6. Easter Island - Where Giants Walked

WATCH WITH VIDEO:    • 6. Easter Island - Where Giants Walked   On one of the world’s most isolated islands, hundreds of vast stone statues lie mouldering in the grass. In this episode, we take a look at one of archaeology’s most enduring puzzles: the mystery of Easter Island. Find out how this unique community grew up in complete isolation, severed from the rest of the world by a vast expanse of ocean. Discover the incredible story of how it survived for so many centuries, and examine the evidence about what happened to finally bring this society, and its statues, crashing down. This episode, we're joined by children from the Toki School of Music and Arts on Easter Island, who were kind enough to record some traditional ancestral chants especially for the podcast. Since 2012, Toki has offered children & adolescents free classes in classical and traditional music, with the aim of keeping the traditions of the island alive. It's an incredible project, and if you want to help keep it running, you can donate here: www.tokirapanui.org/en Support Fall of Civilizations on Patreon:   / fallofcivilizations_podcast   Books on Easter Island: UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/fallofci... US: https://bookshop.org/shop/fallofcivil... Affiliate links, purchases support the show. Credits: Sound engineering by Thomas Ntinas Voice Actors: Jake Barrett-Mills Jacob Rollinson Annie Kelly Shem Jacobs 0:00 Jacob Roggeveen Discovers Easter Island 5:06 Where Is Easter Island (Rapa Nui)? 7:49 Polynesian Settlement of Rapa Nui 12:01 Hotu Matu'a: Legendary Founder of Rapa Nui 15:05 What Do the Historical Sources Say? 19:20 Anakena Beach and the First Polynesian Settlers 23:08 Traditional Story of Easter Island's Collapse 27:26 Easter Island Statues: The Moai of Rapa Nui 38:12 How Were the Easter Island Moai Transported? 44:51 Moai Transport and the Ecocide Theory 46:19 Ecology and Deforestation of Rapa Nui 1:00:26 Was There Internal Conflict on Easter Island? 1:06:46 Birdman Cult of Rapa Nui 1:09:36 The Riddle of Easter Island 1:13:17 European Contact with Easter Island 1:26:42 Rongorongo: The Lost Script of Easter Island 1:30:38 Peruvian Slave Raids on Rapa Nui 1:38:35 Genocide and the Destruction of Rapa Nui Culture Music by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: incompetech.com/ Title theme: Home At Last by John Bartmann. https://johnbartmann.com/