Introduction

Easter Island is one of the most remote inhabited islands on the planet, which is 3200 km far from the coast of Chile and 2000 km from the nearest inhabited island (Peiser, 2005). Polynesians sailed to Easter Island and began to settle at A.D. 300-400. Given the favorable environment on the island, the number of island inhabitants has grown rapidly and formed settlements, which have proliferated for hundreds of years thereafter. They even built giant statues, whose construction process still has been a mystery. Some scientists speculate that the maximum number of island inhabitants has reached 20,000. In the 19th century, however, only a few hundred people remained. What exactly caused the rapid decline of civilization? No consensus has reached yet.

Regarding the collapse of the population, Diamond (2005) believes that the decline of Easter Island civilization was caused by humans’ over-exploitation of the surrounding environment, which eventually led to the demise of civilization. On the contrary, Peiser (2005) believes that it is entirely wrong to think that Easter island’s civilization was in decline because of indiscriminate deforestation, and Diamond’s theory could lead people “astray” in a sense. This article will start with Diamond’s point of view, and then point out Peiser’s refutation of Diamond’s perception and demonstrate his explanation of the collapse of the population.

Diamond ’s Explanation: Overexploiting the Resources in the Island

Diamond (2005) believes that the root cause of the sharp decline in the population and the decline of civilization in Easter Island is due to the overexploitation of human resources. According to evidence of pollen and nut fossils in the island’s sediments, Easter Island used to be a lush forest with large palm trees. There are many animals in the forest, and there are three extinct volcanoes on the island. According to the original language records of the Easter Island aboriginals, the first residents of Easter Island were a group of people exiled from other islands in the Polynesian Islands. This boat carried chickens, taro, bananas and sugar cane. After many days of sailing, they were fortunate to discover the island.

In general, the food that inhabitants of the Polynesian Islands depend on is aquatic products and seabirds. The tall palm trees on the island can be used to build big ships, and the fruits of this big palm tree can still be eaten at a glance. After the fruits were ripe every year, they were made into wine as well. And the sap of the tree was also sweet and edible as one kind of syrup. The abundant natural resources and suitable environment have led to an explosive growth of the population. The fertile soil gives them time to develop a pluralistic social civilization, as well as time to carve the world-famous Moai statue (Giant Stone Statue of Easter Island).

Islanders began cutting down subtropical trees and large palm trees to build canoes and transport large stone statues. Palm trees on the island were becoming less and less due to over-exploitation. Palm trees grow very slowly. They take two years from seed to germination, and they take 15 years from germination to grow to a tree more than 10 meters high. That time the trees were cut down to make ships, houses, and stone statues. It was used to heat a fire, and some of the seeds are also scavenged by mice. All palm trees on Easter Island disappeared in the 14th century. Apart from palm trees, several other tall trees also disappeared during this period.

The consequences of deforestation are fatal. First of all, the dolphin meat that people rely on for their lives was gone, because there were no trees to build new ships to go deep-sea to hunt dolphins. But dolphins used to make up one-third of the food on the island. Secondly, most of the birds on the island were extinct. Because there was no forest, the birds would not come here to make nests.

Only the remaining land birds were eaten up by the people on the island. Next, they had to take a small broken boat around to find something to eat. Shellfish and conch, which they had ignored, were immediately fished out. After further development, the residents of the island could only rely on agriculture. In the past, agriculture was a supplement to the collection industry, but now vegetarian foods such as taro, bananas, and sweet potatoes have replaced the meat they used to eat. However, without forests, fertile soil was being lost, and agricultural production was becoming less and less.

The only protein that they can stably produce now is eggs, and those chickens were still descended from chickens brought by the earliest ancestors that landed 1,000 years ago. If chickens had not been introduced, there would have been no stable protein supply since 1500. At this time, the islanders desperately wanted to find something to eat, and even the rats that destroyed the palm trees were eaten by them, and the food production fell sharply. At that point, it was a civil war over resources. With the gradual depletion of food and the escalation of the war, stone statues on the entire island, whether completed or not, have been toppled during the war. Residents began to suffer more from famine, and finally, they even ate human flesh.

Why did the islanders cut down the last palm tree? Diamond (2005) assumed that the islanders who had cut down the last tree had not seen the original dense forest. Because the advent of the disaster was like boiling frogs in warm water, everything was going on quietly. The dense palm tree forest on the island was changing quietly year after year, so tiny that it was hard to detect. Trees were cut down year after year. When the last fruit-bearing large palm tree was cut down, the tree had long lost its economic significance. This is one of the reasons why the collapse that Diamond (2005) summarized happened: overexploitation without awareness of the crisis.

