological case for a far different story of a fairly normal process of ecological degradation caused in large part (though not solely) by the introduction of rats to the island and the natives' response to it (Hunt, Lipo and colleagues have published several journal articles on this as well). What they demonstrate is that, far from despoiling a paradise, the Rapanui found an island that was marginal at best in terms of its carrying capacity, both in wild foods and its sufficiency for agriculture, and utilized it as best they could within the inherent (i.e., geological and geographical) and introduced (i.e., rats) limitations they were faced with. In a way, it turns on its head the conventional narrative, and not just from a purely ecological/cultural perspective: the worst depredations visited upon the natives were not caused by the Rapanui themselves -- who did a rather admirable job of looking after themselves on their isolated little island, thankyouverymuch -- but by Europeans who introduced disease, slavery, violence, and economies (e.g., large scale sheep ranching) that devastated the island's ecology and people far more than rats and Rapanui ever dreamed of.

A central part of the book seeks to explain the phenomenon of statue building as part of a larger Polynesian practice, enhanced by the isolated nature of the island and the social structure that it tended to favor. They utilize Darwinian evolution to explain this in terms of signaling theory and bet-hedging. They try to show that moai-building and the rather peaceful characteristics of the population are a natural outgrowth of the island environment and its founding culture. I'm guessing this will get the least attention, but it's probably the most innovative part of the whole book.

Along the way they provide a wealth of information on Rapanui agriculture and stone tool technology, and (to my surprise) have a shot at explaining how they moved the statues in the first place. They don't really come up with their own method, per se, but match an existing hypothesis (one that I'd never heard of, to be honest) with their own analysis of apparent road networks and the placements of statues along them (not to mention testimony from natives themselves as to how it was done) to make what I think is a pretty good case for -- wait for it -- walking statues. I'll leave it at that so some mystery remains to provide impetus to buy it. Suffice to say, the engineer in me liked the elegance and simplicity of their preferred method. `Engineered to move' as they call it.

Now, most are going to view this book as a direct challenge or response to Jared Diamond's "Collapse" which used Easter Island as a centerpiece of mankind's environmental short-sightedness. That's probably not fair, since I doubt Lipo or Hunt had that in mind when they were doing this research, but there it is. It's not just Diamond, of course, but a whole series of authors that have used those early observations as a basis for making hay out of the more recent plight of the Rapanui. I think a lot of people will argue with some of the details of their account, but I suspect it will probably change the conversation quite radically. I also half expect Hunt and Lipo to get slammed by the environmentalists for dispatching one of their sacred cows. But, you know, I was kind of left feeling that the modern criticism of the Rapanui by well-meaning environmentalists isn't maybe just a continuation of the cultural snobbishness that seems to have infected European dealings with the Easter Islanders from the very beginning. It's undoubtedly no longer possible, but after reading this book one is tempted think that if we would just leave them alone for once the Rapanui would go back to making a relatively peaceable and decent, if not easy, living on their "most mysterious island." Read more ›

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes, Aliens Did Invade Easter Island! July 25, 2011

By DRS

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

As a boy, I was really interested in the mysterious statutes of Easter Island and always hoped that somehow a UFO was involved. But as I grew up, aliens seemed less plausible. So, imagine my excitement when the authors of The Statues that Walked convinced me that indeed aliens were one of the culprits that contributed to the mystery of Easter Island. These alien invaders didn't float in from outer space, they came via the sea. They came in the form of rats adrift on detritus with voracious appetites for palm seeds, colonizers with foreign diseases, and slave traders. One alien invasion after another has left its indelible mark on history of Easter Island and yet against all odds the Rapa Nui people have persevered and in turn left their own mysterious mark on the island. This book is compelling. I had a hard time putting it down until the authors fully unraveled the mystery and debunked some previous assumptions. Yes, like other reviewers have noted it is based on excellent scholarship and a unique multidisciplinary approach which made it that much more satisfying to read.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Statues that Walked July 22, 2011

By Evan Peacock

Format:Hardcover

Finally, an archaeology book for the general public that conveys real information in an accessible manner without being dumbed down. And finally, a book that shows how archaeologists actually learn things, instead of endlessly rolling around in the "mystery" of the past. Eastern Island has long been the poster child for rampant speculation, where everyone with a pet "theory" spins the yarn of the day. Hunt and Lipo pose questions derived from a solid theoretical standpoint and show how questions can be answered with a high degree of certainty. This excellent book not only is a good read for pretty much anyone from late teens on, but would serve very well in the classroom as an example of how archaeology can function as a science rather than as pseudo-historical story telling. We badly need more examples like this to remove archaeology from the realm of myth-making and place it where it belongs: in the realm of scientific enterprise. Well done!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars More than a book about the archaeology of Easter Island July 23, 2011

By Tim Hunt

Format:Hardcover

While this book is an eminently readable and excellent example of a modern, scientific approach to unraveling the pre-history of Easter Island; I found that it offered much more than most "archaeology of" kind of books.

