A
One ofthe world’s most famous yet least visited archaeological sites, Easter Island is a small hilly, now treeless islandof volcanic origin. Located in the Pacific Ocean at 27 degrees south ofthe equator and some 2200 miles (3600 kilometers) off the coast of Chile,it is considered to be the world’s most remote inhabited island.The island is, technically speaking, a single massive volcano rising overten thousand feet from the Pacific Ocean floor. The island received itsmost well-known current name, Easter Island, from the Dutch sea captainJacob Roggeveen who became the first European to visit Easter Sunday,April 5, 1722.
B
In theearly 1950s, the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl popularized the ideathat the island had been originally settled by advanced societies ofIndians from the coast of South America. Extensive archaeological,ethnographic and linguistic research has conclusively shown thishypothesis to be inaccurate. It is now recognized that the original inhabitants of Easter Island are of Polynesian stock (DNA extracts from skeletons have confirmed this, that they most probably came from the Marquesas or Society islands, and that they arrived as early as 318 AD (carbon dating of reeds from a grave confirms this). At the time of their arrival, much of the island was forested, was teeming with land birds,and was perhaps the most productive breeding site for seabirds in thePolynesia region. Because of the plentiful bird, fish and plant foodsources, the human population grew and gave rise to a rich religious andartistic culture.
C
Thatculture’s most famous features are itsenormous stone statues called moai, at least 288 of which once stood uponmassive stone platforms called ahu. There are some 250 of these ahu platforms spaced approximately one half mile apart and creating an almost unbroken line around the perimeter of the island. Another 600 moaistatues, in various stages of completion, are scattered around theisland, either in quarries or along ancient roads between the quarriesand the coastal areas where the statues were most often erected. Nearlyall the moai are carved from the tough stone of the Rano Raraku volcano.The average statue is 14 feet and 6 inches tall and weighs 14 tons. Somemoai were as large as 33 feet and weighed more than 80 tons. Dependingupon the size of the statues, it has been estimated that between 50 and150 people were needed to drag them across the countryside on sleds androllers made from the island’s trees.
D
Scholarsare unable to definitively explain the function and use of the moaistatues. It is assumed that their carving and erection derived from anidea rooted in similar practices found elsewhere in Polynesia but whichevolved in a unique way on Easter Island. Archaeological and iconographicanalysis indicates that the statue cult was based on an ideology of male,lineage-based authority incorporating anthropomorphic symbolism. The statueswere thus symbols of authority and power, both religious and political.But they were not only symbols. To the people who erected and used them,they were actual repositories of sacred spirit. Carved stone and woodenobjects in ancient Polynesian religions, when properly fashioned andritually prepared, were believed to be charged by a magical spiritualessence called mana. The ahu platforms of Easter Island were the sanctuaries of the people, and the moai statues were the ritually charged sacred objects of those sanctuaries.
E
Besidesits more well-known name, Easter Island is also known asTe-Pito-O-Te-Henua, meaning "The Navel of the World’, and as Mata-Ki-Te-Rani, meaning ‘ Eyes Looking at Heaven’. These ancient name and a host of mythological details ignored bymainstream archaeologists, point to the possibility that the remoteisland may once have been a geodetic marker and the site of anastronomical observatory of a long forgotten civilization. In his book,Heaven’s Mirror, Graham Hancock suggests that Easter Island may once have been a significant scientific outpost of this antediluvian civilization and that its location had extreme importance ina planet-spanning, mathematically precise grid of sacred sites. Two other alternative scholars, Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, haveextensively studied the location and possible function of these geodeticmarkers. In their fascinating book, Uriel’s Machine, they suggest that onepurpose of the geodetic markers was as part of global network of sophisticatedastronomical observatories dedicated to predicting and preparing forfuture commentary impacts and crystal displacement cataclysms.
F
In thelatter years of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st centuryvarious writers and scientists have advanced theories regarding the rapiddecline of Easter Island’s magnificent civilizationaround the time of the first European contact. Principal among thesetheories, and now shown to be inaccurate, is that postulated by Jared Diamond in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. Basically these theories state that a few centimes after Easter Island’s initial colonization the resource needs of the growing populationhad begun to outpace the island’s capacity to renew itselfecologically. By the 1400s the forests had been entirely cut, the richground cover had eroded away, the springs had dried up, and the vast flocksof birds coming to roost on the island had disappeared. With no logs tobuild canoes for offshore fishing, with depleted bird and wildlife foodsources, and with declining crop yields because of the erosion of goodsoil, the nutritional intake of the people plummeted. First famine, thencannibalism，set in. Because the island could nolonger feed the chiefs, bureaucrats and priests who kept the complexsociety the resulting chaos triggered a socialand cultural collapse. By 1700 the population dropped to between one-quarter and one-tenth of its former number，and many of the statues were toppled during supposed"clan of the 1600 and 1700s.
List ofHeadings:
i The famous moai
ii The status represented symbols of combined purposes
iii The ancient spots which indicates scientific
iv The story of the name
v Early immigrants, rise and prosperity
vi The geology of Easter Island
vii The begin of Thor Heyerdahl’s discover
viii The countering explanation the misconceptions politicallymanipulated
ix Symbols of authority and power
x the Navel of the World
xi The Norwegian Invaders’ legacy
27-30: 27. Paragraph B 28. Paragraph C
29. Paragraph D 30. Paragraph E
判断：
31. The first inhabitants of Easter Island are Polynesian, from theMarquesas or Society islands.
32. Construction of some moai statues on the island was not finished.
33.The Moai can be found not only on Easter Island but also elsewhere inPolynesia.
34.Most archeologists recognized the religious and astronomical functionsfor an ancient society
35. The structures on Easter Island work as an astronomical outpostfor extraterrestrial visitors.
36. The theory that depleted natural resources leading to the failof Easter Island actual has a distorted perspective.
37-40 Summary:
Many theories speculated that Easter Island’s fall around the era of the initial European contact. Some say the resources are depleted by a37______ .The erroneous theories began with a root of the38______advanced by some scholars. Early writers did not have adequate 39______understandings to comprehend the true nature of events on the island. Thesocial devastation was in fact a direct result of 40______ of the firstEuropean settlers
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发表于 2023-9-26 09:53:29
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