A recently published study challenges the popular myth that the Easter Islanders' ancient rock gardening practices caused their own downfall.
The journal article, titled “Island-wide characterization of agricultural production challenges Rapa Nui demographic collapse hypothesis,” was published in Science Advances on Friday. The study explains that Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, “is often used as an example of how overexploitation of limited resources resulted in catastrophic population collapse.”
Hundreds of years ago, farmers on the island in the South Pacific practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, tearing down palm trees and setting them on fire. Farmers would then practice rock gardening to help enrich their soil.
According to a popular myth, the islanders were so focused on farming rocks (and erecting hundreds of gigantic stone statues) that their civilization collapsed. When Europeans discovered Easter Island in 1722, the island's population was supposedly smaller than it had been before.
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A recently published study debunks a popular climate myth about Easter Islanders' agricultural practices. (iStock)
“A vital component of this narrative is that the rapid rise and fall of pre-contact Rapanui population growth rates was driven by the construction and overexploitation of once-extensive rock gardens,” explains the summary section of the article. “However, there is a need to better understand the extent of rock gardening across the island, although it is key to understanding food systems and demographics.”
Contrary to popular belief that rock gardening was bad for the soil, the study says the practice “improved plant productivity by increasing available nutrients in the soil and maintaining soil moisture.”
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“Considering the benefits of rock gardening in increasing soil productivity and therefore plant growth, its practice was a vital part of pre-contact Rapanui subsistence,” the article states. “Almost half of the Rapanui diet consisted of terrestrial foods.”
This photo taken on April 5, 2024 shows stone Moai statues on Chile's Easter Island. Easter Island, known for its gigantic stone carved heads facing the sea, is located at the southernmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in the South Pacific and is considered one of the most remote inhabited regions in the world. (Zhu Yubo/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“In this sense, measuring the extent of rock gardens is essential to understanding the environmental carrying capacity of the island before contact.”
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The researchers also used shortwave infrared (SWIR) satellite imagery and machine learning to determine that the population of Easter Island was likely smaller than previously claimed, challenging the myth that the island's population in 1722 was substantially smaller than hundreds of years before.
“Our estimates suggest that the maximum population supported by rock gardening is not ~17,000 as Ladefoged claims et al.rock gardening calculations, but only 3901 using our measurements,” the study states.
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Despite research suggesting otherwise, the study's authors acknowledge that the myth remains popular outside of academia.
Moais seen on the outer slopes of the Rano Raraku volcanic crater. (John Milner/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“Despite recent archaeological literature debunking Malthusian overpopulation ideas, the premise that Rapanui society caused its own demise due to unsustainable resource use and uncontrolled population growth has become widely popular,” he says. Article.
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“While many researchers working on the island have moved their narratives away from assumptions of a pre-European collapse, the story remains prominent in disciplines such as ecology, paleoecology and mathematics.”
