From the fate of its oncevibrant populationto the line of descent of itsmoaistatues , Easter Island is plethoric with mystery . AsArs Technicareports , a squad of scientists may have answered one question related to the famous heads located on the island off the seacoast of Chile : Why were they placed in some dapple on the island and not others ?
According to their study in the journalPLOS One , ancient islander positioned themoaiaround precious sources of smart water . This theory may seem confusing if you ’re familiar with the island ’s layout : Almost all of the stone artefact are located along the coast .
But the subject area authors compose that the statue are mark for hidden water sources . On Easter Island , and other volcanic island , volcanic tubes carry new water from underground into the sea , creating patches of drinkable weewee surrounded by the salty sea . novel water is a special resource on the island , and its inhabitants belike depended on these water system pockets to outlive .
When researchers pinpointed these off - shore water sources , they found eithermoaistatues or the platform that were used to have them next to each situation . And this was n’t a consequence of islander placingmoairandomly along the slide : Further analytic thinking revealed that the front of a freshwater maculation was the strongest indicator of where an Easter Island head would be .
Easter Island ’s light rude resources are part of the whodunit that hem in its ancient the great unwashed . At its acme , the Easter Island may have sustained a universe of 17,500 , and the complex social complex body part of its inhabitant enabled them to achieve not bad thing , such as cut up and transporting 81 - short ton statues around the island . Though we now have an estimate of why themoaiended up where they did , the dubiousness of how they got there is still up for debate .
[ h / tArs Technica ]
