The island of Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, has been called "the clearest
example of a society that destroyed itself." For years it was taken for
granted that the people of Rapa Nui had depleted their natural resources in
pursuit of bigger and better stone statues called Moai. However, recent
scholarship has called into to question the widely known story of ecological
collapse. Were the people of Rapa Nui really the authors of their own
destruction, or has this narrative been unfairly exaggerated? Tune in and
found out how birdmen, traumatized skeletons, and a stolen friend all play a
role in the story.
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