All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S06E19.XviD-AFG[EZTVx.to]

Tonight, a remote island that's
mystified humanity for centuries. Home

thousand giants.

Among the great wonders of the ancient
world.

They are very strange, otherworldly, and
found nowhere else on Earth.

Like Stonehenge, these statues are
instantly recognizable.

But what's more interesting about Easter
Island are the secrets that we have yet

to unravel.

But it's not just the statues that are
shrouded in mystery.

It's also the people who live there,
known as the Rapa Nui.

When Europeans get there, they were just
sort of blown away. Could this have

been achieved by the people that are
living there? It doesn't seem possible.

What continues to intrigue people is the
question why.

Why in the world are the top theories
surrounding the mysteries of Easter

Island? Some claim the Moai are the
embodiment of people that have passed

The Rapa Nui people cut down too many
trees.

and things began to spiral out of
control from there. Some say that the

were fending off starvation by eating
the flesh of other survivors.

How and why were those astounding Easter
Island statues first built? How were

they moved into place? And what happened
to the people who made them?

April 5th, 1722, Easter Sunday.

Dutch explorers are sailing across the
South Pacific in search of Australia

they spot land on the horizon.

The ship's captain, this Dutch explorer,
Captain Rohevin, comes across this bit

of land in the South Pacific and he
realizes very quickly that this is not

Australia. This is much smaller. It's
only about 14 miles long.

Didn't even show up on the map.

It's incredibly remote.

It's 2 ,200 miles off the coast of
Chile. The next coast, it goes back in

middle of the vast Pacific.

Upon first glance, he's thinking, oh,
it's just this barren spit of land. But

the crew of Rahabin's ship starts to
notice smoke rising from the island.

Islanders sail out on canoes to greet
the explorers.

Frights about these people.

in his long.

They're very friendly. They have
astonishingly white teeth.

They've got these very unique
hairstyles.

Now, the captain, he starts to realize
this island is unlike anything that he's

ever encountered before.

Europeans were just sort of blown away
by what they saw.

They come there expecting to find native
people maybe scrapping out a living.

And you're struck instantly about how is
this possible? How could...

Anyone has made any of these statues,
much less hundreds of them, on such

It doesn't seem possible.

The islanders call them Moai.

They're found nowhere else in the
Pacific and nowhere else on Earth.

These 1 ,000 statues that mostly are
dotted along the landscape on the

region basically represent human...

on the island, that the islanders made
these heads and moved them as such. The

reality is that all of the heads that we
see are parts of full statues that have

torsos and arms and bellies, but those
parts are buried.

There are a variety of Moai out there,
some that are very tiny, others that are

almost seven stories tall.

Their sizes, although they range in how
big and fat they are, the more average

size is about 14 to 15 feet tall and
somewhere around 10 to 20 tons in

So we have this contrast between a plate
about these marbles that are these

statues. He writes, quote, These stone
figures caused thunder, for we could not

hope that people had been able to erect
them.

The Dutch explorers sail off after a few
days, but...

They're left with a lot of unanswered
questions about the island's

and more specifically, why they built
these incredibly massive stone giants.

I think that what intrigues people and
what continues to intrigue people is the

question, why?

Why in the world did they do this?

The answer to that riddle may lie deep
within the island's past.

Native people who live on the island
today don't call it Easter Island.

That's a name that was given to them.
Their own island now they call Rapa Nui.

It's also the name of the people,
language that people speak. So there are

Nui people speaking Rapa Nui on Rapa
Nui.

The more traditional name, which goes
back further in time, is Te Pitu o

Tehenua, which could be interpreted as
the center of the world or the end of

world.

Many experts believe the island was
first settled by ancient Polynesians

thousand years ago.

Yet, considering just how remote Rapa
Nui is, oral tradition tells us that the

island's founder, Hotumatua, lived on an
island called Hiva.

Hiva was said to be located in the
Marquesas Islands, about 2 ,300 miles

northwest of Rapa Nui.

...type of natural disaster.

And Hotumatua was very worried for his
people, so he convened his council, and

one of the individuals was Haumaka.

And Haumaka goes and has a sleep, and as
he closes his eyes and falls asleep,

his soul leaves his body.

And his soul starts to an island,
teeming with... mammal species around

tons of trees, and how Maka says, this
is an island for our chief.

While we have this incredible legend,
some people believe that they actually

have found the island by accident, and
that this particular place would have

looked very different than it looks to
us today.

