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Science 17 March 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5767, p. 1517
DOI: 10.1126/science.311.5767.1517a
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Figure 1 When Dutch sailors arrived on Easter Island in 1722, they encountered a famished population of Polynesians living on a denuded landscape marked by giant stone statues. It has been generally assumed that colonists arrived on the island between about 400 and 1000 A.D.; only later, around 1200 A.D., did they erect the statues and cleared the once-abundant forests. Hunt and Lipo (p. 1603) present radiocarbon dates from a recent excavation on Easter Island and analyze previous dates from other sites. Their dates and analysis imply that colonization occurred near the time of statue construction. If so, then irreversible deforestation may have started immediately after the Polynesians arrived.

CREDIT: HUNT AND LIPO




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