All language subtitles for Truthseekers.S01E11.Easter.Island.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track4_[eng]

[intense music playing]

[flames crackling]

[soft music playing]

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] A team of
truthseekers is on a mission.

Scientists.

Historians.

Archaeologists.

All on the trail
of history's enigmas.

[dramatic music playing]

Searching for the truth

behind the greatest mysteries
known to humanity.

It is one of the most
remote places on the planet.

This barren rock
in the South Pacific

was once home to
an extraordinary civilization:

the Rapa Nui
of Easter Island.

They created
a paradise on Earth

and carved
great stone sentinels

to watch over them.

And then they vanished.

Where did they come from?

Why did they carve
such monumental statues?

And what happened
to those who built them?

In London,
our team assemble.

Our four truthseekers
combine decades of experience

in different fields.

But they all have one goal:

to apply their knowledge
and reveal the truth.

There are mysteries,
and then there are mysteries.

I have always loved uncovering
the secrets of the past.

We need to go back and unpick
the untruths from the truths.

Age-old problems that
we've been asking ourselves

for over 100 years really,
can now be solved.

[narrator] They'll follow
the clues left behind,

unravel the secrets
of the past,

separate fact from fiction,

and together
they'll uncover the truth...

[dramatic music playing]

...behind the greatest
mysteries ever.

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[intense music playing]

[Tony] Easter Island is one
of the remotest places on Earth

and with an incredibly
visual culture,

these massive stone heads
looking forlornly out to sea.

And it's also,
most fascinating,

one of the last places
on Earth

to be colonized
by human beings.

One of the greatest mysteries

about the people
on Easter Island

is where do they come from?

Was it originally from China,
via Polynesia to Easter Island?

Or did they come
from Latin America,

as some believe.

And then,
what happened to them?

What caused the catastrophic
fall of this civilization?

Easter Island is
a really remote dot of land.

An island community

is always going to be
of interest to anthropologists

as it tends to develop

distinct ecology
and cultural systems

as compared to the mainland.

And it makes it
a really ideal place

to look at processes
of social change.

[Mark] Given
this isolation,

it's been of great fascination
to archaeologists.

It was once a lush environment,
lush island,

supporting a lot of people.

By the 19th century,

it was a desolate island

with very few people
living on it.

Could it foretell
our own future?

Could it be a kind of warning

to our own planet's
potential demise?

[soft, tense music playing]

[narrator] To solve the
mysteries of this small island,

the team is examining
three main sources.

There's
the archaeological record,

the buried remnants
of the past

uncovered by scientists.

There are the stories told
by the European outsiders,

the first explorers
to reach the island.

And then there are the people
of Rapa Nui itself.

Dr. Fern Riddell has been
taking a closer look

at the culture
which lived on the island

and built the strange
standing stones

it's famous for.

[Fern] Easter Island is formed
of three extinct volcanoes.

And it was created
about 400,000 years ago

when the largest
of these volcanoes,

Terevaka,
burst out of the sea.

These eruptions joined
with the two smaller volcanoes

and created Easter Island.

[narrator] Much like
the Pacific Ring of Fire,

Hawaii, and other
oceanic islands,

Easter Island is volcanic
and built on basalt rock.

Its volcanic birth
from the ocean floor

is also the reason
for its isolated location.

The reason why Easter Island
is so fascinating

is because it's one
of the last places in the world

that humans colonized,

and it really is the birth
of its own civilization.

[energetic music playing]

And it's absolutely unbelievable
as a microcosm of society.

[narrator] Easter Island
is located

deep in the Pacific Ocean.

The island measures just
24 kilometers from end-to-end.

It is 12 kilometers wide.

The nearest mainland
is South America,

more than
3,000 kilometers east.

But even the nearest
inhabited island

is 2,000 kilometers away.

Easter Island is located

in one of the most remote places
in the world.

It's in the eastern corner

of what we call
the Polynesian Triangle,

which is this vast expanse
of the Pacific Ocean.

[narrator]
The dates are disputed,

but there is general agreement

that after leaving Africa
around 100,000 years ago,

humans spread across
Asia and Europe.

Within 75,000 years,

they had populated
the Eurasian landmass

and began to cross
the Bering Land Bridge

from Eurasia to the Americas.

[soft, tense music playing]

The Polynesian expansion
began around 4,000 years ago

when people left
the Southeast Asian Mainland

and over the next 3,000 years
set off to populate

the largest expanse
of water on the planet:

the Pacific.

Polynesians managed
to navigate, discover,

and colonize huge numbers
of islands

within the Pacific Ocean.

The last place
they get to is Rapa Nui,

or Easter Island.

[soft, tense music playing]

[narrator] Reaching the island
must have been an epic journey

for the first settlers
of Rapa Nui.

When that happened,
and from where,

has long been debated.