Upon discovery, Polynesians would begin
to transform this natural environment

into...

a cultural or agricultural environment
that would then suit their needs.

Rapa Nui people had a great benefit
before they got to the island. They were

already architects and engineers.

And as they get to the island that has
all this amazing stone type, it all

together.

Still, much of the island's ancient past
is murky at best.

Most of our knowledge about the past,
about the Rappanui, usually come from

traditions that are passed down, songs,
dance.

And that's the reason why it's difficult
at times using just that evidence to

understand the past.

Whenever we see these types of
construction projects that we know are

intergenerational and are massive on a
social scale, we have to ask the

question, what is the meaning?

Clearly, the scope, the amount of work
that went into making these statues

that they're important and they're worth
our investigation.

Most would argue that Moai represent
deified ancestors.

And the way that you can honor your
ancestors is to build something out of

that'll last forever, that'll stand
there, that will protect you.

According to oral history, The Moai are
not just representations of the dead

ancestors, but it is also said that
those dead ancestors might actually

the Moai.

When Dutch explorers first land on the
island, the statues seem to be wearing

hats, and they also observe that the
islanders seem to pray to them.

There is evidence that many of these
Moai were originally either painted or

dusted red.

Red is considered to be a sacred color
in the Polynesian culture.

The eyes are very important pieces.

They're recessed in, and the reason why
is because they would inlay pieces of

coral with either red scoria or black
obsidian, and these would give the

ancestors the aringa ora, or the living
face.

The Rapa Nui believe that the moment
that the white coral and the black

glass is inserted into the eye socket of
the Moai.

It is in that moment that the spirit of
their ancestor dwells in that stone.

But of the hundreds of Moai on the
island, only seven look out to the sea.

Some historians have noted that some of
the Moai are facing towards the

Marquesas Islands, which could be the
homeland.

of the island's inhabitants, which are
about 2 ,000 miles away.

The rest of the statues, however, are
facing inward.

They're facing inward. They're not
facing toward the sea.

So one might think, oh, maybe they're
there to be sort of guardians of the

people, to ward off dangers that might
approach from the sea. And so the

conclusion is more that they're there
not to ward off... but maybe to protect

have a relationship with the people on
the island.

The Rapa Nui also believe the Moai
possess a divine power called mana.

According to the Rapa Nui, the larger
the Moai, the more mana it possesses and

the more spiritual power it has.

While there is clearly something
spiritual,

associated with the Moai on Easter
Island.

Some scientists have speculated that
because of their placement on the

there could be something much more going
on.

It's been more than 300 years since
Dutch explorers first set foot on Easter

Island, but these towering Moai statues
guard their deepest secrets.

Clearly the Moai have great significance
to the Rapa Nui people.

Why else would they have spent valuable
time and resources carving over 1 ,000

of these figures?

Certainly they mean something.

But historians have yet to really
unravel what that true meaning is.

One question that one can ask when you
go to the island, we'll put Moai in the

places they...

You don't find them all across the
island. They're not the places that

show off what you've done in the most
obvious fashion. So it's kind of a

Like, why would they have done it there
and not other places?

While we believe that Moai serve a very
simple reason as well, this includes

demarking one of the most important
resources on Rapa Nui, which is water.

Rapa Nui.

is a volcanic island made from these
three volcanoes that emerged.

It's very porous. It's fractured rock.
It's ash and other kinds of things. In

fact, even when it rains today, it'll
rain for hours, and minutes later, the

surface will be dry.

There's very few sources of water that
are on the surface.

When rain falls onto the island, it
immediately goes into the subsurface.

To act, the Rapa Nui take advantage of
the island's unique geology.

Rapa Nui's not Fiji.

for example, or Hawaii, where it has its
own rivers, streams, waterfalls, and so

on. Rapa Nui has water that's rainwater,
basically, stored in craters or stored

sometimes in caves.

Early European visitors thought that the
Rapa Nui drank seawater. They weren't

drinking seawater.

They were actually drinking fresh water
at low tide.

There's not a lot of water sources on
the island.

But one of the key ones would be where
water is seeping out after heavy rains.

The caves move the water through to the
coastal areas.

And once the salt water tide goes out,
the fresh water comes in. And what the

Rapa Nui did was build these things
called puna or wells. And they would put

huge slabs of stone to block the salty
water to let the fresh water fill it up.

and then they would use all their bottle
gourds to fill up their water that they

would need.

