Post #190013 by captnkirk on Fri, Sep 30, 2005 8:24 PM

The one fact that kind of debunks the space aliens carving the Moai belief is that several Moai including the largest one ever carved are laying face up partially carved in a stone quarry on the island. The rock they are made from is actually quite soft when it is freshly cut, which makes it carvable by even very primative stone tools and even sticks.

At this quarry you can see how carving was done. An oval trench like a moat is dug into the rock. Features are carved on the front of the Moai and the trench is made deeper around it. Lastly the finished Moai is undercut near its back. Broken off and lifted out of the hole.

An almost fully completed Moai is in the quarry to this day still connected to the rock it was carved from by a spine of rock about a foot thick and two feet tall running down its back.

Pollen samples taken from Rapa Nui's lake and fruits found preserved in caves show evidence that the now extinct palm tree that used to live on the island was huge and plentiful. It's a close relative of the largest date palms known. Pollen evidence proves when the people arrived on the island they brought with them several kinds fruit bearing plants. I think it is not far fetched to think they would have brought species to make ropes from as well. The island would have supported a population much larger than was found on the island much later when the white men discovered it, after the civilization had collapsed.

To say that thousands of years after men built the great pyramids in Egypt and Central America and all the other wonders of the ancient world the people of Rapa Nui could not carve and move those stone heads with out help from extraterrestrials is just nonsence.

[ Edited by: captnkirk 2005-09-30 20:26 ]