The people of Rapa Nui
believe they are Polynesian,

the descendants
of the men and women

who left that Asian coastline
thousands of years ago

and spread across
the Pacific

in a wave of migration
from island to island.

But how did they do it?

So before Stonehenge
and before the Bronze Age,

we know that Polynesians
left the coast of Asia

and began navigating
the Pacific Ocean by stars.

[narrator] Polynesian
wayfinding

is the ancient art
of celestial navigation.

With no modern sextant,

compass, or evidence
of any navigational equipment,

these master sailors
were able to navigate

huge distances
over empty oceans

using an ingenious combination
of techniques.

[soft, tense music playing]

[birds chirping]

They would note
the flight paths of birds

native to each
island or atoll,

knowing when they migrated
or flew out to sea,

and follow their paths.

Being located largely
in the equatorial seas,

they had a full view
of the celestial sky

and could remember
and recall the locations

of over 100 stars

and which islands
they corresponded to.

They could even tell
which islands they were near,

from the changing
nature of the waves.

As a cultural historian,

one of the most important
sources that I use

is oral history and tradition.

And with the Rapa Nui,

we have incredible stories
and songs about their origin,

life on the islands,

and their own history
to draw from.

[narrator] Like lots
of Polynesian cultures,

the Rapa Nui
told of their history

through story and song.

One of the most important

described how
their ancestors embarked

on such an epic journey
into the unknown.

[Fern] The origin story
of the Rapa Nui

comes from one of their kings,
Hotu Matu'a,

and his people are looking
for a new home.

And he finds
that one of his advisors

has had a dream of this
incredible three-point island.

So he sends them off
to hunt for it.

[narrator] Seven men
left in a canoe

stocked with food
for a long voyage.

Five weeks later,
they discovered Rapa Nui.

There are no records
of when this king lived

or what year
the Polynesians

first stepped foot
on the island.

Whenever it was,

the Polynesian settlers then
brought in their catamarans,

everything they needed to start
a new civilization.

Bananas, root vegetables,
and sugar cane.

Saplings to plant, and small
animals to breed and eat.

They're not
a shipwrecked people.

They're people with
an incredible civilization

and culture,
and a huge skill set

that they are bringing
to Rapa Nui's shores.

[narrator] Cut off
from the rest of the world,

over the generations,

the people of Rapa Nui
developed a unique culture

of their own.

Unlike other
Polynesian societies,

they mastered
the art of writing.

Their script
is known as Rongorongo.

It was learned
only by the ruling classes

and by priests.

To modern scholars
it is a riddle,

but they've established
that they compiled lists

of important events

and of people killed
in battle or at sea.

But without the help
of the Rapa Nui themselves,

the curious symbols

have defied all attempts
to decipher them.

But it is not
their mysterious writing

that the Rapa Nui
are most famous for.

The Moai.

Hundreds of these statues
were carved with stone chisels

directly from the crater
of a volcano.

These were
the "aringa ora ata tepuna,"

the living faces
of the holy ancestors,

the islanders
that had gone before.

Carved out of the bedrock
with stone chisels,

it's thought each Moai
took up to a year to make.

Some were as tall
as ten meters high.

They could weigh
more than 80 tons.

These giants were dragged to
the edge of the volcano quarry

and then carefully slid down
the grassy slopes beyond.

From there,
somehow the Rapa Nui

transported the Moai
up to twenty kilometers

across their island's
rough terrain.

They stood them
on the coasts,

on great stone pedestals
called "ahu."

The silent faces
stared inland.

They watched on
as the community flourished

and Rapa Nui
brimmed with life.

And they watched on
as that society crumbled.

[Fern] When the Rapa Nui
arrived at Easter Island,

they saw deep forests,
palm, and hardwood trees.

Now, that's nothing
like the Easter Island

that we see today.

So the question is,
what happened?

[soft, tense music playing]

[narrator]
By the mid-18th century,

the once lush island
was barren.

Its windswept hills
were covered

only in grass and shrubs,

the trees were gone,

and the once thriving community

that had built
the magnificent Moai

had withered away.

When we ask how the Rapa Nui
civilization collapsed,

people tend to look
at deforestation

and say that this is why
the civilization

no longer exists.

[narrator] For centuries,
it was believed

that the Rapa Nui
had committed "ecocide."

They had over-exploited
the resources

of their tiny island.

This had provoked
an ecological chain reaction

that destroyed
the local environment,

and their way of life forever.

The reason
for this destructive path

was said to be
the Moai themselves.

It was assumed
that each of the massive Moai

had to be dragged across
the island on wooden rollers.

The obsession with crafting
these stone heads

was blamed
for the felling

of hundreds of the island's
precious palm trees,

so many that eventually
a tipping point was reached,

and the environment
could not recover.

[Fern] And that's very much
to do with our own culture

and what's happening
within it,

because we're facing deforestation

across the world today.

