Easter Island: Drought may have sped the demise of Rapa Nui sculpture culture

A newly identified drought on the Pacific island of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, could have spurred islanders to invest fewer resources in building their legendary stone monuments. But some archaeologists dispute this interpretation.

The island of Rapa Nui has become central to a cautionary tale of disaster caused by unsustainable use of resources. The standard narrative is that the arrival of the first Polynesians on the tiny island in the 1200s led to rapid deforestation, in part to support the…