8/4/2019 Mystery of Rapa Nui http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mystery-of-rapa-nui 1/18 The Mystery of Rapa Nui An Introduction to the Tragedy of the Commons Steve Zavestoski Associate Professor Sociology and Environmental Studies [email protected]IMAGES REMOVED Tuesday, September 20, 2011
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Nothing can prepare you for a place like this -- a tiny speck of land that sits in themiddle of the South Pacific and is a 5-hour plane ride from anywhere else on
Earth. Green grass volcanic craters rise up from low-lying hills covered withmillions of basalt lava rocks rounded with time. Surf pounds the black rockcoastline and breathtaking views from the hills above inevitably draw your eyetoward the flat infinite horizon.
•The moai and ceremonial sites arealong the coast, with a concentrationon Easter Island's southeast coast.
•They stand with their backs to the seaand are believed by mostarchaeologists to represent the spiritsof ancestors, chiefs, or other high-ranking males who held importantpositions in the history of Rapa Nui.
•The moai may also hold a sacred rolein the life of the Rapa Nui, acting asceremonial conduits for communication with the gods.
Rapa Nui's population reached ahigh of 9,000 by 1550.
•Moai carving and transport werein full swing from 1400 to 1600
•Between 1600 and European
contact in 1722, Rapa Nuiunderwent radical change
•Core sampling from the islandhas revealed deforestation, soildepletion, and erosion
•From this devastating ecologicalscenario it is not hard to imaginethe resulting overpopulation,food shortages, and ultimatecollapse of Rapa Nui society.
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Most scholars point to the culturaldrive to complete the moai as thekey cause of depletion of theisland's resources.
•Palm forests disappeared, cleared
for agriculture as well as for moving moai
•Archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburgcomments, "The price they paidfor the way they chose to
articulate their spiritual andpolitical ideas was an island worldwhich came to be, in many ways,but a shadow of its former naturalself."
“Each man is locked intoa system that compelshim to increase his herdwithout limit—in a worldthat is limited. Ruin is thedestination toward whichall men rush, eachpursuing his own bestinterest in a society thatbelieves in the freedom of
the commons. Freedom ina commons brings ruin toall.”
Garret Hardin, “The
Tragedy of theCommons,” Science,162(1968):1243-1248.