But when you actually listen
to the Rapa Nui themselves

and they tell us
how the Moai were created,

it doesn't work.

[soft, tense music playing]

[narrator] According
to the Rapa Nui,

there was no mass felling
of trees for the Moai.

The great statues were not
dragged along the ground

on rollers at all.

Instead, the islanders claimed
that the mighty stones

reached their distant perches
in a far simpler way.

They walked.

What these songs
and stories give us

is tantalizing glimpses into
the factual historical past.

In the case
of the Rapa Nui,

it is absolutely key
that we listen to them,

that we understand
their culture

and the world
that they created.

[narrator]
Without an understanding

of their written history, Rongorongo,

the potential key
to their lived experience,

oral history is
all we have to rely on.

Though it can be
an unreliable source

of historical information,

the truthseekers can begin
to build a picture

to get to the truth.

What's incredibly important
about these songs and stories

is they help us
try to understand

when the Rapa Nui first
arrived at Easter Island.

But we have to be
really careful.

Myth and legend
and stories and songs

always go hand in hand,

and they can be
deeply contradictory.

[narrator] The Rapa Nui
stories of walking stones

were dismissed
for centuries as mere legends.

But it's recently
been revealed

that there is more to the tales
than previously thought.

Stunning recent discoveries
by scientists

have overturned
centuries of wisdom

and forced historians
to rewrite this story.

The Moai did walk
the craggy hills of Rapa Nui.

And its people did not
commit ecocide at all.

But if ecocide
isn't the answer,

then what happened
on the island?

Who, or what,
was to blame?

[intense music playing]

[nocturnal creatures chirring]

The shores of Easter Island:
Rapa Nui.

Above the crashing surf,

their backs turned towards
the mighty Pacific Ocean,

stand the Moai.

These great stone carvings

were the work
of a remarkable people.

A people who built
a flourishing society

with a strong
and enduring visual culture

on the most remote island
on the planet.

A people who then almost
entirely disappeared.

Dr. Fern Riddell has examined
the oral tradition

of the Rapa Nui
for clues to this mystery.

Anthropologist
Dr. Karen Bellinger

has been investigating
what modern science can tell us

about the truth
behind those old tales.

What I'm really
excited about

in exploring
the Easter Island mystery

is to dig down
into the weeds

of these competing theories
that have arisen

as to what happened
to these people.

[narrator] Rapa Nui legend

tells of a Polynesian King,
Hotu Matu'a,

who sent his people out
to find a new home.

That home was Easter Island.

But not all modern scientists
have agreed

with this telling
of the story.

In the 1940s,

one Thor Heyerdahl set out
to prove it wrong.

Thor Heyerdahl was the first
to re-examine Rapa Nui

from an academic standpoint
with his Kon-Tiki expedition.

[soft music playing]

[narrator] Heyerdahl
was an anthropologist

with a controversial theory.

The Rapa Nui themselves

always said that
they came from Polynesia.

And, in fact,
linguistic and genetic data

supported that theory,
not Heyerdahl's.

[narrator] He believed
that the Polynesians

who inhabited the islands
of the Pacific

were not the descendants
of migrants from Asia.

Heyerdahl claimed instead
that their roots

stretched across the ocean
in the opposite direction,

towards South America.

According to Heyerdahl,

the islands were first
occupied around 500 AD

by settlers from Peru.

This theory relied on
some linguistic, genetic,

and other scattered
archaeological evidence

to claim that Easter Island's
remote location

was accessible from
the Southern American mainland

which had likely
human habitation

for 13,000 years
by this point,

plenty of time to develop

the requisite
seafaring capability

for a 4,000-kilometer journey.

To prove his theory,

Heyerdahl mounted
a daring experiment.

He built a primitive raft
out of balsa wood, mangrove,

and other native
materials of Peru,

and used the indigenous designs

recorded by
the Spanish conquistadors.

He called it the Kon-Tiki.

Kon-Tiki is a raft
that Heyerdahl built himself

according to methods

that would have been
available at the time.

And he sailed it
from South America

to an island in the vicinity
of Easter Island,

proving that it would indeed
have been possible

for prehistoric people
from South America

to have reached
Easter Island.

[soft music playing]

[narrator] Heyerdahl
and his five companions

set off from the city
of Callao in Peru

on the 28th of April, 1947.

They sailed their raft
for 101 days,

almost 7,000 kilometers
across the Pacific Ocean.

This rather sensational bit
of experimental archaeology

captured the public imagination.

And, you know, it did prove that
it was theoretically possible

for a person to do that
with limited technology.

But the conclusions Heyerdahl
drew from this are, at best,

a bit controversial
in academic terms.

[narrator] Heyerdahl returned
to Easter Island in the 1950s.

He was the first to conduct

archaeological digs
on the island,

and he made some bold claims
about what he found.

