MICRONESIA AND EASTER ISLAND HISTORICAL WONDERS
Easter Island is one of the world’s most isolated inhabited islands. There are three freshwater crater lake near the summit of Terevaka, but no permanent streams or rivers. Easter Island is a volcanic high island. The island is dominated by hawaiite and basalt flows which are rich in iron and show affinity with igneous rocks found in the Galápagos Islands.Easter Island and surrounding islets form the summit of a large volcanic mountain rising over 6,600 ft from the sea bed. The mountain is part of the Sala y Gómez Ridge, a (mostly submarine) mountain range with dozens of seamounts. The range begins with Pukao and next Moai, two seamounts to the west of Easter Island, and extends 1,700 mi east to the Nazca Ridge. The ridge was formed by the Nazca Plate floating over the Easter hotspot. The movement of Nazca and formerly the Farallon Plate over the hotspot has created a long underwater ridge, the Nazca Ridge, whose eastern end is being subducted under Peru. Only at Easter Island, its surrounding islets and Sala y Gómez does the Sala y Gómez Ridge form dry land. Pukao, Moai and Easter Island were formed in the last 750,000 years and are the ridge’s youngest islands. According to geologists the last volcanic activity on the island occurred 10,000 years ago.
Estimated dates of initial settlement of Easter Island have ranged from 300 to 1200 CE, approximately coinciding with the arrival of the first settlers in Hawaii. Rectifications in radiocarbon dating have changed almost all of the previously posited early settlement dates in Polynesia. Rapa Nui has more recently been considered to have been settled in the narrower range of 700 to 1100 CE. An ongoing study by archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo suggests a still-later date: “Radiocarbon dates for the earliest stratigraphic layers at Anakena, Easter Island, and analysis of previous radiocarbon dates imply that the island was colonized late, about 1200 CE. Significant ecological impacts and major cultural investments in monumental architecture and statuary thus began soon after initial settlement.”
According to oral traditions recorded by missionaries in the 1860s, the island originally had a strong class system, with an ariki, high chief, wielding great power over nine other clans and their respective chiefs. The high chief was the eldest descendent through first-born lines of the island’s legendary founder, Hotu Matu’a. The most visible element in the culture was the production of massive statues called moai that represented deified ancestors. As the island became overpopulated and resources diminished, warriors known as matatoa gained more power and the Ancestor Cult ended, making way for the Bird Man Cult.
Nan Madol was the ceremonial and political seat of the Saudeleur dynasty, which united Pohnpei’s estimated 25,000 people until about 1628. Set apart between the main island of Pohnpei and Temwen Island, it was a scene of human activity as early as the first or second century AD. By the 8th or 9th century islet construction had started, but the distinctive megalithic architecture was probably not begun until perhaps the 12th or early 13th century. One major purpose of constructing a separate city was to insulate the nobility from the common people.
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