Study: DNA Analysis Challenges Easter Island 'Ecocide' Theory

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Facts

• A new genomic analysis published in Nature on Wednesday found no evidence that the indigenous population of the Pacific island of Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, suffered a self-inflicted collapse due to overexploiting natural resources, challenging Jared Diamond's popular 'ecocide' theory.^[1][2]
• This comes as genetic data of the bones and teeth of 15 Rapanui individuals suggests that the island's population grew from the 13th century until the mid-19th century and fell as a result of Peruvian slave raids and an outbreak of smallpox.^[2][3]
• The paper also found that Native American DNA made up around 12% of the ancient Rapanui's genomes, supporting claims that the Polynesian people interacted with Native Americans from South America long before the arrival of Europeans.^[4][5]
• Rapa Nui, now a special territory of Chile in the Southwestern Pacific Ocean, is one of the most remote places in the world, more than a thousand miles away from the closest inhabited island, and known for its iconic moai stone statues.^[6]
• These new findings corroborate those of a study published in Science Advances in June that used satellite imagery to determine that the island's maximum early population was much smaller than previously claimed.^[7][8]
• Experts supporting the 'ecocide' theory claim that Europeans who first arrived in Rapa Nui in 1722 found a collapsed society that had overexploited resources and turned to cannibalism.^[7][9]

Sources: ^[1]Nature, ^[2]Financial Times, ^[3]Independent, ^[4]New Scientist, ^[5]Science, ^[6]Newsweek, ^[7]Raw Story, ^[8]FOX News and ^[9]Guardian.

Narratives

• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by The Skeptic and National Review. The Rapa Nui collapse myth has been debunked year after year for decades — and these latest findings support that there was no such thing as a Rapa Nui 'ecocide.' However, given that this enduring lie is all too convenient for green activists and masks the impacts of European colonialism, this is hardly the last nail in the coffin of this narrative.
• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Discover Magazine and World Economic Forum. Even if evidence comes to show that Diamond was wrong to choose Rapa Nui as an example of ecocide, the most important issue in his work was to raise awareness about the threat that anthropogenic environmental degradation poses to humanity. Now, the international community has created a legal definition of ecocide to criminalize such damages.