He identified a resemblance
between the ahu,

pedestals the famous
Moai statues sat upon,

and stonework seen on
Inca structures in Peru.

And he uncovered
on the east of the island

the remnants
of an ancient hearth

covered in charcoal,
which he dated to 400 AD.

This, he claimed,
all backed up his theory

of the original settlement
from South America.

More modern studies, however,

have cast doubt
on Heyerdahl's conclusions.

In the late 1970s,

Rapa Nui was visited by
another team of scientists.

John Flenley was an expert
in pollen

at the New Zealand University
of Massey.

[Karen] Flenley examined
pollen samples

from cores he took from
the lake beds on the island

and he discovered
that in fact

the island had been
forested heavily

for tens of thousands of years

and that the pollen evidence
further suggested a process

of deforestation beginning
only in about 800 AD

and concluding by 1500.

And this moved forward
the settlement of Easter Island

by 400 years from
what Heyerdahl had believed.

[narrator] Heyerdahl's theories
took another blow

in the early 2000s.

Excavations began
on a sandy beach

on Rapa Nui's
northern shore.

A team of archaeologists
was led by Terry Hunt

from the University of Hawaii

and Carl Lipo from
California State University.

[Karen] Hunt and Lipo examined
an area of sandy beach

on the north part of the island
that they theorized

would have been
a logical landing place

for the first settlers
from Polynesia.

And what they found
were habitation layers

that dated to absolutely
no earlier than 1200.

And that pulled our timeline up
by 400 further years,

refining even further

our understanding
of the settlement history.

[narrator] But Hunt and Lipo
didn't only uncover

new information
about the beginnings

of Rapa Nui society.

They also uncovered
tantalizing hints

about the island's
greatest mystery.

How did such
a flourishing society

fall so fast?

How did their
Pacific island paradise

become a barren rock?

[Karen] The Moai have always
been central to theories

about the ecological demise
of Easter Island.

And the work
of Hunt and Lipo

has gone a long way
to help us understand

not just the construction
of the Moai,

but how they were transported
throughout the island.

[narrator] It was
long assumed

that the Rapa Nui
people themselves

were responsible
for the deforestation

of the island
and the collapse

of their island civilization.

The ecocide theory has been
popularized in recent years

by the work
of American geographer

Jared Diamond.

In his best-selling book, Collapse,

Diamond described Rapa Nui

as "a society
that destroyed itself

by overexploiting
its own resources."

The island's population
grew too large

and the obsession
with building Moai

trumped all other considerations.

According to Diamond,

hundreds of trees
were felled for use as rollers

to help transport the statues
across the island.

But the work of archaeologists
Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo

cast doubt on the theory.

The clues,
they realized,

were lying out in the open
all around the island.

Only around a fifth of the Moai
carved in the volcano quarry

ever reached the pedestals
by the coast.

Easter Island is littered
with hundreds of statues

which didn't make it.

These were either
abandoned unfinished,

left in the quarry,

or they seem to have fallen
by the wayside

on their perilous journey
across the island.

Hunt and Lipo
identified a clear pattern

in the way
that abandoned Moai

lay on roads
throughout the island.

When a Moai had been abandoned
on an uphill slope,

it would have
fallen backwards,

and then, conversely,

when it was located
on a slope going down,

they found that it would
have fallen forward,

and this led them
to the amazing realization

that the Moai
were transported upright.

[soft, tense music playing]

[narrator]
The people of Rapa Nui

had always claimed the Moai

walked across the island
from the quarry.

Perhaps,
this was what they meant.

Hunt and Lipo decided
to try an experiment.

[Karen] They undertook
experimental archaeology

in the effort
to understand better

how the Moai were moved,
and found, to their amazement,

that by attaching ropes strategically

and rocking the Moai
much the way

one might rock a bowling pin
back and forth,

causing its bottom
to move along the ground,

that even small groups could
move these multi-ton Moai

as much as a kilometer a day.

[narrator] These findings
blew the ecocide argument

out of the water.

Few, if any, palm trees
were required to move the Moai.

It took hundreds
of years for us to realize

what the Rapa Nui
had been saying all along,

beginning with the first
European visitors who asked.

The Moai walked to their Ahu.

And it's a classic case
of ethnocentrism.

When something doesn't fit
our cultural frame of reference,

we just assume it
can't possibly be true.

[mellow music playing]

[narrator] But if an obsession
with Moai wasn't responsible

for the dramatic
transformation of Rapa Nui,

then what caused the ruin
of this island paradise?

Hunt wasn't satisfied
with the idea

that humans alone could have
deforested Easter Island

quite so quickly,

and he went back to consider
those deposits

he and Lipo had excavated
on the beach.

And he came up with
an extraordinary hypothesis.

[narrator] Among
the human remains,

tools, and charcoal deposits
found on the beach

were countless tiny bones.