As an "archaeology of" kind of book, it is well written with just enough detail to support their arguments and conclusions, without getting too bogged down in cataloging all of the work that has been done on the island. I like how the book was structured: its organized into a series of easy steps that lead the reader through the author's path to knowledge as well as the multi-disciplinary evidence they combine to justify their conclusions. Unlike another reviewer, I didn't find the book "dry" at all: in fact I was surprised that I found it hard to put down ("I'll read just one more chapter" I would say to myself).

I think that this book also works well as a general "how science works" study: the authors use this book as an opportunity to share the process by which they arrived at this work, as a series of questions that when answered raise more questions and implications, and allow a gradual picture to emerge. This insight into the scientific process is interesting in its own right, and helps the reader understand the way that scientific knowledge is built brick by brick.

I think this book also work well as an example of the recent "historical-sociological-anthropological-ecological" genre most identified with "Guns, Germs, and Steel". I found "Statues" as entertaining as this, but more factual and less conjectural, albeit with a much smaller scope. It is refreshing to see anthropologists producing popular books about these issues, rather than leaving these topics to others....

Lastly, the biggest message I took with me after reading this book, was a new found sense of hope for humanity as we face an uncertain future in a rapidly changing social and ecological environment. Rather than focus on the inevitability of warfare and ecological devastation, perhaps we can follow the example of the Rapa Nui and achieve a peaceful and sustainable existence even in a challenging environment. Read more ›

› See all 27 customer reviews (newest first)

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The way it should be done

I loved this. It's such a treat to read a genuinely scholarly book that's full of fascinating material while still being brief, well written and satisfactorily explaining things... Read more

Published 16 days ago by Hatbox Dragon

4.0 out of 5 stars For those who are heading to Easter Island

Modern day archeologists explain what we know and don't know about Easter Island. If you're going to Easter Island, its well worth the time to read before you go.

Published 1 month ago by Martin Lobel

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Book Which Answers a Lot of Questions

This is just an absolutely fascinating book about Easter Island, or 'rapa nui' and the mystery surrounding the statues, or 'moai' that are found all over the island. Read more

Published 2 months ago by Frank L. Urbano

4.0 out of 5 stars good book

its kind of slow, but if you have an interest in Easter Island and archaeology, you will enjoy it. Good coverage of field work, which isn't talked about in many archaeology books.

Published 3 months ago by meri

3.0 out of 5 stars not bad

a little bit more dry than I expected, but still interesting. Maybe it picks up as it goes along. I'll keep reading & see what develops.

Published 3 months ago by Lisa Millraney

3.0 out of 5 stars Who doesn't think Easter Island is cool?

Who doesn't think Easter Island is cool? OK, I have a BA and MA in history and am just fascinated by this stuff. Read more

Published 4 months ago by R. Campbell

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly informative and thought-provoking reexamination of the island

Easter Island is the focal point of much speculation and many myths. Thor Heyerdahl presented the island as the home of an inter-racial apocalypse in which an original group of... Read more

Published 6 months ago by Kurt A. Johnson

5.0 out of 5 stars an amazing book

this is an incredible book who tell us the truth about this unbelivable civilisation! I really apreciate the describtion and all the details there is in.

Published 10 months ago by MATAILA CECILIA

4.0 out of 5 stars Very technical and scientific

This is not a travel book for Easter Island. It is a very detailed, almost textbook-like research paper covering topics such as "Why aren't there any trees? Read more

Published 11 months ago by M. Larsen

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good - but for an infection by evolutionary biology

This book consists of three "parts". In the first part strong and plausible cases are made for (a) the role of rats in the deforestation of Easter Island; (b) "walking" as the... Read more

Published 11 months ago by Aldo Matteucci

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Product Details

• File Size: 3263 KB
• Print Length: 256 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (June 21, 2011)
• Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
• Language: English
• ASIN: B003V1WXEG
• Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #112,627 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #27 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Ecology
  • #27 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Biological Sciences > Ecology
  • #36 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Archaeology

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars New direction for viewing Easter Island June 18, 2011

By Anthony Cagle

Format:Hardcover

The main text is only 180 pages so it's eminently readable without an overbearing commitment of time, and it's directed at an interested lay public rather than strictly academics so anyone can easily follow it without fear of getting bogged down in a lot of jargon and ten thousand references. It does have references, but not too many and they pertain to key issues that allow the interested reader (albeit one with access to a university library for the most part) to follow up on certain topics. I was interested in some of the paleopathology studies that were referenced, so it was useful in that regard.

