Well ok, I guess this could be turned into yet another religion/anti-religion thread. As an atheist, I feel that there are plenty here, of course.
The point I was trying to make was a humanist one: Humans are capable of great things without the intervention of aliens, superior races or gods. We rely on technology to solve our problems, they used other methods. The mysterious or wondrous aspect of the pyramids lies only in the absence of a manual (Pyramid Building for Dummies) or our currently underused imaginations.
And I'm struck by some irony here. This thread started as admiration for the construction of the pyramids. We may not know exactly how they were constructed, but we do know that the reason for their existence is religious. That religion may have stifled curiosity and ingenuity, or not, but several millenia later we're still talking of it's accomplishments. Likewise the great European cathedrals.
Another reality about the intelligentsia and religion is simply that all their capabilities have not improved the human animal in any way except super-structures. Wars, killings, robbery, and rape still survive with a vengeance no matter to which religion they belong.
About the Easter Island article, though intriguing and excelent, I also found that some parts didn't fit.
Particularly the speculation that the rival clans built larger and larger statues in order to show dominance. It doesn't make much sense for a culture who is starving to death to waste their energy on building taller sculptures than their rival clan.
Perhaps they'd recieved a visitor and the statues are linked to that interaction...
OR
Perhaps they simply believed that the statues woiuld scare off an intruder fro thte sea or the sky....
OR
Perhaps this is all speculation and we'll never know the true story between things like the pyramids or easter island.
About the Easter Island article, though intriguing and excelent, I also found that some parts didn't fit.
Particularly the speculation that the rival clans built larger and larger statues in order to show dominance. It doesn't make much sense for a culture who is starving to death to waste their energy on building taller sculptures than their rival clan.
Perhaps they'd recieved a visitor and the statues are linked to that interaction...
OR
Perhaps they simply believed that the statues woiuld scare off an intruder fro thte sea or the sky....
OR
Perhaps this is all speculation and we'll never know the true story between things like the pyramids or easter island.
CarbonSystem wrote:About the Easter Island article, though intriguing and excelent, I also found that some parts didn't fit.
Particularly the speculation that the rival clans built larger and larger statues in order to show dominance. It doesn't make much sense for a culture who is starving to death to waste their energy on building taller sculptures than their rival clan.
According to the article that hamburger posted, the Islanders were living in a period of abundance which allowed for activities extraneous to mere survival, like the building of the huge stone statues.
Quote:Many people have pondered the mystery of Easter Island. Erich von Daniken, the Swiss writer, insisted that extraterrestrials had constructed the statues (he also suggested that ancient alien visitors were responsible for the Egyptian pyramids, Nazca lines, etc.). Now archaeologists exploring Easter have pieced together a history that is almost as strange as an alien encounter and perhaps more frightening.
Archaeologists have done this by taking a "core" of the ground under a swamp or pond and looking at the pollen grains found there. Grains are dated by a method known as radiocarbon dating, and the number of grains found indicate how numerous the plant was at that particular time in history. Archaeologists have also examined trash pits left by humans to understand what they were up to during different periods of Easter Island history.
When the first Polynesians landed on Easter Island, around 400 to 700 A.D., what they found was far from a barren land. The Island was a sub-tropical paradise. Thick forests of palm trees covered the hills. Other plants including the hauhau tree, which can be used to make ropes, were also numerous. Seabirds, including the albatross, and boobies, as well as others, used the Island as a nesting place. Porpoises played in the waves.
Archaeologists examining bones found in the trash pits discovered that the main meat diet of these early islanders consisted of the porpoise, which had to be caught well off-shore from heavy canoes, and the seabirds.
With conditions so fine on Easter the human population quickly swelled. Estimates of population range up to 20,000 at its peak. The islanders soon had enough time left over after mere survival to start building the huge statues that cover the island. These were probably erected by rival clans each one wanting to have the largest and most numerous statues as a sign of status and wealth. The island must have been well organized because the resources to build the statues were widely scattered. The best stone for the statues came from one quarry. The rock for the statues'crowns from another, and the tools to work the stone yet from another place on the island. Trade was well developed
Their culture began to decline
after they severely exploited the Island's resources.
Quote:The Islanders started chopping down the palm trees to make rollers and sledges to move the statues. They cut the hauhau trees to make the ropes needed to pull and erect the monuments. By 1400 the palms were well on their way to becoming extinct, and only a few of the hauhau trees survived.
When the last palm was cut down there was no longer the wood to make the heavy canoes needed for long sea voyages or to hunt the porpoises that were an important part of the Islanders diet. With the porpoises gone the people had to turn even more to the seabirds, and then the rats, as a source of food. When they were gone, starvation resulted, the government collapsed and cannibalism appeared. Human bones started to find their way into trash pits.
By the time Roggeveen arrived it was almost all over. There were no living animals on Easter except the humans and a few domesticated chickens. Nothing larger than insects. And over the barren landscape stood the cold, stone statues, the strange proof that a great civilization once must have occupied the island.
In the article, it states that that thet islanders began to starve to death after using their abundance of resources, it isn't however specific in WHEN the statues were actually built, and if it was, it's only speculation.
And my speculation is that the statues weren't put up to prove dominance, usually fighting is something done to establish dominance, in all of nature. It also seems fighting would have helped them support thier hunger problem, so perhaps there are unknown reasosn for the construction of the statues.
http://www.white-history.com/hwr6d.htm
Here is a very good site about Easter Island.