They belonged to an animal that
wasn't native to the island,

but one that had hitched a ride
with the first settlers:

the Polynesian rat.

The Polynesian rat loves to eat
tree seeds and saplings,

and it's been estimated
that, at minimum,

their feeding habits
on Easter Island

consumed 10% of the forest.

[narrator] Introduced
into an environment

with abundant food
and no natural predators,

the rat population
would have exploded.

Any trees cut down
by the humans of the island

wouldn't have been replaced
as the rats ate the seeds

and saplings that would
have grown in their place.

Destabilized
by this new arrival,

the island's environment
began to collapse.

The birds and animals
that relied on the trees

began to die off
along with their habitat.

The rats were taking over.

As satisfying,
in a way,

the conclusions that we can draw
from all this granular data

about what actually happens
at Easter Island,

I think it's important
to not forget the people

that really suffered
a tragedy here.

And that's
the real story I take,

that these people
suffered terribly

at the loss
of their island paradise.

[narrator] It was not
the rats alone, however,

that were responsible
for the demise of Rapa Nui

and its unique civilization.

There was another,
far more dangerous new arrival

that threatened
the people of the island:

Europeans.

[intense music playing]

The people of Rapa Nui,
Easter Island.

For hundreds of years,
they lived in isolation.

They farmed, they hunted,
and they fished in the waters

surrounding
their island paradise,

until the 18th century,

when lumbering ships crewed
by strange, pale-faced men

sailed over the horizon.

Life on Rapa Nui
would never be the same.

Could this first contact
be to blame

for the demise
of Rapa Nui?

Historian Tony McMahon
has been tracing the accounts

of early European explorers
and merchants for clues.

The Rapa Nui were unknown
to the whole world,

given their isolation,
until in the year 1722,

a Dutch explorer
called Jacob Roggeveen

arrives on the island.

And because he arrives there
on Easter Day,

he gives it the name
that we all know:

Easter Island.

[soft, tense music playing]

[narrator] Roggeveen was
leading an expedition

funded by
the Dutch West India Company.

He was searching
for a trade route

to the Spice Islands
of Indonesia

when his fleet of three ships
stumbled onto Rapa Nui.

Well, this is an age
in which the Spanish,

Portuguese, the Dutch,
British, and French

are all vying against each other
to carve up the world,

to further
their economic interests,

to build their empires.

[narrator] Roggeveen's
expedition was on the lookout

for strategic staging posts
in the deep Pacific,

places where company ships
could stop and resupply

before continuing across
this vast oceanic wilderness.

[Tony] What Roggeveen
found on this island

was a fertile landscape
that could sustain

the growing of yam
and sweet potato,

a wooded interior, and also
these enigmatic statues,

these heads.

So, sending
his reports back,

Roggeveen painted
a very positive picture.

He said it was a fertile land
of abundance.

[intense music playing]

[narrator] But this
first encounter

was also marked
with violence.

The Dutch explorers shot
one islander by mistake

and drew their muskets
at a dozen others

when a fight broke out.

It was the first
but sadly not the last time

visitors from
the outside would

bring bloodshed
and destruction.

But such was the remote
location of the island

that the Rapa Nui were left
to return to their lives

in relative peace.

Almost 50 years later,
the Viceroy of Peru,

which is part
of the Spanish Empire,

sends somebody called
Don Felipe de Ahedo

to the island
to investigate it.

He discovers 3,000 people
approximately living there.

He notes their script, Rongorongo,

an undeciphered language,

and he plants three crosses
on the island

and the Spanish flag

and claims it
for the King of Spain.

[narrator] The Spaniards were
amazed by the standing stones

they saw across the island.

They passed five days ashore,

surveying its coasts
and annexing its lands,

claiming it
for the King of Spain.

Ahedo is also the first
to record the Rongorongo script

which was used by island elders
to sign the Annexation Treaty.

They then departed

and left Rapa Nui
once again in solitude.

But the open ocean
was a far busier place

than it had ever been
in history,

and after waiting
hundreds of years

for their first visitor

and another 50 years
for their second,

the next visitor to the island
would come much sooner.

And he would find
a very different Rapa Nui.

Four years later,
the famous Captain James Cook

arrives on Easter Island,

and it's a very different
spectacle that he finds.

It's one of desolation.

[narrator] The British explorer
wrote in his diary:

"Thursday the 17th
of March, 1774:

No nation will ever
contend for the honor

of the discovery
of Easter Island,

as there is hardly
an island in the sea

which affords
less refreshments

and conveniences
for shipping than it does.

Nature has hardly provided it

with anything fit
for man to eat or drink,

and the natives
are but few and plant

no more than sufficient
for themselves."

The lush woodlands seen

by the Dutchman
Jacob Roggeveen's expedition

just 50 years before
were gone.

