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ArsTechnica has a story that suggests that Easter Island is not an allegory for a failed lifeboat-earth scenario that so many claim.
While trying to explain the "Hats" on some Easter Island statues, the article reveals that the scientific thinking has been slowly changing over the years, and the Islanders are probably not guilty of all the tragically foolish things we assumed, and the ssland was never as populated as some had surmised.
Along the way several key theories have changed:
- Rats and wildfires, not human clearing, doomed the island's palm forests, while European diseases and slavery doomed its people.
- Significant variation in Statutes and Hats suggests they were village size projects, rather than kingdom sized. Work crews were much smaller than imagined.
- Stone hats were simply rolled on the ground from quarry to pedestal, and not with gangs of slave labor, and tree trunk rollers.
- The statues themselves may have been rolled as well.
- Statues were corner "walked" like a refrigerator by a few people with levers and stones.
- Hats were rolled up and incline plane of rocks with ropes, (parbuckeling) by as few as just 15 people.
And if that's the case, then the Rapanui wouldn't actually have needed a workforce of thousands, under the direction of a powerful central ruling class, to install the hats. A few smaller communities could have done the job, which supports the argument that Easter Island's population was always small and didn't drive itself to collapse by building giant statues. Lipo and Hunt had previously come to the same conclusion about moving the actual statues.
That finding goes a long way to exonerate the ancient Rapanui in the case of their own population crash. The statues would have been a big project, but they clearly weren't ecocidally resource-intensive monuments to irrational cultural hubris, either.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 06 2018, @09:26AM (2 children)
What is this, yet another very subtle AGW denying submission, by our resident artist? Yeah, that's it, see? No environmental crisis here! Just a minor technical glitch, the RapaNuinians just did not vote for more tax cuts and less regulation! That's the ticket!
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday June 07 2018, @02:02AM (1 child)
There is a cooling, and there’s a heating. I mean look, it used to not be climate change, it used to be global warming. That wasn’t working too well because it was getting too cold all over the place. The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records. They’re at a record level.
I’ll tell you what. I have an open mind to it. We’re going to look very carefully. It’s one issue that’s interesting because there are few things where there’s more division than climate change. You don’t tend to hear this, but there are people on the other side of that issue, a lot of smart people disagree with you. I have a very open mind. And I’m going to study a lot of the things that happened on it and we’re going to look at it very carefully. But I have an open mind. You know the hottest day ever was in 1890-something. 98. You know, you can make lots of cases for different views. I have a totally open mind.
Jim Bridenstine, my NASA guy, said something very smart. He said "scientists absolutely contribute to global warming."
Let me tell you, my uncle was for 35 years a professor at MIT. He was a great engineer, scientist. He was a great guy. And a long time ago, he had feelings. This was a long time ago, he had feelings on this subject. It’s a very complex subject. I’m not sure anybody is ever going to really know. I know we have -- they say they have -- science on one side but then they also have those horrible EMAILS that were sent between the scientists. Where was that, in Geneva or wherever 7 years ago? Terrible. Where they got caught, you know, so you see that and you say, what’s this all about. I absolutely have an open mind. I will tell you this. Clean air is vitally important. Clean water, CRYSTAL CLEAN water, is vitally important. I'm a very big believer in clean air and clean water. I believe in clean air. I believe in crystal-clear, beautiful water. I believe in just having good cleanliness in all. I feel much better after I thoroughly wash my hands, which I do as much as possible. Safety is vitally important. I think right now, well, I think there is some connectivity. There is some, something. It depends on how much. It also depends on how much it’s going to cost our companies. You have to understand, our companies are non-competitive right now. And we have to talk to China about that, we have to talk to Japan, we have to talk to many people.
Now, with that being said, if somebody said go back into the Paris accord, it would have to be a completely different deal because we had a horrible deal. As usual, they took advantage of the US. We were in a terrible deal. Would I go back in? Yeah, I’d go back in. I like, as you know, I like Emmanuel. He's the President of Paris. But I'm the President of Pittsburgh. I would love to, but it’s got to be a good deal for the US.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday June 07 2018, @02:52AM
You know, I am starting to think is is the realDonaldJTrump. The insanity is just too fresh to be a mimicry.