Rethinking Easter Island’s Collapse

[salvorhardin]

Another crack in the dyke of Jared Diamond's grand thesis on societal collapse? I've never read Guns, Germs, and Steel but from what I understand from smart anthropologist friends, it has multiple problems. Looks like it has one more.

"No Rapa Nui story would be complete without a catastrophe. In this telling, that was generated by the arrival of Europeans. Drawing on early Dutch accounts, Hunt and Lipo argue that Rapanui culture had not succumbed to environmental disaster by the early part of the 18th century but was flourishing because it was well adapted to the limited resources on the island. As in other revisions of early European contact…, they paint a positive picture in which goods introduced by the visitors became “the new costly signals communicating access to new wealth and technology.” Responding to opportunities, the islanders created rituals focused on European boats and items that diverted their attention from the moai, which quickly collapsed largely through neglect rather than warfare. Ultimately, collapse was inevitable as disease led to massive population decline, which, when combined with slavery and other abuses, led to social disintegration."

Full post: http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2012/02/01/rethinking-easter-islands-collapse

[salvorhardin]

1. Speaking of cracks in dykes...

Turns out the dyke of the authors of this new paper may have enough cracks be fatally flawed. See this letter in Current World Archaeology that a commenter posted at the Mad Biologist's site: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.marklynas.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F09%2FBahn-flenley-CWA.pdf

[tabatha]

2. So, it was Germs.

[mahina]

3. Rapa Nui should be considered in the present as well as in the past. These problems are ongoing.

Chile is really oppressing the people terribly. Our John Osorio introduces Rapa Nui activist and artist Santi Hirorangi at Moana Nui 2011 here in Honolulu recently http://moananui2011.org/?page_id=745

Cool to hear the spoken language and understand it, as it is so close to Hawaiian. I hope to go one day.

[Odin2005]

4. And many have called BS on Diamond's claim that the Greenland Norse didn't fish.

In fact, the evidence shows that there wasn't any mass starvation, people just slowly left, returning to Iceland, and the population dwindled.

[salvorhardin]

5. I haven't read GGS myself

I tried, but it was just so deathly dull. I do remember the blog wars over it in 2005 though. Here's an overview post from that time: http://www.johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/blogs/guns_germs_debates_2005.html

A similar flap erupted over Collapse too.

[Igel]

6. GGS was interesting.

It actually made arguments which, if not conclusive, certainly point out plausible contributors to civilizations' rise and demise.


GGS, of course, ignored a lot of things and pretended to greater authority than it could have. A failing, but a common one--and forgivable in popular literature that is at least part-advocacy.

"Collapse" was pathetic. Couldn't read it. Had nothing better to do and found myself examining the floor in minute detail after about 10 pages. Then I'd focus, and 20 minutes later realize I was again examining the floor in minute detai. Or my socks. Or shoes.

The problem with "Collapse" is that it too narrowly tried to claim exclusive causes for civilizational collapse, and those causes were fairly few in number. It also ignored a fair number of really obvious causes, some of which were probably dominant in some of the "case studies." A little advocacy isn't a bad thing (not a good thing in every case, by any means); too much advocacy is always a bad thing.