As they note, they didn't start working on Rapa Nui to decipher much of anything about why the moai were made, how they were moved and erected, or to develop a completely new perspective on the cultural and ecological history of the place; they were conducting a field school and general survey along with some excavations, assuming that they'd be filling in a few details here and there on the prehistory of what is probably one of the most studied specks of land on earth. What seems to have kicked off the more intensive study: determining a much later date for initial occupation (AD 1200 as opposed to the previously accepted dates of AD 400). If the date of initial occupation was so far off the accepted chronology, what else was?

The structure of the book is directed at examining what is really known about various aspects of the island's pre-/history both from early literary accounts and from past archaeological work (both normal dirt archaeology and of the experimental sort) and then adding in results from their own work over the past few years.... The part that I think is most valuable is that they actually quote the early explorers and evaluate them seriously in light of the archaeological evidence, especially the revised chronology. This not only puts the archaeological work in context with historical observations, but also suggests why we have viewed Easter Island the way we historically have. Ferinstance, the early chronology suggested people had been around for a good eight centuries before the extensive palm forests had begun to disappear, but their more recent dating work suggested deforestation began shortly after. . . .1200. Thus, with the new later chronology, deforestation seems to have started almost immediately upon arrival rather than after a long, uneventful habitation followed by intense statue-building. The process seems to have taken some time since the first European explorers in 1722 in fact noted that some "tracts of woodland" were still there as well as in 1868 during a British visit. Hence, the trees didn't apparently disappear in an orgy of statue construction but faded away in a more gradual process.

I actually found the early explorers' observations interesting from a, for lack of a better word, psychological perspective. The notion that there was something of a "golden era" of statue construction that resulted in environmental depredations started early with the Cook expedition of 1774 when the naturalist on board noted that the Easter Islanders seem to have degraded from more "happy and opulent times." This is echoed a few years later by a French explorer who noted that the relatively barren nature of the island was due "to the imprudence of their ancestors". So the idea that the Rapanui "did it to themselves" was set early on. Of course, none of them had any direct evidence for such; they were doubtless exhibiting the normal cultural imperialism of the day along with a healthy dose of Romanticism. But once the idea got written down it seems to have become the default explanation for most subsequent work and went largely unquestioned, at least in its basics, for the next 200+ years.

The rest of the book builds an archaeological case for a far different story of a fairly normal process of ecological degradation caused in large part (though not solely) by the introduction of rats to the island and the natives' response to it (Hunt, Lipo and colleagues have published several journal articles on this as well). What they demonstrate is that, far from despoiling a paradise, the Rapanui found an island that was marginal at best in terms of its carrying capacity, both in wild foods and its sufficiency for agriculture, and utilized it as best they could within the inherent (i.e., geological and geographical) and introduced (i.e., rats) limitations they were faced with. In a way, it turns on its head the conventional narrative, and not just from a purely ecological/cultural perspective: the worst depredations visited upon the natives were not caused by the Rapanui themselves -- who did a rather admirable job of looking after themselves on their isolated little island, thankyouverymuch -- but by Europeans who introduced disease, slavery, violence, and economies (e.g., large scale sheep ranching) that devastated the island's ecology and people far more than rats and Rapanui ever dreamed of.

A central part of the book seeks to explain the phenomenon of statue building as part of a larger Polynesian practice, enhanced by the isolated nature of the island and the social structure that it tended to favor. They utilize Darwinian evolution to explain this in terms of signaling theory and bet-hedging. They try to show that moai-building and the rather peaceful characteristics of the population are a natural outgrowth of the island environment and its founding culture. I'm guessing this will get the least attention, but it's probably the most innovative part of the whole book.

Along the way they provide a wealth of information on Rapanui agriculture and stone tool technology, and (to my surprise) have a shot at explaining how they moved the statues in the first place. They don't really come up with their own method, per se, but match an existing hypothesis (one that I'd never heard of, to be honest) with their own analysis of apparent road networks and the placements of statues along them (not to mention testimony from natives themselves as to how it was done) to make what I think is a pretty good case for -- wait for it -- walking statues. I'll leave it at that so some mystery remains to provide impetus to buy it. Suffice to say, the engineer in me liked the elegance and simplicity of their preferred method. `Engineered to move' as they call it.

