Unearthing the mystery of Easter Island's Moa

[Eldorado]

"Ancient Rapanui carvers worked at the behest of the elite ruling class to carve nearly 1,000 Moai because they, and the community at large, believed the statues capable of producing agricultural fertility and thereby critical food supplies, according to a new study from Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director of the Easter Island Statue Project, recently published in Journal of Archaeological Science.

"Van Tilburg and her team, working with geoarchaeologist and soils specialist Sarah Sherwood, believe they have found scientific evidence of that long-hypothesized meaning thanks to careful study of two particular Moai excavated over five years in the Rano Raraku quarry on the eastern side of the Polynesian island."

Full monty at EurekAlert: https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/uoc--utm121319.php

Paper abstract at Science Direct: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440319300809