It’s long been believed Easter Island – official name Rapa Nui – suffered a “self-inflicted population collapse,” but new evidence shows this wasn’t actually the case. In a study published in the journal Nature, researchers reveal that such an event never did occur and that the island’s inhabitants likely increased until the mid-19th century, when Peruvian slave raiders arrived.
Ancient Rapanui genomes reveal resilience and pre-European contact with the Americas presents the analysis of DNA genomes, which has debunked beliefs that a major population collapse occurred on Easter Island. This previously-held belief was thought to have been caused by an overuse of resources, deforestation and warfare.
It’s believed Easter Island was inhabited by Polynesians by 1200-50, and the prevailing theory stated it only took a few hundred years for them to damage the island‘s ecological makeup enough to lead to its collapse before Europeans had made their way to the region.
The genomes of 15 Easter Island inhabitants were analyzed for the study, with the result showing there’s “no evidence of a genetic bottleneck” that would’ve proven such a collapse. Instead, the team of researchers concluded that Rapa Nui‘s population actually experienced a steady increase until the 1860s, when Peruvian slave raids occurred and cut the total number of inhabitants by one-third.
On top of this, the evidence supports early European records, which state the island’s population never really went over 3,000. It had been previously stated by researchers that upwards of 15,000 inhabitants once called Rapa Nui home, but this study appears to echo one published in June 2024, which found the island’s ancient rock gardens could never have supported a large population.
“Our genetic analysis shows a stably growing population from the 13th century through to European contact in the 18th century,” Ph.D student Bárbara Sousa da Mota told Phys.org. “This stability is critical because it directly contradicts the idea of a dramatic pre-contact population collapse.”
Speaking with CNN, Assistant Professor Victor Moreno-Mayar of the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen, who co-authored the study, added, “There is definitely not a strong population collapse, like it has been argued, a population collapse where 80 [percent] of the population or 90 [percent] of the population died.”
Along with suggesting a population collapse didn’t occur, the genome analysis shows that Easter Island inhabitants exchanged genes with a Native American group, with between six and 11 percent of the DNA traced to coastal South American ancestors. According to the team, this indicates they traveled to the continent between 1250-1430, before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas and centuries before Europeans arrived on Rapa Nui.
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The remains from which the DNA was collected are currently housed at the National Museum of Natural History in France. They were taken from Easter Island between the 19th and 20th centuries.
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