Now, most are going to view this book as a direct challenge or response to Jared Diamond's "Collapse" which used Easter Island as a centerpiece of mankind's environmental short-sightedness. That's probably not fair, since I doubt Lipo or Hunt had that in mind when they were doing this research, but there it is. It's not just Diamond, of course, but a whole series of authors that have used those early observations as a basis for making hay out of the more recent plight of the Rapanui. I think a lot of people will argue with some of the details of their account, but I suspect it will probably change the conversation quite radically. I also half expect Hunt and Lipo to get slammed by the environmentalists for dispatching one of their sacred cows. But, you know, I was kind of left feeling that the modern criticism of the Rapanui by well-meaning environmentalists isn't maybe just a continuation of the cultural snobbishness that seems to have infected European dealings with the Easter Islanders from the very beginning. It's undoubtedly no longer possible, but after reading this book one is tempted think that if we would just leave them alone for once the Rapanui would go back to making a relatively peaceable and decent, if not easy, living on their "most mysterious island." Read more ›

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes, Aliens Did Invade Easter Island! July 25, 2011

By DRS

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

As a boy, I was really interested in the mysterious statutes of Easter Island and always hoped that somehow a UFO was involved. But as I grew up, aliens seemed less plausible. So, imagine my excitement when the authors of The Statues that Walked convinced me that indeed aliens were one of the culprits that contributed to the mystery of Easter Island. These alien invaders didn't float in from outer space, they came via the sea. They came in the form of rats adrift on detritus with voracious appetites for palm seeds, colonizers with foreign diseases, and slave traders. One alien invasion after another has left its indelible mark on history of Easter Island and yet against all odds the Rapa Nui people have persevered and in turn left their own mysterious mark on the island. This book is compelling. I had a hard time putting it down until the authors fully unraveled the mystery and debunked some previous assumptions. Yes, like other reviewers have noted it is based on excellent scholarship and a unique multidisciplinary approach which made it that much more satisfying to read.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Statues that Walked July 22, 2011

By Evan Peacock

Format:Hardcover

Finally, an archaeology book for the general public that conveys real information in an accessible manner without being dumbed down. And finally, a book that shows how archaeologists actually learn things, instead of endlessly rolling around in the "mystery" of the past. Eastern Island has long been the poster child for rampant speculation, where everyone with a pet "theory" spins the yarn of the day. Hunt and Lipo pose questions derived from a solid theoretical standpoint and show how questions can be answered with a high degree of certainty. This excellent book not only is a good read for pretty much anyone from late teens on, but would serve very well in the classroom as an example of how archaeology can function as a science rather than as pseudo-historical story telling. We badly need more examples like this to remove archaeology from the realm of myth-making and place it where it belongs: in the realm of scientific enterprise. Well done!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars More than a book about the archaeology of Easter Island July 23, 2011

By Tim Hunt

Format:Hardcover

While this book is an eminently readable and excellent example of a modern, scientific approach to unraveling the pre-history of Easter Island; I found that it offered much more than most "archaeology of" kind of books.

As an "archaeology of" kind of book, it is well written with just enough detail to support their arguments and conclusions, without getting too bogged down in cataloging all of the work that has been done on the island. I like how the book was structured: its organized into a series of easy steps that lead the reader through the author's path to knowledge as well as the multi-disciplinary evidence they combine to justify their conclusions. Unlike another reviewer, I didn't find the book "dry" at all: in fact I was surprised that I found it hard to put down ("I'll read just one more chapter" I would say to myself).

I think that this book also works well as a general "how science works" study: the authors use this book as an opportunity to share the process by which they arrived at this work, as a series of questions that when answered raise more questions and implications, and allow a gradual picture to emerge. This insight into the scientific process is interesting in its own right, and helps the reader understand the way that scientific knowledge is built brick by brick.

I think this book also work well as an example of the recent "historical-sociological-anthropological-ecological" genre most identified with "Guns, Germs, and Steel". I found "Statues" as entertaining as this, but more factual and less conjectural, albeit with a much smaller scope. It is refreshing to see anthropologists producing popular books about these issues, rather than leaving these topics to others....

Lastly, the biggest message I took with me after reading this book, was a new found sense of hope for humanity as we face an uncertain future in a rapidly changing social and ecological environment. Rather than focus on the inevitability of warfare and ecological devastation, perhaps we can follow the example of the Rapa Nui and achieve a peaceful and sustainable existence even in a challenging environment. Read more ›