Easter Island Mapping Project

This has been going on for just over a year, but hadn't heard about it until now.

http://usa.autodesk.com/company/sponsorships/easter-island

Cool project. But the history part is a little lacking:

"Without canoes to fish in deeper water or soil to grow more food, the Rapa Nui faced imminent starvation. 3,500 kilometers (~2200 miles) by water from their nearest neighbor, the Rapa Nui eventually used up their limited resources only to see their tropical paradise transformed into a bleak prison filled with chaos, warfare and cannibalism. On Rapa Nui, civilization came to a crashing end with the population falling to 120 souls.
Today’s approximately 1500 Rapa Nui are the descendants of these few survivors, and they face challenges..."

To make it look like the islanders were solely responsible for their own demise, and conveniently leave out the role of the slave traders that repeatedly raided the island, kidnapping all able men, (including the elders that knew the ancient traditions), letting them perish in Peru's Guano mines, and sending the few sick survivors back so they would infect the remaining population with diseases that killed off almost all of them, borders on historic revisionism. THAT'S really why there were only 120 souls left by the end of the 19th century.

Amen Bigbrother!

Thanks tikigreg for posting this, I hadn't seen it either.

bigbrotiki - wow, I hadn't heard that they sent any survivors back. There is some scary history, man.