Easter Island has these two large
volcanic craters, and when it rains,

craters fill up with all of this
rainwater.

The problem is that these lakes are
pretty far away from where the island

inhabitants live, so it's not possible
for all of them to go and access fresh

water from these lakes.

With fresh water in short supply, maybe
the Rapa Nui found a way to keep track

of this precious resource.

Fresh water is very limited and a key
resource for the communities.

So you have to center your community
around those water places.

So when we compared the presence of moai
relative to the places where fresh

water is emerging, overwhelmingly those
locations were tied to fresh water

sources.

So perhaps there is a practical use for
the Moai, that not only were they

spiritual, but they somehow marked for
the Rapa Nui people where the water was

located.

2022.

Wildfire ravages Easter Island, but from
the ashes, a new clue emerges.

After the fire, officials from the
island were inspecting areas of the fire

what had happened in the dry lake bed.

They discover a new moai.

The moai was found lying on its side in
the mud. Now, this moai was only about

five feet tall, but unknown.

Elders of the Rapa Nui, they had no
clue. They had no recollection about

five -foot -tall moai.

A statue where no one had ever thought
there was a statue, that no one ever

recounted, no history of it ever being
mentioned by anyone's ancestor, was

suddenly found.

Sort of remarkable.

For several hundred years, the lake was
thought to be ten feet deep.

And yet, this five -foot -tall moai just
appears at the bottom of the lake. So,

was it intentionally placed underwater?

How was it moved to this location? Why
would it be positioned in this

spot?

That becomes one of the bigger
questions. What is the purpose of this

moai being found at the bottom of this
lake?

While we've studied the island in much
detail over the past 150 years, with

of different crews going there for lots
of different reasons, there's a lot that

we simply don't know yet.

For hundreds of years, researchers have
been trying to uncover the sonic statues

and the people who built them.

Some say that in order to understand the
legend and the origin of the Moai, you

have to go back even further and try to
understand the origin of the Rapa Nui in

the Marquesas Islands.

He is compelled to move his people from
the Marquesas Islands to this new island

in the South Pacific based on a wise
man's dream.

But perhaps it is possible that there
are other factors at play here, ones

go beyond the scope of human
imagination.

There's a natural tendency to wonder how
the construction and transport of these

statues is possible given the basic
technology that consists of stone tools.

You look at these things, you think,
well, how could such a few, small number

people with such limited technology...

possibly have crafted these gigantic
things and moved them.

According to oral tradition, the Moai
were carved by a highly skilled group of

artisans. But some theorists suggest
that there had to be a more advanced

culture involved in their creation.

The idea that giant monuments... like
the ones found on Easter Island, were

built by aliens is called the ancient
astronaut theory.

It suggests that an advanced race of
beings came from another planet and is

responsible for building enormous
monuments around the world. Great

the Sphinx, and other giant monuments.

Ancient astronaut theorists told that
aliens are able to access Earth.

through interdimensional portals that
are connected to very specific places on

Earth that is connected to an
electromagnetic activity that's called a

vortex.

Easter Island supposedly sits on top of
one of these vile vortices, which

allowed this ancient race of aliens to
transport themselves to this location

to make contact with the Rappanui,
construct these statues, and then move

into place.

What's really interesting is that all
over the Marquesas Islands, which is

those seven outward -facing moai are
looking, there are several figures of

sky god, Tiki, who look very alien
-esque.

And what's even more compelling is that
there is a very similar figure on Easter

Island.

People who ascribe to this ancient
astronaut theory point to a central and

important figure in Rapa Nui religious
culture, Makemake, who is the supreme

being. He's the creative force.

There are rock carvings all around Rapa
Nui, known as petroglyphs, that depict

Makemake and his very distinctive extra
-human features, such as a very

large beak -like nose.

That these non -human features are
really proof that the Rapa Nui had

encountered some alien civilization that
had a very advanced form of

engineering. When we see these
megalithic structures all over the

have to wonder how did an ancient
civilization, using only primitive

pull it off?

Naysayers will argue that this is
actually a civilization that are also

skilled engineers, and they do indeed
have the imagination, have the tools,

the ability to create these gigantic
works of art. But others still maintain

that only a highly advanced civilization
could be responsible for creating these

very intricately designed gigantic
statues' own image.

There's another question that perplexes
researchers to this day.

