The theory once thought to explain the presence of an intricate system of stone heads all over Easter Island has been called in to question by British Archaeologists who say the way the Maoi moved the heads is likely not the same as the official explanation. The fifty year old theory of the Maoi heads is by now itself embedded into the history of the island no doubt. It seems the mystery of the Rapa Nui and their strange stone heads is getting more perplexing all the time.
The small Easter Island, off the coast of Chile was once the home for a tribe of people known as the Rapa Nui who lived an entire civilization completely isolated from outsiders, and believing wholeheartedly their island was the entirety of the universe. At least that’s one explanation attributed to the Rapa Nui living on Easter Island. Another suggests they were actually alien contactees, and the stone heads were constructed by a visiting alien race for reasons not easy to comprehend.. Another says the Moai were built as a tribute to the Rapa Nui ancestors, and this is the most widely accepted explanation.
It was also widely accepted that the heads were moved along the large intricate road system that had been designed throughout the island some 800 years ago. It was assumed that the stone heads found around the paths were simply discarded by those who had simply given up on the process. Of course this isn’t in keeping with the sacred nature many idol-worshiping sects give to their statues. To simply discard one would have been nothing short of blasphemy (presumably). Still, the final nail in the coffin for this theory came when a team of archaeologists operating out of University College London in a joint expedition with University of Manchester announced that the roads were nowhere near compacted enough to have been pushed over the paths. Sue Hamilton from UCL and Colin Richards from University of Manchester jolted the ground with electrical currents to measure the density of the ground. The currents suggested the statues had been placed on platforms and then fallen over the course of several hundred years.
So the roads were essentially for foot traffic exclusively, or for ritual purposes. There was no heavy transportation occurring on the road, judging from the soil samples. There was, however, an additional “road block” to moving the Moai across the roads. Since the surface was largely concave, this would have made it difficult for the stone heads to move across the surface of the roads.
The roads themselves lead from the Rano Raraku volcano, the gateway to the underworlds where all life was allegedly formed, and where the ancient gods still dwell according to the Rapa Nui legends. The number of things we know about the Rapa Nui are dwarfed by the number of questions we still have about them. For the most part Easter Island, discovered on Easter Sunday by British explorer Captain Cook. Though there are living descendants of the Rapa Nui, there are massive historical holes due to major and tremendous population declines.