Why Were Easter Island Heads Erected, and How Were They Transported?
Experimental archaeology proves Easter Island's moai were 'walked' to coastal platforms, confirming Rapa Nui oral traditions about their ancestral monuments.
Introduction
The moai of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) are among the most recognisable monumental sculptures in the archaeological record. Approximately 1,000 statues were carved from volcanic tuff at the Rano Raraku quarry, with the largest completed examples standing nearly 10 metres tall and weighing over 80 tonnes. The statues were transported — in many cases several kilometres — to stone platforms (ahu) along the island's coastline, where they were erected facing inland, watching over the communities they represented. The questions of why these monuments were created and how they were moved have generated extensive scholarly debate and a substantial popular literature, both of which have been significantly reshaped by recent experimental and computational research.