How on earth were these colossal
statues, some weighing nearly 200 tons,

into place?

These massive moai, many of them multi
-ton rock figures, were

moved as far as 10, 12 miles, depending
on the route they took.

This is absolutely phenomenal.

These massive...

Colossal statues were moved to every
part of the island.

Legend has it, what made the Moai move
was the chief's spiritual energy, or

mana. Oral traditions do suggest that
the Moai could have been commanded to

by the chief from their original place
of creation within this quarry all the

way across the island to their final
rest.

...moved these giant Moai. And the
answer is very simple.

They walked.

The islanders even recount the story of
a chief named Tuukowihu.

And in the song, he knows how to make
the Moai walk.

In fact, there's a word for a walking
statue called neke neke, which is

without bending your leg.

The oral tradition says the Moai are
walking. They're not on their back or on

their stomach. They have to be up.

and moving.

So now this is in the 80s. This idea of
how the statues moved really starts to

dominate the archaeological community.

Everyone wants to try to figure this
out.

Pavel Pavel, a Czech engineer, was
really intrigued by this idea that they

have been moved in a standing position
and built some replicas in

and showed that it was possible for a
statue to be moved in an upright

And he also replicated that experiment
on the island in the 1980s, where he

an actual statue in an upright position
and, by a series of ropes, rotated it

back and forth, sort of swivel fashion,
and he could make it move forward out of

a kitchen to another, sort of tipping it
back and forth and shuffling it along.

And the statue was moved in this way,
over flat ground in a slight incline.

And he was able to do it rather well for
short distances.

But the Rapa Nui had a much more
difficult path to tread, upwards of 12

over challenging terrain.

One thing that I find fascinating was
the creation of the Araote Moai, which

translates to the Moai Road. It almost
looks like a spider web leaving the

quarry with all of these individual
roads where most likely the land was

leveled. and rocks were put on the side
of these roads.

You can imagine going along, pulling one
of these massive structures on a system

of ropes, and you could see, almost in
your mind's eye, a figure walking.

But Powell's experiment was conducted on
a flat surface, which did not account

for the very rough and rugged terrain
between the quarry and their ultimate

destination on the island.

Many places on the Moai roads, it's
undulating. It goes up and down.

You can't walk a Moai going downhill.

You'd have to switch your strategy.

From looking at construction methods
that are used by other ancient

civilizations around the world, there is
certainly more than one way to move a

giant piece of stone.

Easter Island's colossal Moai statues
have been an enigma since the day

explorers first laid eyes on them, more
than 300 years ago.

Researchers have spent years on this
remote Polynesian island trying to

understand what the Moai meant to the
people who created them.

But an even more intriguing mystery is
how the Rapa Nui people moved these

statues into position.

Some believe the answer can be found not
on Easter Island, but halfway across

the world at Stonehenge.

Stonehenge is this incredible ancient
structure that was created around 5 ,000

years ago. You've got 100 stones, some
of which are 30 feet tall and weigh

45 tons. Very similar to the Moai
statues on Easter Island.

So how did the builders of Stonehenge?

move these giant stones.

A group of researchers in 2016 believe
that they may have cracked the code.

What this study found is that it's
relatively easy to transport stones even

size on this sludge system that can be
moved very rapidly.

You move about 10 feet in five seconds.

On the Polynesian island.

of Tonga, there's this massive stone
structure that is similar to the

at Stonehenge.

Ha Ha Maunga a Maui is made of coral
slabs that are tons and tons of

weight. And these Polynesian folks, we
know they're already moving large stone.

Unlike the Rapa Nui of Easter Island,
the Tongans preserved a pretty detailed

record as to how they moved all these
coral slabs into place. And what we

discover... if this was done through an
ingenious mix of a sledge and rollers.

Despite their islands being thousands of
miles away, one historian believes this

information could unlock the mystery of
how the Moai were moved.

In 1998, Dr. Joanne Van Tilburg, who's
the head of the Easter Island Statue

Project, she decides that she's going to
test out this Tongan method of using a

sledge and rollers on a 10 -ton concrete
replica.

Van Tilburg is very clever. She realized
that the same techniques that they were

moving statues with were the same
techniques they were using to move their

canoes. The canoe ladder concept came
up, and that is basically a ladder that

you can slide an object up and down over
great heights sometimes.

So we attached the statue to a canoe
ladder, and we set it...

on the rollers that were attached to the
frame.