And that was not the only thing
that had changed.

When Roggeveen encountered
the people of the island,

they seemed welcoming.

Captain Cook's welcome
would not be so warm.

[intense music playing]

When Cook turned up,

the natives met his party

armed to the teeth
with clubs and long spears.

Now, this was very different
to the reception

that the Dutch
had got decades before,

so something
had clearly changed.

[narrator]
In just four years,

a catastrophe seems
to have taken place

on Rapa Nui.

According to Cook,

the population
of Easter Island

had fallen
to around six hundred.

The standing stones
that once stood

as silent guardians
of Rapa Nui,

which all had
a common appearance

and were found
across the island,

had been toppled
from their pedestals.

[energetic music playing]

A strong
and shared identity

that had once dominated
Rapa Nui had shattered.

Cook's expedition
found the smashed remnants

of the great carvings scattered
all across the island.

Worship had turned to anger.

A new cult appears to have
risen around the time,

that of The Birdman
or Tangata Manu,

a more warrior-like cult,

distinct from
the traditional religion

and based on the ritual
and dangerous harvesting

of seabird eggs.

Their ceremonies
were deadly

and their social structures
divided on territorial lines.

The fall of the Moai
was a sign

that Rapa Nui society itself
had splintered.

Symbols and social structure
were all changing rapidly.

Perhaps, it was disease.

Perhaps, it was
a long-brewing civil war

stimulated by
a scarcity of resource.

But one thing seems certain:

The sudden arrival
of outsiders in their world

had thrown Rapa Nui society
into chaos.

Their old beliefs
and certainties

had fallen apart.

And worse was still to come.

[Tony] In 1786,
the French aristocrat

Jean-François de Galaup,
comte de Lapérouse,

arrived on the island.

By 1789, he had published
navigable maps of the area

with Easter Island on it.

Well, this would prove to be
the beginning of the end.

[narrator] With the
expansion of empires,

the development
of maritime trade,

and the mapping
of the globe,

it was the beginning
of the end

for traditional
Easter Island society.

By the 1800s,
we'd entered a period

of aggressive commerce
on the high seas

and particularly the whaling
and seal hunting industries

which now had maps
of the area.

Now they overfished off
the East Coast of America.

So they were heading southwards
into the South Pacific,

into the area
around Easter Island.

[narrator] The boom in commerce
took a grisly turn.

The Rapa Nui people themselves
became commodities

to be bought and sold.

The whalers
venturing into the Pacific

sometimes came ashore
at Easter Island

to kidnap slaves
for their ships.

Men and women from Rapa Nui

were forced to work
on the seas

their ancestors
once called their own.

But it was not only whalers
who came but slavers too,

known as blackbirders,

who would kidnap
Pacific Islanders on boats

and transport them
to work on plantations

on the Peruvian mainland.

In late 1862,

eight ships appeared
off the coast of Rapa Nui

and took 1,407 Islanders,

over a third
of those who remained.

[Tony] The population
of Easter Island, the Rapa Nui,

was massively denuded
by this slaving activity

by the Peruvian blackbirders.

When news got out
of what was going on,

there was
an international outcry

and pressure
was put on Peru

to return the Islanders
to their birthplace.

[narrator] But for most of those
kidnapped from the island,

it was too late.

By the time it was agreed to
return the people to Rapa Nui

in late 1863,

the majority had already died
in servitude in Peru.

Of the 100
who made the journey home,

just 12 survived the voyage
across the sea.

This was not just
a physical genocide,

it was a cultural genocide
as well.

The blackbirders
particularly prized

the literate class of priests.

Every single one of them
on Rapa Nui was enslaved.

But the priests
were the only ones

who understood Rapa Nui's
mysterious script,

Rongorongo.

Without them, that knowledge
was lost forever.

The stories and histories
that must have been recorded

have remained trapped
in the undeciphered writings

ever since.

[Tony] By 1866, there were only
111 indigenous Rapa Nui people

left on the island,

and only 36 of them
had children.

Which means that everybody
on Easter Island today

is essentially descended
from those 36 people.

[narrator] There was another
humiliation left

for the people
of Rapa Nui, however.

In November 1868,

a British Royal Navy frigate
dropped anchor at the island.

The crew from the HMS Topaze
went ashore.

By now, the islanders
were too few

and too brutalized
to resist the newcomers.

In a village on the
southwestern tip of the island,

the British sailors
found a gigantic Moai

half-buried in the ground.

It was a rare specimen,

carved not out of soft
volcanic rock, known as tuff,

but the far harder kind:
basalt.

This must have been a labor
of love for its creators.

But that made it
all the more tempting

for the crew
of the HMS Topaze.

[Tony] So what
do they do?

They took it on board the ship,
back to London.

And if you go
to the British Museum today,

you can see it's still there.

