Easter Island Essay

Named for the Sunday morning it was landed on by Europeans for the first time, Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. It exists as a special territory to Chile, having been annexed in 1888. After people began to document the inhabitants and history of the isle, it became known as a lesson in overexploiting the land to the point of destroying nature and their society. Often it is shown to students taking an introductory cultural anthropology class. Aside from this, it is known for its large stone head statues. Many of these stand around the perimeter of the island, serving guard for the people. The island itself was created by natural forces and modified by humans. The social production and social construction of space on

Its nearest neighbor is in South America at Concepcion, Chile. Looking at the island from above, one would see that it is somewhat triangular and symmetrical in form. The shoreline has been pounded with waves for so long that its black rocky columns have been revealed. Along the shorelines, there is no coral reef, which makes it very different from other Polynesian islands (Bahn and Flenley 1992:27). There are many caves though most are up on the cliffs on the island. A crater also exists in the middle of the island along with many smaller ones all over the place (Bahn and Flenley 1992:23). Just like the Hawaiian Islands, Easter Island exists over a hotspot. This means the earth’s plates are moving over a hole that leads from deeper in the planet. What this does is allow liquid rock, or magma, to come to the surface, thus creating islands. As the plates move very slowly over millions of years, this process takes a long time. Eventually the hot spot will even be closed up, preventing any more magma from coming to the surface. The island itself is also home to a volcano that has been created in this same process ((Bahn and Flenley