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Archaeologists have confirmed this Easter Islandis prestigious nice statues “Remarkably few” of the island’s indigenous Rapa Nui people were “walked” to their platforms using rope, solving a decades-old mystery.
A new study published in Archaeological Science Journalsuggests that big villagers Used a rope and “drove” the giant. sculptures In zig-zag motion on carefully designed roads.
“This shows that fine rubber The people were incredibly smart. They figured it out,” said study co-author Carl Lipo of Binghamton University.
“They’re doing it in a way that’s commensurate with the resources that they have. So it really pays tribute to those guys, look at what they were able to accomplish, and we have a lot to learn from them in these principles,” Dr. Lipo said.
The Moai statues are monolithic human figures created by the inhabitants of Easter Island between 1250 and 1500 AD.
Hundreds of these statues were carved from the main moai quarry by the island’s native inhabitants and transported to stone platforms around the perimeter of the island.
Researchers had previously theorized that the large statues were “carried” from their quarry to the ceremonial platforms using a straight, rocking motion, challenging another hypothesis that they were transported lying on wooden devices.
In the new study, scientists created high-resolution 3D models of the moai statues and identified specific design features, including a wide D-shaped base and a forward tilt, that would have made them more likely to move in a rocking, zig-zagging motion.
The researchers tested the theory by building a 4.35-ton replica moai with a distinctive “forward-leaning” design.
The team could transport the moai 100 meters in just 40 minutes with only 18 people – a marked improvement over previous vertical transportation attempts.
“Once you get it going, it’s not hard at all — people are pulling it with one hand. It saves energy, and it goes really fast,” Dr. Lipo said.
“What we saw experimentally really works. And as it gets bigger, it still works. All the properties that we see about dynamic massive objects become more consistent as they get bigger and bigger, because that becomes the only way you can move it,” he said.
Roads from Rapa Nui discovered on the island lend credence to this theory.
Scientists say these roads, about 4.5 meters wide with a concave cross-section, seem ideal for stabilizing the statues as they move.
Dr. Lipo said, “Every time they’re moving a statue, it’s like they’re building a road. The road is part of moving the statue.”
“We actually see them overlapping each other and having multiple parallel versions of them. What they’re doing is probably clearing one path, moving it forward, clearing another, clearing it further, and moving it in the right direction in some sequence. So they’re spending a lot of time on that part of the road,” he said.
According to the researchers, no other existing theory currently explains how the moai were moved.
Dr. Lipo said, “Find some evidence that shows he couldn’t walk. Because we haven’t seen anything anywhere that refutes that.” “In fact, everything we ever see and ever think about strengthens the argument.”