Easter Island, Earth Island

by Paul G. Bahn

Easter Island--known to its inhabitants as Rapa Nui--is unimaginably remote, a mysterious volcanic island battered by the Pacific Ocean. Yet somehow this isolated speck produced one of the world's most fascinating and least understood prehistoric cultures. Its awe-inspiring giant stone statues, set in a bare landscape of rolling hills, abandoned quarries and huge craters, have become icons of the ancient world. Who were the people who produced these extraordinary towering figures? Why did they travel to the island in the first place, what did they bring with them, and how did they survive? In the most up-to-date and comprehensive study of this enigmatic culture available, Paul Bahn and John Flenley explore the mysteries of Easter Island, overturning many of Thor Heyerdahl's well-publicized but ill-founded theories. They consider possible methods by which the islanders transported the massive effigies over long distances and erected them on platforms. They also look at the largely undec