Author: Kenneth Treister
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 0826352669
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
It may be the most interesting and yet loneliest spot on earth: a volcanic rock surrounded by a million square miles of ocean, named for the day Dutch explorers discovered it, Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722. Here people created a complex society, sophisticated astronomy, exquisite wood sculpture, monumental stone architecture, roads, and a puzzling ideographic script. And then they went about sculpting amazing, giant human figures in stone. This richly illustrated book of the history, culture, and art of Easter Island is the first to examine in detail the island’s vernacular architecture, often overshadowed by its giant stone statues. It shows the conjecturally reconstructed prehistoric pole houses; the ahu, the sculptures’ platform, as a spectacular expression of prehistoric megalithic architecture; and the Easter Island Statue Project’s inventory of the colossal moai sculptures. This publication is made possible in part by a generous contribution from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.
Author: Kenneth Treister
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826352642
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
"This richly illustrated book of the history, culture, and art of Easter Island is the first to examine in detail the island's vernacular architecture, often overshadowed by its giant stone statues"--Provided by publisher.
Author: Jan J. Boersema
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316298450
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
In this book, Jan J. Boersema reconstructs the ecological and cultural history of Easter Island and critiques the hitherto accepted theory of the collapse of its civilization. The collapse theory, advanced most recently by Jared Diamond and Clive Ponting, is based on the documented overexploitation of natural resources, particularly woodlands, on which Easter Island culture depended. Deforestation is said to have led to erosion, followed by hunger, conflict, and economic and cultural collapse. Drawing on scientific data and historical sources, including the shipping journals of the Dutch merchant who was the first European to visit the island in 1722, Boersema shows that deforestation did not in fact jeopardize food production and lead to starvation and violence. On the basis of historical and scientific evidence, Boersema demonstrates how Easter Island society responded to cultural and environmental change as it evolved and managed to survive.
Author: Terry Hunt
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439154341
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works? No such astonishing numbers of massive statues are found anywhere else in the Pacific. How could the islanders possibly have moved so many multi-ton monoliths from the quarry inland, where they were carved, to their posts along the coastline? And most intriguing and vexing of all, if the island once boasted a culture developed and sophisticated enough to have produced such marvelous edifices, what happened to that culture? Why was the island the Europeans encountered a sparsely populated wasteland? The prevailing accounts of the island’s history tell a story of self-inflicted devastation: a glaring case of eco-suicide. The island was dominated by a powerful chiefdom that promulgated a cult of statue making, exercising a ruthless hold on the island’s people and rapaciously destroying the environment, cutting down a lush palm forest that once blanketed the island in order to construct contraptions for moving more and more statues, which grew larger and larger. As the population swelled in order to sustain the statue cult, growing well beyond the island’s agricultural capacity, a vicious cycle of warfare broke out between opposing groups, and the culture ultimately suffered a dramatic collapse. When Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo began carrying out archaeological studies on the island in 2001, they fully expected to find evidence supporting these accounts. Instead, revelation after revelation uncovered a very different truth. In this lively and fascinating account of Hunt and Lipo’s definitive solution to the mystery of what really happened on the island, they introduce the striking series of archaeological discoveries they made, and the path-breaking findings of others, which led them to compelling new answers to the most perplexing questions about the history of the island. Far from irresponsible environmental destroyers, they show, the Easter Islanders were remarkably inventive environmental stewards, devising ingenious methods to enhance the island’s agricultural capacity. They did not devastate the palm forest, and the culture did not descend into brutal violence. Perhaps most surprising of all, the making and moving of their enormous statutes did not require a bloated population or tax their precious resources; their statue building was actually integral to their ability to achieve a delicate balance of sustainability. The Easter Islanders, it turns out, offer us an impressive record of masterful environmental management rich with lessons for confronting the daunting environmental challenges of our own time. Shattering the conventional wisdom, Hunt and Lipo’s ironclad case for a radically different understanding of the story of this most mysterious place is scientific discovery at its very best.
Author: ANONYMOUS
Publisher: ANONYMOUS
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 72
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Book Description
The Enigmatic Moai Statues of Easter Island Embark on a fascinating journey through the mysterious world of Easter Island and its iconic Moai statues. This book delves into the island's discovery, legends, and the enigma surrounding the colossal stone heads. Explore chapters on the early inhabitants, their unique cultural practices, and the ecosystem's role in their society. Uncover the construction and transportation secrets of the Moai, and dive into the mysterious Rongorongo script. Learn about the decline of this vanished civilization, modern archaeological discoveries, and ongoing preservation efforts. Investigate the spiritual and cultural significance of the Moai, and ponder over various theories and speculations, including possible extraterrestrial connections. With a focus on conservation challenges, cultural heritage, and unsolved mysteries, this book offers a comprehensive look at Easter Island's legacy. Whether you're a history enthusiast or a curious traveler, this enthralling account will captivate your imagination.