[narrator] The British
were not the only ones

to plunder the island.

The French, Americans,
and Belgians

all followed
in their footsteps

and carried off Moai

to display in museums
back home.

The Moai had failed to protect
the people of Rapa Nui

from disaster, disease,
and slavery.

The great carvings had fallen
from their pedestals,

been broken and abandoned.

And now,
they too were captives.

[soft, tense music playing]

By the end
of the 19th century,

the Pacific island of Rapa Nui
had been transformed.

What had once been
a verdant island paradise

was barren and windswept.

The standing stones,

which its people
had lovingly carved

and raised on pedestals
around the island,

now lay broken on the ground.

What happened to Rapa Nui
has long been disputed.

The truthseekers
have been examining

everything from ancient tales

to the latest
archaeological studies

in order to unravel
the mystery.

[Mark] Rapa Nui,
or Easter Island,

has been of great interest
to archaeologists.

In the most recent phase
of exploration on the island,

we've become much better at
really refining the timeline

when Rapa Nui was undergoing
tremendous change,

both social
and environmental.

[narrator] For decades,
it was thought

that the people of Rapa Nui

brought the environmental
and social disaster

upon themselves.

More recent studies have
pointed the finger elsewhere.

Dr. Mark Altaweel
has been looking

at how the impact of Europeans
on Rapa Nui can be measured.

Easter island,
or Rapa Nui,

is one of these places
that's relatively isolated.

It's--it's far away from almost
any other inhabited islands.

It may have been, in fact,

one of the last places
settled by humans on Earth.

We see different kinds
of studies,

such as DNA, archaeology,

environmental studies,
each by themselves,

may not necessarily give us
that much information.

But when you bring it
all together,

we learn a lot about Rapa Nui
and its history and its past

and how it really evolved
due to European contact.

[narrator] In order to get
a full picture of the Rapa Nui,

Mark has been investigating
the most personal artifacts

the Rapa Nui people
left behind: their skeletons.

Analysis of human remains
from the island

has confirmed that, before
contact with the Western world,

the people of Rapa Nui
were thriving.

[Mark] In terms of the timeline
of Rapa Nui,

linguists have determined
that perhaps Rapa Nui

or Easter Island was settled
by around 400 AD.

Some geoarchaeologists,
for instance,

have suggested
around 800 AD.

More recently, archaeologists
have suggested around 1200 AD.

Regardless of the timeline,

we know that
it was certainly settled

quite late in its history.

Analyses of skeletons
found on Easter Island

have determined that whenever
the island was settled,

the population
was actually quite healthy.

The diet they ate
was well balanced.

They ate a marine-based as well
as a plant-based diet.

So they ate a good protein,
low-carb,

relatively high-energy
protein diet.

So, they were quite
healthy individuals.

[narrator] The Rapa Nui
people may have had help

in sustaining this lifestyle
from an unexpected source.

For a long time
it was thought

that the Moai had helped propel
Rapa Nui towards disaster.

But a recent study
has suggested

the opposite was true,

that in fact
the Moai were crucial

to maintaining life
on the island.

In 2014, American archaeologist
Dr. Jo Anne Van Tilburg,

a world expert on the Moai,

teamed up with a soils
specialist to investigate.

Dr. Sarah Sherwood
analyzed samples

from around
the Rano Raraku quarry,

which is the origin of 95%
of the Rapa Nui's Moai.

[Mark] They basically determined
that the statues

didn't just have
a spiritual

or ancestral
kind of benefit.

They certainly did have that
kind of cultural connection

to the people.

But there was
a very practical reason

as to why you may excavate
the statues.

When the statues were removed
from the quarry,

they actually also
brought upon nutrients,

beneficial soils
that could have been deposited

across the island.

So it would actually be a way
to renew the soils

across the island
so that they can be used

for growing crops and other
kinds of useful plants.

[narrator]
For a long time,

historians and scientists
had suspected

that the Moai were linked
to the fertility of the land.

The people worshipped them
to secure good harvests.

This recent discovery
by Van Tilbury

and Sherwood
suggests the relationship

between the stones
and agriculture

was even more direct
than had been thought.

But by the 18th century,

the lush island paradise

that the Moai had helped
support was dying.

The forests were disappearing
and the rich animal life

sustained by the trees
was dying out.

The potential culprit
has been identified

as the Polynesian rat
that came to the island

with its first settlers.

But Rapa Nui's
dramatic transformation

did not lead to a collapse
in the health

and well-being
of the people who lived there.

That's the finding
of Robert DiNapoli,

an anthropologist
from the University of Oregon,

and a team of scientists.

They use Bayesian analysis

to look at population change
over time.

They in fact demonstrate that
the population of Rapa Nui

or Easter Island didn't
really change that much,

despite the fact that
the island began to degrade

in terms of its environment.

