Archaeologists say a 3D model of a centuries-old quarry of unfinished stone head statues on Easter Island offers new clues about how these monuments were made and the Polynesian society that brought them into being.Also known as Rapa Nui, the remote island is famed for the gargantuan sculptures that look out over the Pacific Ocean, but its inhabitants never erected what would have been the community’s largest statue. The giant head, along with hundreds of others, remains embedded in rock in the quarry, a volcanic crater.Individual clans, and not a single entity with an island-wide workforce as once believed, likely organized construction of the fascinating stone heads, known as moai, according to research published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“The sheer scale seemed to demand centralized coordination,” said study coauthor Carl Lipo, a professor at Binghamton University’s department of anthropology in New York. “The presence of monuments became circular evidence for hierarchy. Monuments meant chiefs because chiefs built monuments.”For the site analysis, researchers built what they described as the first high-resolution 3D model of the Rano Raraku moai quarry from 11,000 overlapping images taken by a drone in a process known as photogrammetry.The model of the quarry revealed 426 moai in various stages of completion. – Carl P. Lipo/Binghamton University; Terry L. Hunt/University of ArizonaThe scientists identified 30 distinct sites of quarrying activity, which they said suggested multiple independent work areas. The team also found evidence of transport of moai out of the quarry in different directions before being erected on enormous platforms dotted around the island.This approach, the authors argued, also indicated that the manufacture of megalithic figures was not under centralized management.“This means the entire production chain — from first cutting into bedrock to final statue details — stayed within individual zones, rather than having statues move between areas for different production phases,” as would be the case in an industrial quarry, Lipo said via email.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHe added that the different zones showed variability in extraction methods and finishing techniques. The pattern adds to evidence that Rapa Nui was not a politically unified society and instead consisted of small and independent family groups.Massive scale of Easter Island’s head statuesThe model gives fresh perspective to the monumental endeavor that took place on the tiny island, where around 1,000 stone statues were erected from the 13th to 17th centuries. The average statue was 4 meters ( …
