Mystery of Rapa Nui
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The Mystery of Rapa Nui
An Introduction to the Tragedy of the Commons
Steve Zavestoski
Associate Professor
Sociology and Environmental Studies
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Where in the
World isEaster Island?
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How/When was Easter Island settled?
• Linguists estimate Easter Island's first inhabitantsarrived around AD 400
• Today most scholars agreethat they came from EastPolynesia.
• Tahiti and the Marquesashad been reached by AD300; southward, northward
and southeast explorationled Polynesians to Easter Island, Hawaii, and NewZealand.
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“Arrival on Rapa Nui,” by Liesl Clark
April 17, 1998
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.
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What’s so special about Easter Island?
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Moai: The Stone Giants•Called "moai" by islanders
•human heads-on-torsos carvedin the male form from roughhardened volcanic ash
• On average, they stand 13 feethigh and weigh 14 tons
•887 giant moai punctuate Easter Island's barren landscape
• When European explorers first
arrived 1722, 2/3 of island’s moaihad been destroyed
• No written record of their purpose
• Oral history is scant
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What could the Moai mean?
•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.
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Rano Raraku, a volcanic crater that is the
main quarry for Easter Island's statues,looks like a virtual moai graveyard.
Archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburgsuggests that the moai production inRano Raraku quarry probably startedand stopped often over the years.
Rano Raraku: The Quarry
The stone-faced giants lie in variousstates of production. Some are half carved, many are broken, and manyseem to have been abandoned inmid-transport.
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Paro is the island's largesttransported moai. Lyingface down, toppled from itsahu, Paro weighs 82 tonsand is 32.45 feet (9.89meters) long.
Paro: Moving the Moai
It is difficult to imaginehow the islanders movedsuch large statues fromthe quarry four miles (sixkilometers) away
Some have theorized thatit could have taken four tofive hundred people to
move Paro.
Paro's pukaoalone is almost
six feet (twometers) across,5.5 feet (1.7meters) high,and weighs 11.5
tons.
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Mystery of the Moai• Total number of moai on Easter Island:
887
• Total number of maoi transported totheir final ahu locations: 288 (32%)
• Total number of moai still in the RanoRaraku quarry: 397 (45%)
• Total number of moai lying 'in transit'
outside of the Rano Raraku quarry: 92(10%)
• Was it due to the inherent difficultiesin transporting them?
•Were the ones that remain in thequarry deemed culturally unworthy of transport?
•Were they originally intended toremain in place on the quarry slopes?
Less than a third of all carvedmoai actually made it to a finalceremonial ahu site. Why?
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Or, did the islanders exhaust the island’s
resources trying to carve and move the moai?•
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.
•
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."
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What can we learn?
If mere thousands of Easter Islanders with only stone tools and
their own muscle power sufficed to destroy their society, how can
billions of people with metal tools and machine power fail to do
worse?
“But there is one crucial difference. The Easter Islanders had no
books and no histories of other doomed societies. Unlike the
Easter Islanders, we have histories of the past-- information that
can save us. My main hope … is that we may now choose to learnfrom the fates of societies like Easter's.”
Jared Diamond, “Easter Island’s End,” Discover, August 1995
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The Tragedy of the Commons
“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.
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The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Two burglars, Bob and Al, are captured near the scene of a
burglary and are interrogated separately. Each has to
choose whether or not to confess and implicate the other.
If neither man confesses, then both will serve one year ona charge of carrying a concealed weapon. If each
confesses and implicates the other, both will go to prison
for 10 years. However, if one burglar confesses and
implicates the other, and the other burglar does notconfess, the one who has collaborated with the police will
go free, while the other burglar will go to prison for 20
years on the maximum charge.
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The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Al
Bob’ssentence
(in years)Al’s
sentence ConfessDon’t
Confess
Confess 10
10
0
20
Don’tConfess
20
0
11
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The failure of rational
decisionmaking…The “dilemma” faced by the prisoners here is that, whatever
the other does, each is better off confessing than remaining
silent. But the outcome obtained when both confess is worsefor each than the outcome they would have obtained had
both remained silent. A common view is that the puzzle
illustrates a conflict between individual and group
rationality. A group whose members pursue rational self-interest may all end up worse off than a group whose
members act contrary to rational self-interest.
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The Commons DilemmaAl
Catch/yr
X
# yrs left in
common
Observe
Limits
Don’tObserve
Limits
ObserveLimits
1 ton x ∞
1 ton x ∞
1 ton x 10yrs
2 tons
x 10 yrs
Don’tObserve
Limits
2 tons x 10yrs
1 ton
x 10 yrs
2 tonsx 5 yrs
2 tonsx 5 yrs
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How Can We Overcome
the Commons Dilemma?
• Sociology: Social solidarity and trust, maintained
by social institutions, protect the commons• Anthropology: Cultural beliefs and values
attached to the commons compel people to protectit
• Political Science: Government regulation of thecommons
• Economics: Privatize the commons, and peoplewill act to protect their privately owned piece of the former common resource
Different answers from different disciplines:
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