Ep. 110 Easter Island: How the Remote Pacific Island of Rapa Nui Became An Unnecessary Mystery

In April of 1722 Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen and his crew stumbled upon a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They sailed for the Dutch West India Company in search of Terra Australis Incognita, a hypothetical undiscovered continent that doesn’t actually exist. The land they found instead was just a 64 square mile speck some 1,200 miles from the nearest island and over 2,000 miles from the nearest continent. This island, which they spotted on Easter Sunday, was incredibly small and incredibly remote. And yet, remarkably, there seemed to be people living there. Roggeveen and his crew were confused, as were the handful of Europeans who made occasional landfall in the centuries that followed. None of them could understand the mysterious people of Easter Island. Where did they come from? How did they get there? Why did they carve massive stone heads? How did they move them? There were so many unanswered questions that have led to a complete lack of answers even today. But the real mystery is, why didn’t anyone just ask the Rapanui people themselves? Perhaps, if they had, Easter Island, Rapa Nui wouldn't be the mystery it is today. Join me this week to finally learn about Rapa Nui. We’ll examine recent DNA evidence that completely debunks past theories and we’ll finally listen to the Rapanui people whose rich oral traditions, storytelling, have survived despite it all.

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Sources: 

• UNESCO "Rapa Nui National Park"
• Smithsonian Magazine "The Secrets of Easter Island"
• Smithsonian Magazine "Easter Island's Ancient Population Never Faced Ecological Collapse, Suggests Another Study
• Nature "Ancient Rapanui genomes reveal resilience and pre-European contact with the Americas
• EBSCO "European Discovery of Easter Island"
• Wikipedia "History of Easter Island"
• PBS NOVA Online "Secrets of Easter Island"

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