Adaptive Failure: Easters End
-Jared Diamond
Introduction
The article "Adaptive Failure: Easters End" by Jared Diamond (1995: 124-133) raises awareness of man's impact on ecology and earth resources. As humans, we adapt to the resources in our habitat. However not always does man successfully or mindfully conserve these resources in order to promote future generations, as in the case in point of the infamous Easter Island. Customs are human responses to material necessity. Polynesian ancestors of today's Easter Island once inhabited a bountiful heavily forested fertile island.
The government and people slowly declined because of the heavy environmental destruction and because social concerns took precedence over conservation. This island's fate should be a warning to us since our modern ecology is in a stressed state.
Easter Island has only an area of 64 square miles. It lies two thousand miles west of South America, and 1,400 miles from the next nearest inhabitable island. Its lower latitude and volcanic history yield it a mild climate and rich soil. While its isolation leads us to believe that it was once a pristine paradise. Its name is derived from the date of its first European discovery on Easter, 5 April 1722.
Main Summary of the Article Adaptive Failure: Easters End
This article stresses the study of why ancient civilizations had failed, and especially those that seemed to have been prosperous. The former Polynesian society on isolated Easter Island is a prime example of this mystery. Once an island with gigantic stone statues and a bustling romantic island of paradise, it now stands as a desolate ruin with a few surviving inhabitants. For many years after its discovery by Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, this island held its secrets. On Roggeveen's arrival, there were only a few grasses, sedges, ferns and insects, leading him to believe that its inhabitants had little or no means of life. Other early visitors estimated the island population at 2,000.
Even though the Polynesians are known as seafaring people Captain James Cook noted that the inhabitants came to meet him by swimming or in small flimsy, leaky canoes. They lacked the knowledge and materials to make a seaworthy craft that was waterproof. And only 3-4 canoes were noted on the entire island. The people apparently had no outside contact with the world, nor have any island artefacts been found in any other part of the world. Furthermore, people living there have memories of visiting the Gomez reef 260 miles away.
The islands most famous artefact is its huge stone statues. More than 200 had once stood on massive platforms and at least 700 more in progress has been found abandoned on the island in quarries or along roads. Most of the statues had been carved from the same quarry and had heights of 33 feet, and weighed up to 82 tons. The abandoned statues were as much as 65 feet tall and weighed up to 270 tons. And the platforms they stood on were up to 500 feet long and 10 feet tall and weighed up to 10 tons. These facts raised the question as to where and how did its inhabitants come to occupy the island. And how did they construct, transport and raise the statues that have made the island famous?
The most startling question is that of the statues. How could people who are devoid of lumber, rope materials, wheels, draft animals, or a source of power construct and move such large objects? The statues had all still been standing in 1722; however, by 1864 all had been pulled down. The statues imply that Easters society had been vastly different from the one Roggeveen had seen in 1722. The supplies for the statues and tools used would have come from various parts of the island. All the while, farmland and fishing ground would have been located in other parts of the island. Extricating and distributing all the supplies for society would have required a complex social organization.
Early and recent anthropology and DNA research on the island turned up evidence that the culture and people were of Polynesian descent. Past theories gave way to archaeology, pollen analysis, and palaeontology. It had been discovered to be settled at about 400 A.D. by Polynesian settlers who arrived on sea worthy craft. The island would have been a pristine paradise teeming with woods, fish, and wildlife. The statue construction peaked around 1200 to 1500 as did the population of 7,000-20,000 residence.
Pollen analysis and archaeology turned up startling proof that the island had among its supplies 'hauhau' tree for making rope and palm trees yielding supplies of wood, nuts, sugar, and wine. Also found in garbage dumpsites were porpoise bones, fish bones, seabird remains, other exotic birdlife, and possibly seal bones. Easter was likely the richest bird breeding site in the south pacific.
The evidence found leads us to believe that the destruction of the island ecology began about 800 A.D. just a few centuries after its original settlement. Because charcoal from wood fires began showing up in pond sediment cores, and pollen of trees and shrubs began to rapidly decline. The people had used up all the forest for their fires, buildings, gardens, canoes, and transport goods, including statues. Porpoise and fishbone abruptly disappeared from garbage sites around 1500 A.D. and bird remains became scarce then disappeared as well.
Human bones from cannibalism took their place, along with chicken bones. Pollen from flora disappeared. Preserved statuettes with sunken cheeks and visible ribs suggest that people were starving. Since the chickens, rats, and humans replaced only a small portion of their diet. Surviving islanders related to early European visitors how the warrior class and chaos slowly took over the bureaucracy and centralized government. People also took to living in caves for protection against enemies and the elements. Around 1770 rival clans began to topple each other's statues and by 1864 all had been pulled down.
We may well ask why they didn't see what was happening and stop before it was too late. But they may not have realized what was happening. Because the destruction and erosion were so gradual that nobody noticed. Neither did they care; they put government and social aspects first. The economy on Easter Island depended on continued deforestation as much as our economy does today. Gradually the forest became smaller till no trees were left, and their significance dwindled in the economy.
The significance of Easter Islands fall should be obvious today. The island is like earth in miniature. Just like then a rising population confronts a dwindling supply of resources. With the continued destruction of our forests to logging and clear-cutting for farms all the way to our use of chemicals, and the national one-upping of our neighbours and war. With social and governmental precedence taken over survival and basic human needs, we have reports of starving countries and depleted resources and extinct wildlife.
However, even though the government and many people look away and pretend not to notice the earth plight, we today possess something Easter Island didn't. We possess the ability to record and learn from history and the mistakes we ourselves and other countries have made both past and present. We can only hope that one day many will take notice and act upon the situation before it is too late.
Culture has many characteristics, which include the fact that it is shared and social, it is learned, it is used creatively. The characteristic that is highlighted in this reading is that culture is adaptive and maladaptive. The adaptability of culture enables its people to make changes to allow them to thrive. But every culture participates in some activities that are counterproductive to its survival. Smoking is a minor example of counterproductive behaviour that exists in the world today. But the people of Easter Island had to contend with a much more serious issue: over-exploitation of resources.
The general consensus is that Easter Island was first habited around AD 400. When early settlers arrived, they likely found heavily forested and fertile land abundant in food and other resources. It was a miniature paradise. But such was not the case when Dutch explorer, Jacob Roggeveen, arrived in 1722. By then, Easter Island appeared to be nothing more than a wasteland.
Using just stone tools and muscle power, the Easter Islanders managed to devastate their entire environment thus undermining any technological and social advances they made. We, on the other hand, have metal tools and large machinery to help us to destroy ourselves. The sad thing is that we have documented accounts of such societies as the Easter Islanders who developed themselves into near extinction, yet we continue to build Wal-Mart Supercenters and ridiculously huge shopping malls at the expense of our forests.
Why didn't they look around, realize what was going on and stop it before it was too late? What were they thinking when they chopped down the last palm tree?" These questions may seem obvious to us when thinking about the people of the Easter Islands, but why don't we apply them to ourselves? Don't we realize that we are exhausting our natural resources so quickly that we may end up with the same fate as the Easter Islanders? If we continue down this same path, our civilization may go in the same direction.