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Rapa Nui (Easter Island)’S Stone Worlds

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Rapa Nui (Easter Island)’S Stone Worlds Hamilton, S 2013 Rapa Nui (Easter Island)’s Stone Worlds. Archaeology International, No. 16 (2012-2013): 96-109, DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.5334/ai.1613 ARTICLE Rapa Nui (Easter Island)’s Stone Worlds Sue Hamilton* This article explores the spatial, architectural and conceptual relationships between landscape places, stone quarrying, and stone moving and building during Rapa Nui’s statue-building period. These are central themes of the ‘Rapa Nui Landscapes of Con- struction Project’ and are discussed using aspects of the findings of our recent field- work. The different scales of expression, from the detail of the domestic sphere to the monumental working of quarries, are considered. It is suggested that the impressiveness of Rapa Nui’s stone architecture is its conceptual coherence at the small scale as much as at the large scale. The remarkable nature of Rapa Nui (Easter junction with co-investigators Colin Richards Island) is so much more than its renowned (University of Manchester) and Kate Welham colossal statues, known as moai. The moai (Bournemouth University), and our Project are indisputably monumental; those set up Partner, the University of the Highlands and on stone ceremonial platforms (ahu) are up Islands (led by Jane Downes). On the Island, to 10m in height (Fig. 1), while even larger the Project works with Rapa Nui elders and statues, up to a vast 22m, remain at the students and in close cooperation with statue quarry of Rano Raraku. However, what CONAF (Chilean National Parks Authority, is most impressive and intellectually stimu- Rapa Nui) and MAPSE (the Island’s Museo lating is the island-wide scale and intercon- Antropologico Padre Sebastian Englert). nectivity of the architectural outcomes and meaning endowed in its prehistoric stone Living archaeology garnering, quarrying and construction activi- No archaeological fieldwork can or should ties (Hamilton et al., 2011). The ‘Rapa Nui be independent of the particular locale in Landscapes of Construction Project’ (LOC) which it takes place. Rapa Nui has a uniquely is particularly concerned with the social and marooned island location, a difficult history conceptual meanings of these construction and, today, a dynamic living community of undertakings and stone use. The Project was c.5,000 persons. These three elements are at first reported in Archaeology International, the core of any archaeological undertakings when it was initially supported by a small on the Island. grant from the British Academy (Hamilton, Rapa Nui is a small South Pacific island of 2007). We are now two field seasons into a 164 square kilometres (Fig. 2) at the south- 4-year programme of AHRC-funded research. easternmost point of the Polynesian Trian- This AHRC project is based at UCL, in con- gle made between Hawai’i, Aukland Island and Rapa Nui. It is surrounded by an infinity of sea, lying some 2,000km from its near- * UCL Institute of Archaeology, est neighbour, Pitcairn Island, and 3,700km London WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom [email protected] from the mainland, Central Chile. Language Hamilton: Rapa Nui (Easter Island)’s Stone Worlds 97 Fig. 1: Ahu Nau Nau, showing the canoe-shaped ahu platform, its poro (sea boulder) ramp and partly poro-paved plaza on the landward side, and Rano Raraku statues with pukao (‘hats’) in place. characteristics, material culture and genetic The Island’s extreme isolation, the sug- analysis of mitochondrial DNA of prehis- gested fragility of its fossil volcanic landscape toric skeletons (Hagelberg, 1995) all indi- and its low biodiversity, Polynesian-intro- cate that Rapa Nui was first colonised by duced rats and, following its discovery by eastward voyaging Polynesians. The debated Europeans in 1772, the imported diseases/ origin point includes an island in the Mar- epidemics that the outside world brought quesas group, and Mangareva amongst the to the Island in the mid-late 19th century, possibilities (Flenley and Bahn, 2003: chap- have all variously been used to account for ter 2). The arrival date of the founder popu- Rapa Nui’s cultural heights and troughs (Dia- lation has been much disputed. Tradition- mond, 2005; Hunt and Lipo, 2007; Sahlins, ally, on the basis of glottochronology, dated 1955). These include Rapa Nui’s remarkable stratified finds and palaeo-environmental cultural efflorescence during the statue- sequences, a ‘start’ date as early as c.AD 800 building period, the cessation of statue quar- has been advanced. More recent radiocar- rying c.AD1650, with associated profound bon dates, and a critique of the pre-existing changes in the political system, and the dis- sequences and dates, suggest a later date astrous plummet in population size, down of around the 11th century AD for the from estimates of up to c.6,000 persons by arrival of Polynesian