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Easter Island Research Paper

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The Easter Island heads. Rapa Nui has been a place of mystery since it was discovered in 1772. The name “Easter Island” is the European name given by Jacob Roggeveen. The mystery on Easter Island is the moai, otherwise known as the heads of Easter Island. How the moai got there is still in debate but there have been multiple proven theories of how they got there. The three main theories I will discuss are the rope theory, the wooden sledge theory and the walking theory. The rope theory is one of the most obvious to think of, as it is only dragging the moai from the quarry. But this alone has problems, making the rope would be difficult enough as they are far from any other land masses and have little supplies. But with the rope and an entire village to help pull the rope it would be possible to move the moai from place to place. But the people of Rapa Nui say the moai “walked” to their spots so this theory is unlikely. …show more content…

The wooden sledge was set up kind of like a hashtag # to logs on the bottom three on top. The three on top are the support and the two on bottom are to reduce friction. The natives of Rapa Nui would drag the statues with rope tied to the two bottom logs. This theory would make the most sense because they would need lots and lots of wood. Rapa Nui, when it was discovered by Europeans was a desolate waste land. However, in the previous paragraph I discussed that the natives claimed they walked to their final resting places. “Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director of the Easter Island statue research at UCLA and a leading researcher of the Moai, has successfully tested this

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