Author: Leslie Haas
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030994228
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 198
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Book Description
This textbook prepares teachers to incorporate gamified learning experiences into middle school classrooms. Its focus provides concrete examples of how to seamlessly integrate literacy across disciplines in a fun, engaging, and unique way for all learners. Furthermore, this book offers practical information related to pedagogy, content, and differentiation for each lesson. Preservice teachers, practicing teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators can benefit from this user-friendly text and its companion digital components, allowing for replication of lessons based on national standards, backed by best-practices, and supported by differentiated pedagogy. This unique book begins with engineering marvels that span across centuries and locations. The ten chapters, in chronological order, are titled: Acropolis, Petra, Colosseum, Chichen Itza, Moai, Red Square, Taj Mahal, Neuschwanstein, Eiffel Tower, and Sydney Opera House. By focusing on specific examples of human ingenuity, opportunities are created to delve into the historical and social aspects of each chapter’s focus. There are also chances to explore the artistic merit and the art created about and around each marvel. Additional teaching moments lie in understanding the science, engineering, technology, and math embedded in all featured marvels. Each chapter offers material lists, resource materials, and visual/graphic images to support understanding. Teaching tips and differentiation strategies are also provided to support novice and career teachers alike.
Author: Steven Roger Fischer
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1861894163
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316
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Book Description
On a long stretch of green coast in the South Pacific, hundreds of enormous, impassive stone heads stand guard against the ravages of time, war, and disease that have attempted over the centuries to conquer Easter Island. Steven Roger Fischer offers the first English-language history of Easter Island in Island at the End of the World, a fascinating chronicle of adversity, triumph, and the enduring monumentality of the island's stone guards. A small canoe with Polynesians brought the first humans to Easter Island in 700 CE, and when boat travel in the South Pacific drastically decreased around 1500, the Easter Islanders were forced to adapt in order to survive their isolation. Adaptation, Fischer asserts, was a continuous thread in the life of Easter Island: the first European visitors, who viewed the awe-inspiring monolithic busts in 1722, set off hundreds of years of violent warfare, trade, and disease—from the smallpox, wars, and Great Death that decimated the island to the late nineteenth-century Catholic missionaries who tried to "save" it to a despotic Frenchman who declared sole claim of the island and was soon killed by the remaining 111 islanders. The rituals, leaders, and religions of the Easter Islanders evolved with all of these events, and Fischer is just as attentive to the island's cultural developments as he is to its foreign invasions. Bringing his history into the modern era, Fischer examines the colonization and annexation of Easter Island by Chile, including the Rapanui people's push for civil rights in 1964 and 1965, by which they gained full citizenship and freedom of movement on the island. As travel to and interest in the island rapidly expand, Island at the End of the World is an essential history of this mysterious site.
Author: Danielle Shawn Kurin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100047898X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175
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Book Description
The Bioarchaeology of Disaster examines two dozen disasters occurring around the world over the past 2000 years, ranging from natural and environmental disasters to human conflict and warfare, from epidemics to those of social marginalization—all from a bioarchaeological and forensic anthropological perspective. Each case study provides the social, cultural, historical and ecological context of the disaster and then analyzes evidence of human and related remains in order to better understand the identities of victims, the means, processes, and extent of deaths and injuries. The methods used by specialists to interpret evidence and disagreements among experts are also addressed. It will be helpful in understanding the circumstances of a range of disasters and the multidisciplinary ways in which bioarchaeologists employ empirical methods and analytic frameworks to interpret their impacts and consequences. The book is intended for those in the social and biological sciences, particularly archaeology, forensics, history and ethnography. It will also be of interest to those in medical history and epidemiology, ecological studies, and those involved in disaster response, law enforcement and human rights work.
Author: Beverley Haun
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442693096
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 722
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Book Description
Easter Island, or Rapa Nui as it is known to its inhabitants, is located in the Pacific Ocean, 3600 kilometres west of South America. Annexed by Chile in 1888, the island has been a source of fascination for the world beyond the island since the first visit by Europeans in 1722 due to its intriguing statues and complex history. Inventing 'Easter Island' examines narrative strategies and visual conventions in the discursive construction of 'Easter Island' as distinct from the native conception of 'Rapa Nui.' It looks at the geographic imaginary that pervaded the eighteenth century, a period of overwhelming imperial expansion. Beverley Haun begins with a discussion of forces that shaped the European version of island culture and goes on to consider the representation of that culture in the form of explorer texts and illustrations, as well as more recent texts and images in comic books and kitsch from off the island. Throughout, 'Easter Island' is used as a case study of the impact of imperialism on the view of a culture from outside. The study hinges on three key points - an inquiry into the formation of 'Easter Island' as a subject; an examination of how the constructed space and culture have been shaped, reshaped, and represented in discursive spaces; and a discussion of cultural memory and how the constraints of foreign texts and images have shaped thought and action about 'Easter Island.' Richly illustrated and unique in its findings, Inventing 'Easter Island' will appeal to cultural theorists, anthropologists, educators, and anyone interested in the history of the South Pacific.
Author: Felipe L. Soza
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789568481063
Category : Easter Island
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
