ESL272 De Anza College Easter End Article Essay In “Easter’s End,” Jared Diamond claims that environmental degradation was the main reason for the destruct

ESL272 De Anza College Easter End Article Essay In “Easter’s End,” Jared Diamond claims that environmental degradation was the main reason for the destruction of the culture and population on Easter Island.In the second article, “A Monumental Collapse,” researchers, including Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo, argue that there were more factors contributing to the collapse, and they disputed environmental degradation was the main factor.After considering the evidence presented in the two readings, what were the most plausible (possible) explanations, in your opinion, for the collapse of Easter Island?

Answer the assignment question in three paragraphs:

Paragraph #1: Summarize Jared Diamond’s arguments of environmental degradation in relationship to the building of the statues (Moai).(About 150 words)
Paragraph #2: Summarize the findings of Terry Hunt, Carl Lipo, Thegn Ladefoged, Christopher Stevenson, and Benny Peiser. You should cover these topics: Arrival date of the first Polynesian settlers on Easter Island, prehistoric paths, rock gardens, low rainfall on the island, soil erosion record, slave raids, and the spread of smallpox after Europeans came into contact with islanders between 1722-1862. (About 180 words)
Paragraph #3: Answer the question below (offer your opinion) now that you have read and written about arguments from both articles. (About 180 words)
Other requirements:

Question for Reading Assignment 2: After considering the evidence presented in the two readings, what were the most plausible (possible) explanations, in my opinion, for the collapse of Easter Island?

Use FOUR if not more words from the vocab list below and underline them.
Use at least one quote and one paraphrase. Include page # for both, and type the original sentence(s) of the paraphrase at the bottom of the page. (Do not use a long quote in your summary paragraph, which should always be written in your own words.)

