Where did Easter Island get its name

Official Website | Pioneers of Easter Island

Since the Dutchman Jacob Roggeveen, the first European to reach Easter Island in 1722, scientists have discussed the origin of the island's people." Sailing from the Orient, Central Polynesia or Central America to the Northeast and Wast? It' frightening to think of a journey to Easter Island from any angle that would have taken at least two week and covered several thousand leagues of apparently never-ending oceans.

Linguistic scholars believe that the first Easter Island residents came around 400 AD, and most of them are agreed that they came from Eastern Polynesia. As early as 5500 BC, Melanesian travelled by boat and traded with observidian. Human movements in the East continue until Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands were at least 300 AD.

After moving eastwards, northwards and southwards, Voyaging rafts finally settled on Easter Island, Hawaii and New Zealand, all in the brief space of about 400 years. As Europeans first discovered the Pacific and traveled from island to island, they discovered that on different isles, no matter how far away, there were similar mores.

The residents were similar in look and often understood each other, even though they came from an island thousand of kilometres apart. This language connection points to a genealogic band that connects the Pacific population. In fact, it was found in 1994 that the genetic material of 12 Easter Island Easter Island skeletons est. polynesia.

An Easter Island myth says that about 1,500 years ago a Polish chieftain called Hotu Matu'a ("The Great Parent") came here in a twin boat from an unfamiliar Polish island with his woman and largeily. It may have been a great sailor looking for new countries for its nation, or it may have fled a country full of war.

The early Polynesians had many motives to search for new isles over dangerous seas. He and his wife and daughter ended up on Easter Island >Anakena Beach. Te Pito-te-Henua, "end of the country" or "end of the country", is an early name for the island. Rapa Nui, the name of Easter Island, is a contemporary and indigenous name for large forest palms.

When they arrived, the early Rapanui colonists would have replanted the crops they had bought: bandwidth, tarot and maybe even the candy. In Polynesia, the presence of the yam seems to raise the issue of who the indigenous people of Rapid Nui were. Botanist have proved that the yam originates from South America.

Are you saying that Pacific colonies could have been colonised by humans from South America? Thor Heyerdahl says that humans from a pre-Inca community sailed from Peru to the oceans and sailed from eastern to western in the predominant western tradewind. It is his belief that they may have been helped in an El Niíño year when the wind and current may have struck directly from South America.

Heyerdahl himself showed in 1947 that it was theoretically possible: With a balsafraft called Kon Tiki he floated 4,300 sea mile for three month and eventually ran aground near the island Puka Puka on a small one. It is estimated that the peak of 9,000 people had been recorded by 1550.

Archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg, who is not convinced of Heyerdahl's theories, states that " all archaeological, linguistically and biologically recorded information " points to Polynesian roots in Southeast Asia. However, it is interesting to note that on Rapa Nui there are stonewalls reminiscent of Inca work. In 1774, Capt. Cook already noted the qualities of the walling in the retaining wall near the moai: "The finish is no worse than the best simple brickwork we have in England.

" So, how do you account for the yam and the excellent work? The Polynesians may have hiked as far as Latin America and then came back to the Pacific with the yam some while later. Alternatively, there were visitors from Peruvians who came with the yam and their skilful knowledge of stonewall.

There is no doubt that the yam was "the basis of the Rapanui culture" for the Rapanuipeans. "From at least 1000 to 1680, Rapa Nui's populations grew significantly. It is estimated that the peak of 9,000 by 1550. From 1400 to 1600, only 122 years before the first contacts with the island's Europeans, woodcarving and transportation were in full proceed.

During these 122 years of his life he has undergone a drastic overhaul. Heart samples from the island have unveiled a piece of Rapid Nui story that talks about deforestation, land degradation and degradation. It is not difficult to envision the resulting over-population, shortage of human resources and the final breakdown of the Rana Nui people.

Proof of Cannibalism exists on the island at this point in the year. The majority of scientists point to the desire to finish the enormous rock works on Rapa Nui as the main cause of the exhaustion of the island's resource. Mr. Van Tilburg comments: "The cost they payed for the way they articulated their own intellectual and policy concepts was an island realm that has emerged in many ways, but a shroud of their former physical self.

" We have been confused by the worlds Europeans first saw when they first came to Rapa Nui in 1722. So what did the solid rock man sculptures on the island mean? And lastly, how did the natives come to this isolated island? Editorial note: New research since the publication of this paper in 2000 assumes a later arrivals of the first Easter Islanders, a smaller maximal populace and a more complicated account of what happened there.

"Rethink the case of Easter Island. Initially this feat was published on the website of the NOVA programme Secrets of Easter Island.