I was standing at the top of the
platform, and they were moving this

this platform, on this frame that we had
made, so fast up there that I had to

jump off because I was afraid I was
going to get run over.

It worked like a charm. It was fabulous.

It worked on inclines. It worked across
flat surfaces.

It just worked.

Now, would it work with a statue double
that size? I don't know. We haven't

tried it.

But I bet it would.

Van Tilburg's work ultimately shows us
that a small group, maybe 50 to 100 Rapa

Nui men, could move a statue, we'll say
10 miles in less than a month.

That's not that hard. That's doable.

And there's probably other techniques
that even made it easier.

But skeptics point to a number of
problems with this theory.

It's possible that 15 ,000 trees were
needed to move 1 ,000 moai.

When Easter Island was settled, we know
that there was a vast forest there with

trees perhaps as tall as 90 feet.

And the question then becomes, as the
civilization progresses and they move

agriculture and trees begin to be felled
for the cultivation of fields, would

there have been enough lumber for a
system of movement like this?

The amount of manpower needed to build
the tracks and move the Moai into

position is also in question.

Some studies show to move a statue with
your team, you may need an extra 200

,000 calories per group, per day.

So you can imagine then another job of
that chief is to make sure he has enough

calories and resources for his movers
and carvers and specialists.

Regardless of their transportation to
their final location, we know that...

process would have created a hardship
for the Rapa Nui people, and we have to

ask ourselves the question, what kind of
sacrifices might have to be made by the

Rapa Nui people to make this project
possible?

When the Rapa Nui people first settled
Easter Island many centuries ago, they

built a thriving civilization.

But by the late 1800s, their tropical
paradise has become unrecognizable.

We have survived from 19th century years
describing the devastation on Easter

Island. The nation is dying out. The
island and the Moai are essentially

abandoned. The trees are all gone. The
quarries are full of half -finished

statues. It is clear that something
catastrophic happened.

Many fascinating questions about this
mysterious island remain.

Perhaps the most puzzling of all, what
happened to the people?

The Rapa Nui success, somewhere by the
1400s to the 1500s, there were

no fewer than 12 ,000 people living on
East Drylands.

Other estimates go to 17 ,000 and maybe
25 ,000.

We see maybe 200 years later.

There's maybe 3 ,000, 2 ,000 people on
the island.

In 1877, a Chilean anthropologist does
an inventory and counts

111 people living on Rapa Nui.

Easter Island should be a paradise.

But by the late 19th century, it is.

rocky and barren and the moai have been
toppled over and the rapids are living

inside of lava tubes.

The Rapa Nui created some of the most
significant cultural art of any age.

Could that creation have actually sown
the seeds of their own demise?

It's worth remembering that Easter
Island is very isolated.

They're consuming the resources that are
available to them only on that island.

There are no supply ships coming in.
There are no extra resources being

produced. So once those resources are
depleted, there's going to be a definite

impact on that civilization.

Many experts suspect that for the Rapa
Nui, cutting down so many trees to

transport the Moai proved catastrophic.

By cutting down trees...

Faster than they regrow means eventually
you're not going to have any trees left

on them. And then as you cut down the
trees, you lose soil productivity,

to famine and the lack of food.

And if you don't have trees, then the
Rapa Nui cannot create these sort of

larger canoes to go out and fish.

And all of this would become stressors.

There's no place for birds to nest.

There's no shade for plants that grow in
the shade, and there's no wood for

basic human needs like fires.

In 2005, Jared Diamond publishes the
book Collapse, which builds on a claim

as populations continue to grow,
eventually they reach a tipping point

island can no longer support their
people.

The fact that the Rapa Nui believe that
the Moai contain the spirits of their

ancestors

And then you see this abandonment of the
Moai, that they're toppled and

basically left, shows the shift in their
priority of the civilization, that

they're looking more towards basic
survival than they are the most

cultural artifact they left the world
with.

And as historians discover, things go
from bad to worse.

Some archaeologists point to a layer of
subsoil which has spear points in it

that indicate a sign of warfare.

But if you take a look at the Rapa Nui,
it's that the Rapa Nui were fending off

starvation by eating the flesh of other
survivors.

There is a documented history of
cannibalism in Polynesian culture.

We see stories and taunts. If you want
to really insult someone, you say, ah,

I'll have the meat of your mother
between my teeth and I'll clean it out.

