National Geographic
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2019–2024
0:43 · 3.6M views · Jun 21, 2012
A one-minute National Geographic clip of researchers Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo testing a theory that Easter Islanders used ropes to rock the moai statues upright to walk them to their platforms.
Cited as evidence of how ancient people could move huge stones with only ropes and simple methods.
3 comments from Hacker News
As far as I'm aware, this has been thoroughly debunked, especially by Hunt and Lipo [1], who have argued against the "ecocide" theory, pointing out that the deforestation appeared to have had a positive effective on the islander's agriculture, and that contrary to Diamond's claims, the population was increasing, not falling, at the time of European contact. The deforestation was almost certainly caused by the Polynesian rat, as archeological research has shown that the same type of deforestation happened on other islands where rats where accidentally introduced, but not on settled islands where there were no signs of rats having been introduced. I believe Diamond (or maybe it was Heyerdahl) claims the settlers chopped down the forest in order to make rolling logs for transporting statues, but we now know that statues were transported by "walking" them using ropes [2]. As a pop-sci counterpart to "Collapse", I recommend the podcast The Fall of Civilization's episode on Easter Island [3], which includes this newer research. The podcast is wonderful in general, and that episode is one of the best in the series. As far I'm concerned, Diamond has a lot to answer for in perpetuating these modern myths that get repeated long after they've been debunked. His narratives catch people's interest because they are simple explanations that "make sense", and come with a kind of moral component, one of dramatic irony (the settlers were so stupid to chop down their trees, just to make these u
His theories are about 'advanced civilizations' that build everything, and somehow disappeared, and the humans that came later just found the knowledge ready... etc. etc. Basically a bunch of crap without any evidence. If it was an advanced civilization, they would have left plenty of tools and artifacts behind, but they didn't. The only evidence he mentions how Goebli Teppe or the Sphynx, were so extraordinary, that they could only be build by some advanced civilization. Yet, we have no proof of what he says whatsover. Stonehedge, Mayan pyramids, Atlantis, etc.. are all been mixed in these types of imaginations. The fact is that early humans were not stupid savages/cavemen, and civilizations have gone though booms and busts cycles even in this era. But that doesn't mean that there was some kind of fantastic civilization that we don't know about. Fact is that when in good times, where food is plentiful, people like to build stuff, for fun, religion, etc... In bad times we did build either walls for defense, or just raided other people for resources. Today's crazy buildings are stadiums, large concert/opera halls, etc... which are not needed at all for basic survival yet we crave them and are willing to spend lots of resources for them. so, building stuff, is ingrained in us, and the neolithic people were just like us in this desire. Also, here is a clear evidence of how could people move large amount of rock, with just ropes and primitive materials. (the wheel was not invente
Always seemed more likely to me, at least some method like it. Simple, clever tricks using the leverage. This is how some researchers think easter island heads were moved around: this video