interesting….
Today, a team of local archaeologists is working to unlock the secrets of their mysterious island.
Led by UCLA archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director of the Easter Island Statue Project, they have excavated two seven metre tall, full-size statures, estimated to weigh about 20 tonnes.
For anyone who has stood next to these huge, imposing heads, or marveled at how a primitive people moved them many kilometres from one side of the island to the other, it’s a remarkable discovery.
Is there any evidence they have moved at all? The statues are carved from consolidated volcanic ash. In some situations, you will pillars of consilidated volcanic ash or breccia standing up out of the ground naturally, because they are more resistant to weathering than the unconsolidated ash around them. If the natives found a field of such breccia pipes, they could have carved them into statues on the spot, and never have had to move them a centimeter.
Maybe their society collapsed when they ran out of breccia pipes to carve.
The way to test this would be to attempt to dig beneath the statues, and see if they are contiguous with the underlying rock, or if there is a discontinuity.
@ Alberta Oil Peon:
Obama could have fixed it.
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lobo91 wrote:
Shovel-ready doomage.