Other stories will say, ha, I'm going to
use your femur as a fish hook so I can

catch fish using you.

So this idea of cannibalism, it's imbued
in Polynesian cultures.

The oral history suggests that The
inhabitants of Easter Island really did

whatever they had to do to survive, even
as the island itself started to die.

But not everyone agrees with this
collapse theory.

The idea that the Rapa Nui civilization
imploded on itself is compelling, but

it's also contested, considering that by
the time...

Europeans arrived to the island in 1722.
We have records that show that the Rapa

Nui are still building the Moai at that
time.

Whatever happened to the Rapa Nui at
this time, it didn't look like it was

fatal.

The people of Easter Island were once
members of a thriving society, capable

creating some of the most iconic statues
on Earth.

Then... Something horrible happened,
decimating the population until there

little more than 100 people left, and we
still aren't sure why.

One theory is that the Rapa Nui started
cutting down way too many trees on the

island, and that's what caused so many
things to start spiraling out of

But there's another idea that suggests
that it wasn't the cutting down of

but something much smaller and more
invasive that brought the Rapa Nui to

knees.

When the Rapa Nui came to Easter Island,
we don't know exactly when or how, but

the Polynesian rat came with them.

In most settings, rats weren't
stowaways. They were actually brought on

for a variety of reasons.

One, you can eat them.

But one of the key things about rats is
using their meat and their tails for

fishing.

Very important, that rotation of a rat
tail in the water brings the fish to

attack.

Rapa Nui would have been a haven.

For rats.

And besides humans, the rats have no
natural predators on the island.

On an island with abundant food in the
palm nuts, rats can double

their population every 47 days.

That means that within about three
years, you would have tens of millions

rats. Evidence that the Rapa Nui were
actually trying to plant new trees and

reforest, but they're waging war against
a growing rat population, making that

very difficult.

So the combination of people chopping
trees down for crops combined with rats

impacting the nuts likely meant the
demise of the palm forest over the

pre -contact time.

Now, new evidence suggests a different
timeline for the population's downfall.

There is a study on seven sites.

on easter island and found that the
repinui continued to make moai

150 years after it was previously
believed they had stopped

early explorers were filled with awe
when they first eyes on those stone

sentinels but they triggered the
downfall of the repinui the viceroy of

sent two Spanish ships to Easter Island
in 1770, the Santa Rosalia and the San

Lorenzo, and essentially claimed Easter
Island for Spain.

So after the Spanish came and went, Rapa
Nui was rather well known on the maps

and the charts.

Some of the ships would stay for a day
or two, and the Rapa Nui people saw and

encountered quite a large number of
ships from then on. The Rapa Nui didn't

it at the time, but... The increasing
number of European men arriving at the

island brings with it something that the
Rapa Nui had never encountered before

and something that they have no defense
against.

With the arrival of the European, we see
the introduction of multiple diseases,

smallpox especially, and that really
decimates the culture.

The Rapa Nui faced.

After the Europeans in the 1700s, we see
the whalers come to Rapa Nui.

And one of the things that the whalers
were also looking to do is something

called blackbirding.

It's basically taking slaves.

They would go to the beach. They'd put a
silk sheet down.

They'd put a variety of artifacts.

And when the Rapa Nui people went to
gather them, they'd hit them over the

They'd enchain them, and they would
throw them inside the boats. And they

bring them all throughout the Pacific to
work the sugar cane field.

By 1862, these slave traders capture
probably more than 1 ,000 islanders and

take them away.

By 1877, they're on the island.

To have seen these people create a
civilization of such magnitude and such

spectacular accomplishment.

to see that deteriorate and disintegrate
over just 1 ,500 years.

The story of Easter Island and the Rapa
Nui is... Others find hope

in the Rapa Nui's resilience and
creativity.

They were able to organize themselves
and invest in interactive ways that made

them sustainable despite the fact they
dealt with limited resources and

incredible shortfalls, challenges that
they had to go through.

It's a really remarkable case of
survival that I think we have a lot more

learn from.

Easter Island's colossal moai stand as
silent sentinels, guarding mysteries as

impenetrable as the volcanic rock from
which they were carved.

Nearly 300 years after Europeans first
set foot here, the world is still trying

to solve the riddle of these enigmatic
giants and the people who built them.

But as rising sea levels, fire, and
torrential rains continue to threaten

island and its moai, many fear its
secrets may never be known.

I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for
watching History's Greatest Mysteries.