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Easter Island Research Paper

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The mystery of Easter Island has puzzled humanity for years. Easter Island is the world’s most remote inhabited island (“The Mystery of Easter Island”), but a group of people managed to sail there and establish a society that created about 900 stone statues across the island ("Easter Island -- World Heritage Site -- National Geographic”). Over the years, scientists have discovered many facts about the people of Easter Island and their achievements, and have been able to create several plausible theories. However, none can fully explain the mystery that is Easter Island.
1. Facts Easter Island lies roughly 1,289 miles from the nearest inhabited island and 2,182 miles from the nearest continental point (“Easter Island”). The earliest settlers of Easter Island were Polynesian, though none know where exactly they sailed from (“Mysterious Places: Explore Easter Island in Words and …show more content…
This theory is much more supported than the other theories concerning the transportation of the moai. Several features of the moai differ from those on the ahu to those in the quarry or in transit. Moai in the quarry have heads that are sloped forward, which would serve as a better center of gravity (“Easter Island”). Statues found abandoned on roadsides have wider bases that would enable more stable transport, and some have fractures on the base that could have come from rocking back and forth or from pressure along the edges (“Easter Island”). Abandoned statues were also found in a manner that would suggest they had fallen from an upright position (“The Mystery of Easter Island”). It also fits the island legend of the moai “walking” from the quarry to their final destinations (“The Mystery of Easter Island”). Despite all of the proof in support of this theory, we may never know how the moai were transported simply due to lack of reliable

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