How do you think the Easter Island heads got there?

[Charlie_Wayne]

@TriPolar

Sure, except they were moving them from inland to the shore, there was no water along the way.

OK. There is no water today. But isn’t it possible there may have been water back then?

Alternatively, isn’t it possible they could have dug trenches and/or canals with t specific purpose of floating those blocks?

Isn’t that possible?

Please don’t say it’s impossible. If you do, you will be killing my dreams. Please don’t kill my dreams. I just love to think I can look back in time and understand some mysteries that have been plaguing mankind for oh so many years now.

Please?

[snowthx]

@Charlie_Wayne

OK. There is no water today. But isn’t it possible there may have been water back then?

Alternatively, isn’t it possible they could have dug trenches and/or canals with t specific purpose of floating those blocks?

Isn’t that possible?

Please don’t say it’s impossible. If you do, you will be killing my dreams. Please don’t kill my dreams. I just love to think I can look back in time and understand some mysteries that have been plaguing mankind for oh so many years now.

Please?

If there were trenches and canals, there would be some evidence of that remaining, today. If you can show some of that evidence, then you may have something. While the island does get a decent amount of rain, the inhabitants and those they were descended from, show no other evidence of water storage and management technology via dams, aqueducts, and canals. Sorry.

[TriPolar]

There’s plenty of evidence of where they carved the statues, even a number of unfinished statues found at the location. There’s also clear evidence of the overland path they transported the statues on, including one that was abandoned after broke along the way. They also have some indications of a stopping point closer to the shore where the finishing work may have been done. They are moving downhill altogether, but over rough terrain that goes up and down along the way. There weren’t any likely locations that could have been flooded to allow them to float the statues, and no existing bodies of water.

I don’t where the ‘walking’ theory comes from, rocking the statues on end to move them. It might make sense to put them in their final position by moving them a few feet, but it’s fairly certain that they moved them most of the way in a horizontal position.

However, the stones to make the Great Pyramid were quarried remotely and brought up the Nile on boats. So water transportation does make sense and work in some circumstances.

[Charlie_Wayne]

@TriPolar

There’s plenty of evidence of where they carved the statues, even a number of unfinished statues found at the location. There’s also clear evidence of the overland path they transported the statues on, including one that was abandoned after broke along the way. They also have some indications of a stopping point closer to the shore where the finishing work may have been done. They are moving downhill altogether, but over rough terrain that goes up and down along the way. There weren’t any likely locations that could have been flooded to allow them to float the statues, and no existing bodies of water.

I don’t where the ‘walking’ theory comes from, rocking the statues on end to move them. It might make sense to put them in their final position by moving them a few feet, but it’s fairly certain that they moved them most of the way in a horizontal position.

However, the stones to make the Great Pyramid were quarried remotely and brought up the Nile on boats. So water transportation does make sense and work in some circumstances.

Oh, thank you. My dream still lives.

Seriously, I really do love to think that silly individuals like me can guess at some answers to these questions that baffle all the experts in anthropology and other disciplines like archeology and come up with some truth just based on their guesses. It makes me feel like all is right with the world. So, thanks again.

[TriPolar]

@Charlie_Wayne

Oh, thank you. My dream still lives.

Seriously, I really do love to think that silly individuals like me can guess at some answers to these questions that baffle all the experts in anthropology and other disciplines like archeology and come up with some truth just based on their guesses. It makes me feel like all is right with the world. So, thanks again.

Common sense provided the answer to many mysteries. Archaeologists and anthropologists occasionally seem to lack common sense, but many of these so called mysteries were propagated for entertainment purposes. In the modern world people think massive objects can only be moved with heavy machinery but in fact humans have been lifting and moving giant rocks for a long, long time. There are any number of ‘mysteries’ surrounding large rocks that seem to be balanced up in the air on a few smaller stones out in the middle of nowhere. It was just a common practice by farmers when clearing a field, all that was needed was a large lever and time to jack them up slowly out of the ground, fill in the ground underneath, and then finally put some smaller stones underneath to hold them up.

There’s was a great thread about the pyramids not long ago that delved into this. Suffice it to say that the giant seltzer fountain lifting device theory wasn’t well received.

[Magiver]

@TriPolar

There’s plenty of evidence of where they carved the statues, even a number of unfinished statues found at the location. There’s also clear evidence of the overland path they transported the statues on, including one that was abandoned after broke along the way. They also have some indications of a stopping point closer to the shore where the finishing work may have been done. They are moving downhill altogether, but over rough terrain that goes up and down along the way. There weren’t any likely locations that could have been flooded to allow them to float the statues, and no existing bodies of water.

I don’t where the ‘walking’ theory comes from, rocking the statues on end to move them. It might make sense to put them in their final position by moving them a few feet, but it’s fairly certain that they moved them most of the way in a horizontal position.

However, the stones to make the Great Pyramid were quarried remotely and brought up the Nile on boats. So water transportation does make sense and work in some circumstances.

The walking theory was nicely demonstrated byNational Geographic and it’s based on lore passed down by the people of the island who state the statues walked. The eyes were left unfinished until they were in final position and they found this aided how they tied the ropes.

This method works much better than trying to roll them on logs.

[Magiver]

Also, the statues abandon en-route tend to be face-down when going downhill and face-up when going uphill. They are unfinished and have different base angles than the statues at the final location. All of this points to upright movement after being slid downhill from the quarries.

[dropzone]

@TriPolar

Common sense provided the answer to many mysteries. Archaeologists and anthropologists occasionally seem to lack common sense…

A lot of it is a narrowness of experience. Wife’s prof once brought in a collection of wooden pieces that he thought might be parts of a musical instrument. Beats the default that they were of religious significance, but she’s a knitter and saw it was a card loom. She pulled out some yarn and showed the class how it worked. She thinks he published her solution without crediting her.

[Urbanredneck]

@snowthx

I agree that is likely. I recall reading somewhere about the theories the first European explorers of the Pacific had for explaining how people managed to colonize all those remote islands: people set-out in waves from overpopulated islands in hope they would find an as-yet uninhabited place. Most would never be heard from again, and a few may find new land. I think this does not give the ancient Polynesians their due credit for navigation and raft-building skills.

This article suggests they had trade routes all over the Pacific for rare, hard to acquire, and useful materials, specifically between Tahiti and Hawaii. I don’t think there is evidence presently connecting Rapa Nui to these trade routes, so it is plausible the initial settlers arrived one day and never saw any outsiders after that.

I read somewhere that back then there were more atolls or smaller islands that formed a chain between Hawaii and Tahiti and that made navigation easier. But somehow a major earthquake sunk them.