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Collapse_ How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Jared Diamond [343]

By Root 2110 0
on pp. 89-106 the first European eyewitness description of Easter Island.

An archaeological mapping of Easter Island is summarized in Claudio Cristino, Patricia Vargas, and R. Izaurieta, Atlas Arqueológico de Isla de Pascua (Santiago: University of Chile, 1981). Detailed articles about Easter Island are published regularly in the Rapa Nui Journal by the Easter Island Foundation, which also publishes occasional conferences about the island. Important collections of papers are Claudio Cristino, Patricia Vargas et al., eds., First International Congress, Easter Island and East Polynesia, vol. 1 Archaeology (Santiago: University of Chile, 1988); Patricia Vargas Casanova, ed., Easter Island and East Polynesia Prehistory (Santiago: University of Chile, 1998); and Christopher Stevenson and William Ayres, eds., Easter Island Archaeology: Research on Early Rapanui Culture (Los Osos, Calif.: Easter Island Foundation, 2000). A summary of the history of cultural contacts is to be found in Claudio Cristino et al., Isla de Pascua: Procesos, Alcances y Efectos de la Aculturación (Easter Island: University of Chile, 1984).

David Steadman reports his identification of bird bones and other remains excavated at Anakena Beach in three papers: “Extinctions of birds in Eastern Polynesia: a review of the record, and comparisons with other Pacific Island groups” (Journal of Archaeological Science 16:177-205 (1989)), and “Stratigraphy, chronology, and cultural context of an early faunal assemblage from Easter Island” (Asian Perspectives 33:79-96 (1994)), both with Patricia Vargas and Claudio Cristino; and “Prehistoric extinctions of Pacific Island birds: biodiversity meets zooarchaeology” (Science 267:1123-1131 (1995)). William Ayres, “Easter Island subsistence” (Journal de la Société des Océanistes 80:103-124 (1985)) provides further archaeological evidence of foods consumed. For solution of the mystery of the Easter Island palm and other insights from pollen in sediment cores, see J. R. Flenley and Sarah King, “Late Quaternary pollen records from Easter Island” (Nature 307:47-50 (1984)), J. Dransfield et al., “A recently extinct palm from Easter Island” (Nature 312:750-752 (1984)), and J. R. Flenley et al., “The Late Quaternary vegetational and climatic history of Easter Island” (Journal of Quaternary Science 6:85-115 (1991)). Catherine Orliac’s identifications are reported in a paper in the above-cited edited volume by Stevenson and Ayres, and in “Données nouvelles sur la composition de la flore de l’Île de Pâques” (Journal de la Société des Océanistes 2:23-31 (1998)). Among the papers resulting from the archaeological surveys by Claudio Cristino and his colleagues are Christopher Stevenson and Claudio Cristino, “Residential settlement history of the Rapa Nui coastal plain (Journal of New World Archaeology 7:29-38 (1986)); Daris Swindler, Andrea Drusini, and Claudio Cristino, “Variation and frequency of three-rooted first permanent molars in precontact Easter Islanders: anthropological significance (Journal of the Polynesian Society 106:175-183 (1997)); and Claudio Cristino and Patricia Vargas, “Ahu Tongariki, Easter Island: chronological and sociopolitical significance” (Rapa Nui Journal 13:67-69 (1999)).

Christopher Stevenson’s papers on intensive agriculture and lithic mulches include Archaeological Investigations on Easter Island; Maunga Tari: an Upland Agriculture Complex (Los Osos, Calif.: Easter Island Foundation, 1995), (with Joan Wozniak and Sonia Haoa) “Prehistoric agriculture production on Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Chile” (Antiquity 73:801-812 ( 1999)), and (with Thegn Ladefoged and Sonia Haoa) “Productive strategies in an uncertain environment: prehistoric agriculture on Easter Island” (Rapa Nui Journal 16:17-22 (2002)). Christopher Stevenson, “Territorial divisions on Easter Island in the 16th century: evidence from the distribution of ceremonial architecture,” pp. 213-229 in T. Ladefoged and M. Graves, eds., Pacific Landscapes (Los Osos, Calif.: Easter Island Foundation, 2002) reconstructs the boundaries of Easter’s 11 traditional

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