Diamond (2005) points out that the story of Easter Island is a microcosm of the society on the island from birth to prosperity to decline. In this example, it does not involve the defeat of powerful enemies and allies, and only contains the environmental issues and the response from the society. Therefore, the story of Easter Island is a metaphor for the global village after globalization today. According to Diamond (2005), the world is now in the process of environmental destruction and countermeasures.

Diamond considers himself as a cautious optimist because people can at least learn from history, and our ancestors have never had such opportunities. The crisis happened because it didn’t detect the problem in time. But after perceiving the problem, some groups remain indifferent until the end of society. Diamond (2005) believes that this indifference is a common response in human society. In the book, Diamond highlights that a mature society usually has its own core values, and for society, the key to success is to know which core values ​​should continue to be respected and which ones should be abandoned. Clearly, the core value of overexploiting for the Easter islanders is responsible for the population collapse.

Peiser ’s Refutation: Victims of Cultural and Physical Extermination

Peiser (2005) strongly refutes Diamond’s viewpoint in the paper. First of all, he disagrees with Diamond’s cannibalism, considering the extremely low reliability of the data Diamond applies. According to Diamond’s (2005)’s description, since there were no ships made of giant wood, the survivors after the war could not go fishing and hunting. They began to turn to a source of food that was never used: human flesh.

Human bones can be found everywhere in the late Easter Island waste dump site, and some bones have been broken to take in the bone marrow. The islanders’ oral history is still full of cannibalism, and the most aggressive insult to the enemy is: “Your mother’s flesh has jammed my teeth.” (Diamond, 2005). Peiser (2005) argues that many oral descriptions of locals are not accurate and reliable, as they may not even remember their history in the chaotic situation. Many of the earliest tourists in 1722 never carefully visited the entire island, but only stayed for a few days. Many records for the next 150 years were contradictory and discrete.

Secondly, Peiser (2005) believes that the island’s food is adequate over time, rather than falling into scarcity due to population growth and excessive consumption as described by Diamond (2005). Many records indicate that there were still plenty of chickens, eggs, and fish on Easter Island, and there were even countless mice available for human survival.

Therefore, the inhabitants of Easter Island would not be degraded to cannibalism. Peiser (2005) further points out that many studies have shown that the disappearance of trees was not the result of timber cutting, but possibly was the result of climate change. As we know, the climate became colder during the Little Ice Age, which is not suitable for plant growth. Peiser also explains why the cannibalism story prevails. The cannibalism allegations were fabricated by European whalers and predators and used to constantly attack the island’s residents.

Peiser also raises a deadly question in the article: Even if the last palm tree on the island was distinct in the 14th century, why are there still many residents living there, and the transportation of stone statues until the end of the 17th century. This issue is a powerful refutation of the widely held belief that island inhabitants perished for their own reasons. Peiser’s point of view is positive news for the Rapa Nui (Aboriginal inhabitants of Easter Island). Peiser believes that Diamond’s so-called civil war is fictionally based on Thor Heyerdahl, and the island’s “self-decline” story is not true.

According to Peiser, the island is a grassland with a variety of flora and fauna, and food has never been scarce. Even though palm trees became extinct in the 14th century due to climate, other plants are still abundant. The decline of Easter Island’s Aboriginal civilization began with the landing of Dutch colonists in the 18th century. When the colonists invaded the local population after the invasion, even the colonists brought some fatal diseases, such as syphilis and smallpox, which accelerated the decline of the indigenous people’s civilization on Easter Island. The population was reduced to just over 100 survivors in 1877 due to a series of slave plunders subsequent smallpox pandemics and mass migrations in the 1960s and 1970s.

Based on this, Peiser concluded that the indigenous people of Easter Island showed no signs of decline until they were discovered by Europeans in 1722. Despite Easter Island’s isolation, the local people have made every effort to survive and develop. In Peiser’s eyes, Diamond’s environmental revisionism is not desirable, as Diamond did not treat this problem with the rigorous attitude of a scientist, but just made up a story calling for people to cherish resources and take good care of the environment.

Conclusion

In the book, Diamond emphasizes the previous abundance of resources on the island. The explosion of population and over-exploitation of resources led to the decline of civilization. Accordingly, Diamond considers Easter Island as a metaphor and a warning for human development. However, Peiser argues that the people of the island have done their best to survive and thrive.

According to Peiser’s arguments, the reasoning in Diamond’s book is not scientifically rigorous, such as using unreliable historical records and fictional inference. Peiser believes the main causes of the population collapse were slave raids, infectious diseases, and migration. Peiser’s point is more convincing for explaining the rapid decline in population over a short period of time. However, it is worth noting that the population collapse in Easter Island is a complex issue, and it is very likely that all factors are responsible for the civilization’s demise.

Word Count: 1988

References

Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed. Penguin.

Peiser, B. (2005). From genocide to ecocide: the rape of Rapa Nui. Energy & Environment, 16(3-4), 513-539.