There is one beautiful and exotic place on our planet: Easter Island. Now it is a practically barren land triangle in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, slightly larger than Kostroma. But this was not always the case, and about 500 years ago, this ass of the world was the center of one of the most unusual civilizations in the world.
This civilization created its own pantheon, unique writing and remarkable moai monuments, but then it actually self-destructed, and by the time of the Europeans, only a couple of thousand inhabitants remained on the island, diving back into the Stone Age.
How did it happen? We have already discussed this in detail with scientific calculations, and now briefly and in simple words …
By the time the first settlers arrived, Easter Island was truly a paradise: palm trees, forests, birds, fish, small animals, fresh water - and all this happiness is absolutely nobody's, settle down, breed, master. From the legendary hundred of the first settlers, the population of the island has grown to twenty thousand.
Their civilization was completely ordinary by human standards, but the island was quite far from its neighbors.
In general, these aborigines began to multiply, to settle around the island, organizing themselves into tribes under the leadership of leaders and spiritual leaders.
If I remember correctly, their famous monuments had two purposes:
Promotional video:
1.begging for the grace of the gods in the form of good harvests, that is, the worse the situation on the island, the more actively they were built
2. to wipe the nose of the rival leaders, showing that this tribe is the richest and blooms and smells under the wise leadership of its leader, kindly treated by God's grace. Which, of course, forced competitors to build statues even bigger and cooler.
During the heyday, on the island, the construction of statues, their delivery and installation at the request of the customer was a profitable business, from which individual artels of local residents were fed. And all the reserves of the forest were exhausted not for boring cooking, but for the installation of such monuments.
By the time the islanders realized what they had done, there were no more birds and wild animals left on the island. Fertile soil was blown into the ocean by the wind. The active transition to seafood has predictably led to a fairly rapid depletion of coastal waters. It became impossible to swim further in search of fish: there are no trees, new boats cannot be built! You can't get off the island either, for the same reason.
It was like in Hollywood films, resources on earth are running out and all forces are thrown into the project "the last hope of humanity", only instead of a planet there is a small island, and instead of humanity, separate tribes, gnawing among themselves for the remnants of resources. The situation is worsening, the land on which at least something grows less and less, fish and shellfish are less and less, all birds have been devoured. Blame, of course, neighboring tribes, campaigns for food on neighboring lands end in great blood, but do not bring results, except for the reduction in the number of hungry mouths and return visits of courtesy.
Young warriors, using the general discontent, send old leaders and priests to dry rations, the tribes split into smaller groups, who happily fight among themselves. The island had no external contacts with its neighbors due to the lack of islands nearby. So migration and trade could not fix the situation. Fishing is ineffective due to the peculiarities of the coast.
For the next two hundred years, the entire population of the island was engaged in war, cannibalism and the redistribution of the remaining scarce resources that could ensure survival. According to oral legends, at first they killed all the nobility, and then, settling in small gangs along the coast, they began a war of all against all, in the best traditions of Mad Max.
In the end, the colonizers discovered a deserted island with a completely wild population, which, however, could still tell something about its golden age and share rare artifacts.
Who will correct or add?