Conventional wisdom holds that the island of Rapa Nui, ... (12.3 km) at its widest point – likely never held many more than the 3,000 or so people European explorers encountered in 1722. ...

There are hundreds of huge stone statues on Rapa Nui — the so-called Moai. No one has ever conclusively found out why they exist. But researchers have long assumed that many thousands of people ...

Rapa Nui was formed at least 750,000 years ago by ... 27, 2022. Each monolithic human figure carved centuries ago by this remote Pacific island’s Rapanui people represents an ancestor. (AP Photo ...

Island's famous moai statues are crumbling into the sea, forcing locals to face urgent decisions about how best to protect their heritage.

Rapa Nui was formed at least 750,000 years ago by volcanic eruptions. Its first inhabitants were sailors from Central Polynesia who gradually created their own culture. The moai were carved ...

The Rapa Nui people carved the moai directly from volcanic tuff, a porous stone made of solidified ash, in Rano Raraku, an extinct volcano. The moai carvers were considered master craftsmen and ...

Rapa Nui people knew that bedrock had the ability to enrich the ground. They would break off pieces and place them on the surface and into the soil, giving the land missing minerals.

The Rapa Nui people, he says, used ropes and momentum to move the moai. He scrunches his shoulders toward his ears, makes like he’s a stone statue and stiffly rocks his upper body left to right.

The giant moai statues at Ahu Tongariki in Rapa Nui. (Image credit: Atlantide Phototravel via Getty Images) A deforested environment. When people first came to Rapa Nui, around 1,000 years ago ...

The earliest settlers of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, appear to have had some sort of contact with people from South America as early as 1,000 years ago, a new plant study finds.

The new study’s population estimate is in line with accounts written by early European visitors to the island that suggested that about 3,000 people lived there. But some Rapa Nui researchers ...

The people who first arrived at Rapa Nui around 1200 AD represented the final stage of an epic expansion of humanity. New advances in canoe building, sailing and navigation allowed Polynesians, who ...