Shunzo Sakamaki Extraordinary Lecture
Easter Island`s Ecological Catastrophe and Cultural Collapse: What Really Happened?
Event ID: EV009621T
Info: Jul 9 • Wed • 7:00pm • Yukiyoshi Room, Krauss Hall 012 • Free • For more information, call 956-8246
With: Terry Hunt
Easter Island has become the "poster child" for prehistoric human-induced ecological catastrophe and cultural collapse. Today a popular narrative recounts an obsession with monumental statuary-a mania for the megalithic moai-that led to the island`s ecological devastation and the collapse of the ancient civilization. Scholars offer this story as a parable of our own reckless destruction of the global environment. In this lecture Dr. Hunt critically examines the evidence for Rapa Nui. A revised, later chronology for Rapa Nui calls into question aspects of the current ecological history.
A closer look also reveals a complex historical ecology for the island; one best explained by a synergy of impacts, rather than simply the reckless over-exploitation by ancient Polynesians. It is essential to disentangle the related notion of prehistoric "ecocide" with the demographic collapse
(i.e., post-contact genocide) that occurred centuries later with European disease, slave trading, and the other abuses heaped upon the Polynesians of Rapa Nui. Contrary to the now popular narratives, prehistoric deforestation did not cause population collapse, nor was it associated with it.
Terry Hunt is a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at UH M?noa. His specialty is Pacific Island archaeology. He has conducted archaeological field work and related research in Hawai‘i, Samoa, Fiji, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea.
An Outreach College presentation with funding provided by the Shunzo Sakamaki Extraordinary Lecture Endowment.