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Easter Island. Source: Nadge / Adobe Stock.

How the Civilization on Easter Island Collapsed (Video)

The civilization on Easter Island faced a complex and ultimately catastrophic decline. Initially, this tiny island boasted a lush palm forest and abundant bird species, allowing its inhabitants, the...
Easter Island moai statues. Source: 16to9foto / Adobe Stock.

Scientists Make Easter Island Moai Statue Walk (Video)

Easter Island , also known as Rapa Nui , is a remote and mysterious island in the Pacific Ocean that has long captured the imagination of people around the world. The island is home to the famous...
Stylized AI generated graphic of a Moai statue.         Source: artefacti/Adobe Stock

New Moai Statue Found on Chile’s Easter Island Excites Researchers

In the news last October for the damage inflicted by a forest fire over 100 hectares, Easter Island is now in the news again – for the discovery and addition of a new Moai statue on the Chilean...
The famous moai statues of Easter Island have been damaged by a fire that is under investigation. Source: Municipality of Rapa Nui

700-Year-Old Moai Statues Irreparably Damaged by Fire on Easter Island

A shocking case of possible arson, still officially being called a forest fire, has caused irreparable damage to the ancient moai statues on Easter Island. The iconic towering stone heads and other...
The return of the moai to Rapa Nui from Chile. Source: Paula Rossetti

The Return of the Moai: Rapa Nui and the Fight for its Ancestors

Rapa Nui, the original name for Easter Island, is most famous for its giant monolithic moai statues. Located 3,512 km (2,182 mi) off the coast of Chile, Rapa Nui has suffered a history of constant...
Easter Island. Source: Aliaksei / Adobe Stock

Easter Island and the Mysteries of the Moai

Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui , is a remote Chilean island a few thousand kilometers west of South America in the Pacific Ocean. Described as an archaeological Disneyland, the island has...
Moai on Rapa Nui, aka Easter Island. Source: thakala /Adobe Stock

Hidden Rapa Nui: Easter Island’s Cults, Cannibals, and Cultural Connections

Two-thousand-and-two-hundred miles (3,500 km) west beyond the coast of Chile, in the dark blue belly of the southeastern Pacific Ocean, hides Easter Island. A slightly more appropriate name of this...
Easter Island moai statue destroyed by truck.            Source: Comunidad Indígena Ma'u Henua

Truck Driver Destroyed Famous Easter Island Moai Statue

In a freak accident, a truck crashed into and destroyed one of the famous moai statues of Easter Island. Police arrested a Chilean man who lives on the legendary Easter Island and he was charged with...
Main: Group of Moai monoliths during sunset on Easter Island. Inset: Birdman cult carvings on the back of standing Moai.       Source: Aliaksei & thakala / Adobe stock

Easter Island’s Birdman Cult: A Story of Struggle and Survival

The Pacific Ocean is a world filled with diverse and remote islands, which are the home to some truly unique natives. Many of these islands were discovered comparatively recently in our history, and...
Group of Moai statues at the quarry of Rano Raraku, Easter Island.    Source: thomaslusth / Adobe Stock

Easter Island’s Moai Enigma Finally Solved?

Rapa Nui (or Easter Island , as it is commonly known) is home to the enigmatic Moai , stone monoliths that have stood watch over the island landscape for hundreds of years. Their existence is a...
Moai Statues

Photos Reveal Giant Easter Island Moai Statues are Covered in Mysterious Symbols

Images from the 2012 excavation of Easter Island’s iconic statues reveal the renowned heads are not only connected to giant bodies, but the bodies are covered in mysterious designs and symbols, which...
Restored statue platform with standing moai on the south coast of Rapa Nui. Note that one of the moai is adorned with a red scoria pukao.

How the Easter Island Statues Received Their Hats: Final Report

How do you put a 13-ton hat on a giant statue? That's what a team of researchers is trying to figure out with their study of Easter Island statues and the red hats that sit atop some of them. "Lots...
Tahai - Ahu Ko Te Riku, moai adorned with a pukao.

Pukao Study Claims Easter Island had a Cooperative Community Not A Warrior Culture

Analysis of these giant stone hats found on Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) provides evidence contrary to the widely held belief that the ancient civilization had a warrior culture. According to a...
Moai statues on Easter Island

Mystery Deepens As Study Finds Native Americans Did NOT Help to Populate Easter Island

Easter Island is a place of mystery that has captured the public imagination. Famous for ancient carved statues and a location so remote it boggles the mind, the island presents a captivating puzzle...
Maoi statues of Easter Island with Pukao

Study Claims to Have Solved Mystery of Giant Easter Island Hats

Archaeologists have long debated how the ancient inhabitants of Easter Island managed to balance a separate piece of stone on top of the heads of the famous moai statues that are dotted across the...
Easter Island

New research suggests early contact between Easter Island and Americas

People may have been making their way from Easter Island to the Americas well before the Dutch commander Jakob Roggeveen arrived with his ships in 1722, according to new genomic evidence showing that...
Easter Island

New Research Challenges Reason for Easter Island Collapse

Easter Island , or Rapa Nui, in the Polynesian language, is a small remote island a few thousand miles west of South America. One of the most interesting features of this island is its 887 giant...
The Cataclysm of Easter Island - The Museum in Hanga Roa

The Cataclysm of Easter Island - The Museum in Hanga Roa (Part 6)

Our last stop was the archeological museum in Hanga Roa. Our group made a walk to the museum at the far end of town. We bought our tickets to museum and trailed in to look at the various exhibits in...
Wall of Vinapu, Easter Islands

The Cataclysm of Easter Island - The Megalithic Wall of Vinapu (Part 5)

When Jacques Cousteau came to Easter Island, he performed several important investigations. One was diving around the island searching for statues and other possible artifacts in the ocean. The...
The Cataclysm of Easter Island - Stones Walking

The Cataclysm of Easter Island - Stones Walking (Part 4)

The theory that the statues had been moved to their places by the use of wooden rollers or sleds has some problems: one was that the island is so rocky, it would have been impossible to roll any logs...
The Cataclysm of Easter Island - And the Statures Walked

The Cataclysm of Easter Island - And the Statues Walked… (Part 3)

Easter Island may have been first discovered over 5,000 years ago, though the oldest carbon dating is from about 300 AD. Most sites are near the ocean and would have been washed and destroyed by...
The Cataclysm of Easter Island - The Strange Rongorongo Script

The Cataclysm of Easter Island - The Strange Rongorongo Script (Part 2)

Little is known of this strange script which includes pictographic and geometric shapes; often the figures are of a birdman with his arms and legs in various positions. The script was written in the...
The Cataclysm of Easter Island

The Cataclysm of Easter Island - Part 1

It was on a windy spring morning in February of 2013 that I stepped off the Lan Peru jet onto the runway on Easter Island/Rapa Nui. A group of WEX members and I had boarded the plane in Lima, Peru...