Environment Inhabitants of Easter Island did not commit "ecological suicide"

The inhabitants of Easter Island did not commit "ecological suicide" in the 17th century. A new study involving researchers from the University of Lausanne contradicts this theory.

The research results were published on Wednesday evening in the scientific journal "Nature". According to the theory of "ecological suicide", the population of the island, which is officially called Rapa Nui, collapsed in the 17th century due to overexploitation of natural resources.

To find out whether this is really true, the scientists analyzed the genes of 15 people who lived on the island between 1670 and 1950. Their bones are kept in the "Musée de l'Homme" in Paris.

Colonial narrative

The analysis showed that the population of Rapa Nui only declined after contact with Europeans in 1722. The theory of ecological suicide in the 1600s was therefore not confirmed.

"I personally believe that the idea of ecocide was developed as part of a colonial narrative. It's about the idea that these supposedly primitive peoples were not able to manage their culture or their resources and that they were almost destroyed as a result," assistant professor Victor Moreno-Mayar from the University of Copenhagen was quoted as saying in a press release on the University of Lausanne study.

The study also showed that the DNA of the inhabitants of Rapa Nui had already mixed with the DNA of Native Americans centuries before the arrival of the Europeans. This finding suggests that the Polynesians may have crossed the Pacific long before the Europeans arrived on Rapa Nui and before Columbus arrived in America.