The population density
was actually quite comparable

to places such as
New Zealand or Sweden

or even Colorado
in the United States.

[narrator] The birds they had
once hunted were dying out.

And deep-sea fishing
was impossible

without tree-trunks
to build boats.

But the Rapa Nui
people adapted.

Their diet shifted.

They took advantage
of the one thing

they had plenty of: rats.

The rats on Rapa Nui
were quite devastating

to the island in many ways.

We know that the rats probably
ate seeds of plants,

which would have meant
that deforestation

would occur over time.

However, at the same time,

the rats were also
a source of meat.

So, the population
may have adapted

to the fact
that rats were there

and simply ate the rats as
a way to sustain themselves.

[narrator] Despite
the abundant supply of rats,

the Rapa Nui
no longer had access

to a high-protein,
fish-based diet.

On an increasingly
barren island,

the Rapa Nui people struck
on another ingenious solution.

They use the pumice rock,
this volcanic stone,

effectively, to basically
be slightly ground up,

put into little clumps,
little islands.

And these volcanic rocks
would basically retain moisture

and other nutrients
which would then be used

to grow crops
upon these volcanic rocks.

They were kind of using them

as a way
to really trap nutrients

so that plants can grow
and then be used to be eaten.

[narrator]
In these gardens,

a collection
of basalt pebbles, cobbles,

and boulders
were placed on the ground

over planted seeds.

This process is called
"lithic mulching."

It helps prevent
soil erosion

by creating microclimates
which create shade,

trap moisture, protect plants
from the wind,

and stabilizes temperature.

These rock gardens covered
up to a tenth of the island.

Using them, the Rapa Nui
were able to grow sweet potato,

yams, and taro,
all high in vitamins,

carbohydrates,
and proteins.

So it was
a really effective way

to utilize
those local resources

to really live on the island
as best as you can,

and despite the fact that the
environment began to degrade.

[narrator] But even
as the Rapa Nui adjusted

to the changing world
around them,

another threat emerged
once more on the horizon:

Europeans.

[Mark] Now,
after European contact,

there's a tremendous change

that really begins to occur
on the island.

People begin to be affected
in terms of disease,

some literally taken away
by Europeans to be enslaved.

And a lot of the elites
were removed,

people who had important,
really, social connections.

The social networks within
the island become disturbed.

People who would
have had knowledge,

both in terms of language,
writing, spiritual knowledge,

connections to the ancestors,

even those people in many cases
were removed.

And so at one point,

the Rapa Nui inhabitants
certainly were able to adapt

to environmental stress.

But European impact really
begins to break down society

because it removed
that social structure

that enabled it to succeed.

[narrator] Weakened by new
diseases, exploited by slavers,

and murdered
when they tried to resist,

the people of Rapa Nui
dwindled in number.

This fatal decline
was reflected

in the Moai themselves.

[Mark] We know that
most of the Moai statues

have been erected
and sort of carved out

between 1400 and 1700 AD.

Now, after European contact
in the 18th century,

that's when we begin to see
Moai statue activity

decrease substantially.

There may have been
some activity,

but it certainly decreased substantially.

And, in fact,
that's the point

in which Rapa Nuian society
begins to break down.

[narrator] But by
the late 19th century,

there were
few Rapa Nui people left.

Their way of life
had been stamped out,

their songs and stories
almost forgotten.

On the 9th of September, 1888,

the island was annexed
by Chile.

The few remaining
indigenous people

were corralled into a town
on the west coast.

They were forbidden
to leave.

The hills where they and
their great Moai once walked

were given over
to a new invader.

For the next 60 years,

thousands of sheep
roamed Rapa Nui.

They destroyed what was left
of the ecosystem,

stripping the remaining
vegetation and topsoil

from the island.

The destruction of what
had once been paradise

was complete.

What a catastrophic fall

from the civilization
that had been found in 1722.

[Karen] This case study
of Easter Island

just proves the truism

that any time you've got
human interaction,

things are going
to get complicated.

[Fern] One of the things
that we can draw

from these oral traditions

is just exactly the influence
of European culture

on the Rapa Nui and how much
damage we have done.

[Mark] We can see a society
that was quite successful

in sustaining themselves
using local knowledge,

local resources.

But when we begin to bring ideas
from the outside

that are not suitable
to a given environment,

that's when things
begin to break down.

[narrator] The people of Rapa
Nui were not without blame.

They introduced the rats

which decimated the island's
once dense forest.

But they adapted
to the changes.

Their society continued.

It was the arrival
of Europeans

that doomed them
and their magnificent Moai.

Those standing stones
were once accused

of causing the collapse
of the Rapa Nui.

They were dismissed
as a foolish obsession

of a people driving themselves
towards disaster.

But the Moai were not
the villains of this tale.

Instead, they were
witnesses to a crime,

a tragedy,
a genocide.

[dramatic music playing]