Vocabulary list: gigantic stone statues (moai), isolation, cessation, subtropical, archaeology, pollen analysis, topsoil, validate, devour, wiped out, colonized, collapsed, denial, undeniable, self-destruction, dispute, confirmation, culture, acculturation. co
In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond, a professor of geography
identified eight factors within human control that have contributed to the
collapse of past societies. Which of these factors do you feel are most likely
to threaten civilizations today?
• The destruction of forests and other habitats
• Soil erosion and loss of soil fertility
• Water supply and management problems
Overhunting
Overfishing
Damage to native plant and animal species caused by the introduction of
new species
• Human overpopulation
• An increase in the impact of each individual on the environment
•
MORE WORDS YOU’LL NEED
archaeology: the study of ancient civilizations by examining the remains of buildings and
objects; also spelled archeology
bureaucrat: an official who works for a complex organization or government, especially
one who follows the rules too strictly
clan: a tribe or large social group organized according to kinship, or family relations
desecrate: to damage something that is holy
excavation: a place where people dig to search for archaeological evidence
sediment: solid material that settles at the bottom of liquids, such as rivers
1) Read
In this article from a science magazine, biologist and geographer Jared Diamond
gives background on the culture, history, and mystery of Easter Island.
Easter’s End
A
mong the mysteries of human history,
the mystery of Easter Island (called
Rapa Nui in the local Polynesian
language) remains unsurpassed. The mystery
5 stems especially from the island’s gigantic stone
statues (called moai), its impoverished landscape,
and the extreme isolation of a people living in
what might have been an island paradise.
2 Easter Island, with an area of only 64 square
10 miles?, lies in the Pacific Ocean more than 2,000
miles west of the nearest continent (South
America), and 1,400 miles from the nearest
habitable island. Its subtropical location gives it
a rather mild climate, while its volcanic origins
15 make its soil rich and fertile. In theory, these
blessings should have made Easter a miniature
1 See Unit 1, page 2, for metric equivalents to measurements used in this article.
1.46
UNIT 10
30
Do
organization, and how could it have arisen in
paradise, remote from problems that beset the
rest of the world.
such a barren landscape?
2 The island derives its name from its Easter
20 day discovery by the Dutch explorer Jacob
Roggeveen in 1722. The island Roggeveen saw
was not a paradise but a grassland without a
single tree or bush over ten feet high. The
islanders Roggeveen encountered had no real
25 firewood to warm themselves during Easter’s
cool, wet, windy winters. Their native animals
included nothing larger than insects. For
domestic animals, they had only chickens.
Despite the Polynesians’ fame as seafaring
30 people, the Easter Islanders came out to
Roggeveen’s ship by swimming or paddling
canoes that Roggeveen described as bad and
frail. The leaky canoes, only ten feet long, held
at most two people, and only three or four
35 canoes were observed on the entire island. The
islanders Roggeveen met were totally isolated,
unaware that other people existed.
5 Easter Island’s most famous feature is its
huge stone statues, more than 200 of which once
One of Easter Island’s famous stone statues.
40 stood on massive stone platforms lining the
coast. At least 700 more, in all stages of
65 Evidence comes from three fields: archaeology,
completion, were abandoned in quarries or on pollen analysis, and paleontology. Modern
ancient roads between the quarries and the
archaeological excavations, radiocarbon dating,
coast. Most of the erected statues were carved in and linguistic evidence suggest that human
45 a single quarry2 containing a soft, volcanic stone activities began around ad 400 to 700. The period
and transported as far as six miles-despite 70 of statue construction peaked around ad 1200 to
heights as great as 33 feet and weights up to
1500, with few if any statues erected thereafter.
82 tons. The abandoned statues, meanwhile,
Archaeologists most often cite a population
were as much as 65 feet tall and weighed up to figure of 7,000, but estimates range up to 20,000.
50 270 tons. The stone platforms were equally
gigantic: up to 500 feet long and 10 feet high, 75 people, using only stone chisels4 made from hard
with facing slabs weighing up to 10 tons.
stones available on the island, could carve even
6 Roggeveen himself quickly recognized the the largest completed statue within a year. Given
problem the statues posed. Without wheels and enough timber and fiber for rope, a few hundred
55 with no source of power except their own
people could load a statue onto wooden sleds,
muscles, how did the islanders transport the 80 drag it over lubricated wooden tracks or rollers,
giant statues? To deepen the mystery, by 1864 all and use logs as levers to stand them up. Hauling
of the statues standing had been pulled down, one statue would require hundreds of yards of
by the islanders themselves. Why then did they rope made from plant fibers. Did Easter at one
60 carve them in the first place? And why did
they time have the necessary trees?
stop? Such an undertaking required complex
That question can be answered by analyzing
political organization. What happened
to that and dating the pollen trapped in the layers of
2 quarry: an open pit or mine from which large rocks are cut
3 slab: a thick, flat piece of stone, wood, or other hard material
4 chisel: a sharp tool for shaping wood or stone
5 sled: a flat vehicle without wheels, used to transport things by dragging or sliding them
pollen: a powdery material from flowers involved in plant reproduction
& Archaeologists have determined that twenty
85
THE MYSTERY OF EASTER ISLAND
147
31
a
to
of declining
of Easters
civilization
sediment in swamps and ponds, Pollen analysis 130 constructing big canoes, porpoise bones
shows that during the early years of Polynesian disappeared abruptly from garbage heaps
settlement, Easter was not a wasteland at all.
around 1500. In place of these meat supplies, the
90 Instead, a subtropical forest of woody bushes islanders intensified their production of chickens
and trees, including the rope-yielding hauhau and also turned to the largest remaining meat
tree, towered over a ground layer of shrubs, 135 source available: humans, whose bones became
herbs, ferns, and grasses. The most common tree common in late Easter Island garbage heaps.
was the Easter Island palm, a relative of the
14With fewer food sources, Easter Island could
95 Chilean palm, which grows up to 82 feet tall and no longer feed the chiefs, bureaucrats, and
6 feet in diameter. This tall palm would have
priests who had kept a complex society running.
been ideal for transporting and erecting statues 140 Surviving islanders described to early European
and constructing large canoes.
visitors how local chaos replaced centralized
Excavations of garbage heaps yield an
government and a warrior class took over. By
100 equally surprising picture of Easter’s original around 1700, the population began to crash
animal world. Nearly one-third of all bones
toward between one-quarter and one-tenth of its
came from porpoises. Porpoises generally live 145 former number. Around 1770 rival clans started
far out at sea, so they must have been hunted
to topple each other’s statues, breaking the
offshore, in big seaworthy canoes built from
heads off. By 1864 the last statue had been
105 palm trees. In addition to porpoise meat, the thrown down and desecrated. The consequence
early Polynesian settlers supplemented their
15 As we try to imagine the decline of Easter’s
diet with seabirds, land birds, and rats.
150 civilization, we ask ourselves, Why didn’t they
This evidence lets us imagine that Easter’s realize what they were doing, and stop before it
first colonists canoed into an unspoiled paradise was too late?
110 and had the resources to develop a complex
.
society. What happened to it? The pollen grains Consider the hundreds of abandoned statues.
and the bones yield a grim answer.
155 Perhaps war interrupted the moving teams or
( 2 Pollen records show that destruction of
the last rope snapped. When the last palm tree
Easter’s forests was well under way by the year was cut, palms had probably long since ceased
115 AD 800, just a few centuries after the start of
to be of economic significance. That left only
human settlement. Not long after 1400, the palm smaller and smaller palm saplings to clear each
finally became extinct, not only as a result of 160 year. No one would have noticed the felling of
being chopped down to clear land for
the last small palm.
agriculture and provide wood but also because
By now the meaning of Easter Island for us
120 the growing population of rats devoured the
should be chillingly obvious. Today, again, a
nuts necessary for regeneration. The hauhau tree rising population confronts shrinking resources.
did not become extinct in Polynesian times, but 165 It would be easy to close our eyes or to give up
its numbers declined drastically until there
in despair. But there is one crucial difference.
weren’t enough left to make ropes from.
The Easter Islanders had no books and no
The widespread destruction of the island’s histories of other doomed societies. Unlike the
animals was just as extreme. Every species of Easter Islanders, we have histories of the past-
native land bird became extinct, and more than 170 information that can save us. Our main hope is
half of the seabird species breeding on the
that we may now choose to learn front the fates
island were wiped out. With no trees for
of societies like Easter’s. O
(
16 The disaster may have happened gradually.
Cons
happened caused
a lot of
abandoned
left
the sonal
palm tree
ou
125
ah
The author’s
and
No histories and book in the
Easter Islanders,
to learn
main hope is
we .
the fates of societies
like Easter’s

Purchase answer to see full
attachment