colonists (Flenley and the first European visitors to the 111 inhab- Bahn, 2007a; 2007b; Hunt and Lipo, 2006; itants recorded in the 1872 census (Flenley Wilmhurst et al., 2010). Either way, the con- and Bahn, 2003: 169). struction of Rapa Nui’s iconic monuments Today, Rapa Nui is part of Chile, having appears to have been fully established by been annexed in 1888. From 1903 until 1953 AD 1200. the island was rented for intensive sheep 98 Hamilton: Rapa Nui (Easter Island)’s Stone Worlds 400 400 k a Ahu Nau Nau v a e r e Rano Aroi T 3 0 Poike 300 RANO 0 2 0 0 100 200 RARAKU ▼ Puna 100 ▼ Pau Ahu Tetenga 100 100 200 200 0 3 0 Rano Kau 0 5km Fig. 2: Map of Rapa Nui, showing the places mentioned in the text, including the statue roads; the area of red shading is the present-day town of Hanga Roa. The locations of some of the major image ahu (ahu with statues) around the coast are marked by black dots; >100 of the ahu around the coast may originally have had statues, but these are too numerous to depict here (Martinsson-Wallin, 1994). rearing. This resulted in the Rapa Nui popu- Landscape. The first commercial air-flights to lation being forced off the land and being Rapa Nui began in the 1960s and have greatly contained within the Island’s only settlement increased in recent times. Approximately of Hanga Roa (Fig. 2). Paradoxically, this also 70,000 tourists now visit Rapa Nui each year. resulted in the preservation of the Island’s Concurrently, there has been a major revival remarkably continuous landscapes of stone of interest in indigenous traditions and in archaeological features that are the mainstay fostering and maintaining Rapa Nui identity of its tourist economy today. This landscape and independence. The Chilean government includes: ahu (Fig. 1); houses (including is now returning land to the Rapa Nui – and canoe-shaped houses: hare paenga); earthern there is an urgent need to understand how cooking ovens with stone surrounds (umu); the integrity of the archaeology across the rock gardens and walled enclosures for plant- Rapa Nui landscape can best be maintained ings (manavai); chicken houses (hare moai); as part of this important process. quarries and statue roads; and a substantial Rapa Nui thus has a living archaeology that repertoire of petroglyphs. The great impor- is meaningful and integral to the present-day tance of this archaeological landscape was Rapa Nui community, their sense of identity recognised by Chile in declaring Rapa Nui and their understanding and use of the Island. as a National Park in 1935. Since 1996 Rapa LOC aims to work with the Rapa Nui commu- Nui has been designated a UNESCO Cultural nity to provide training and help to record, Hamilton: Rapa Nui (Easter Island)’s Stone Worlds 99 Fig. 3: Rapa Nui colleagues. Clockwise from left: Sorobael Fati overlooking the 2013 excava- tions in the interior of Puna Pau (Colin Richards and Jane Downes are planning the deeply stratified quarry tip lines); Francisca Pakomio on the UCL Institute of Archaeology training excavation at West Dean, West Sussex; and Susana Nahoe, Archaeologist for CONAF Rapa Nui participating in our umu ceremony at the end of a Puna Pau excavation season (photos: M. Seager Thomas). investigate and conserve their own remark- Rapa Nui’s archaeological landscape. In Jan- able archaeological past. In doing so LOC uary/February 2013, we undertook a survey hopes to build a framework of knowledge for CONAF of the south-west branch of the that concurrently elucidates research ques- ‘statue road’ (Ara Moai), from Rano Raraku to tions and works collaboratively with the Rapa Ahu Tetenga (Fig. 2): to verify and assess the Nui community and authorities to provide archaeological context of its route; to study resources and information for presenting the state of preservation of the so-called ‘in Rapa Nui’s pre-contact past. Several Rapa Nui transport statues’ along the route; and to students, supervised by Sorobael Fati, a Rapa make suggestions as to how best develop a Nui elder (Fig. 3), have worked regularly tourist ‘Ara Moai’ trekking trail while pro- with us on our excavations, and last sum- tecting the archaeology of the route. This mer the Project set up a Bursary with UCL to work has allowed us to consider the role and bring a Rapa Nui university student studying function of the ‘statue roads’ as connectors archaeology to the UK, to join the Institute of the communities associated with the ahu of Archaeology’s field training course at West at the coastline with Rano Raraku quarry. Dean, West Sussex. Francisca Pakomio was Some of LOC’s recent fieldwork work, the first recipient of this award (Fig. 3). its interpretative framework and how it is In a similar ethos we are working with being developed to provide an integrated, CONAF to assist monitoring and managing island-wide understanding of the sites and 100 Hamilton: Rapa Nui (Easter Island)’s Stone Worlds monuments of the statue-building period, is Pau quarry and its outer slopes or from ahu.
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