In a comprehensive new study, researchers found that the population of monument-carvers could not possibly have been big enough to collapse under the demands placed on their environment, as has previously been suggested.
"The myth of this so-called Rapa Nui "ecocide" – held up for decades as a cautionary tale about overexploitation of natural resources – should be firmly relegated to the bin of outdated theories, scientists now say.
'This finding is just the latest in a mounting body of evidence that the Pacific Islander population's decline had nothing to do with their way of living.
"In fact, the collapse so soon after European contact in the 1700s probably had more to do with the slave trade, enforced migration, and introduced pathogens."
This is consistent with whst happened in other isolated populations at first contact. Diseases thst were very lethal to Europeans and spent centuries removing from the gene pool devastated populations with no previous exposure.
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