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TINY TOURIST!


Easter Island’s first inhabitants


The DETECTIVES “Heave!” cry a group of archaeologists as they yank on ropes tied to a huge statue. The investigators are seeking clues about the moai in one of Easter Island’s lush green valleys. Wondering if the islanders could have transported the statues upright with just rope and muscle power, they’ve wrapped three strong cords around the forehead of a 16m-tall moai replica. With several people pulling each rope, they’re able to rock the 4,500kg figure side to side, inching it forward with every tug. “The statue’s shape makes this movement fairly easy,” team leader Carl Lipo says. In the past, researchers have tried other moving methods.


arrived between 800 and 1,200 years ago. They canoed more than 1,600km from other Pacific islands!


MOAI WITH EYE PAINT


One group tied rope to the top and base of an actual moai and attempted to drag it forward with twisting motions. Another team laid a real moai onto a giant log and pulled the log forward. All the experiments shared one result: the investigators got seriously sore!


Some of the world’s oldest mummies were found in this country.


The southern pudu — a 45cm-tall deer — comes from Chile.


© DOUG ALLAN / NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY (MOAI HEAD); © M. KATHLEEN SCHAMEL (MOAI ROW); © ATLANTIDE PHOTOTRAVEL / CORBIS (TOURIST); MICHAEL MELFORD / NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC STOCK (MOAI WITH EYE PAINT)


The EVIDENCE Although various scientific sleuths have found ways to move the moai, researchers still can’t agree what really happened. Some techniques they’ve tried might have only worked over short distances and on flat land. Other methods would have damaged the gigantic stone sculptures. Many people think the statues


were laid horizontally on wooden sledges, which were dragged with rope across log tracks. “I think this would have been the safest way to move the moai,” says archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg. “It explains why hardly any are damaged.” One thing experts are pretty sure about is that aliens weren’t involved. But the truth may never be revealed. After all, the islanders stopped making the statues at least 300 years ago. Later, hundreds of inhabitants left the island or caught deadly diseases brought by explorers, so many of the moai’s secrets disappeared with them. Today the only remaining witnesses


to the events are the moai themselves. And the lips of these stone-faced giants are sealed...


Chile’s Atacama Desert is said to resemble the surface of Mars.


Chile boasts more than a thousand volcanoes, many of them active.


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