What do the heads on Easter Island mean?

Answer 1

They commemorate gods.

Answer 2

When we had visitors they dropped off several crews and one crew was on easter island. When the ship came to pick them all up, they missed the easter island crew. The crew made the statues on the east coast so whem the ship came back they would see the statues and pick them up. They were afraid of the other inhabitants on the island and didn't take time to destroy the statues. Later the inhabitants made little red hats for the ststues.

Answer 3

The first answer was right...they represent gods who were percieved as giants.

Answer 4

Mystery.

Still being figured out.

Answer 5

they had discovered that ships would stop if they could show that people lived there and trade

Answer 6

Cultural artifacts
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The Moai
Main article: Moai

Moai at Rano Raraku, Easter Island
Moai from Ahu Ko Te Riku in Hanga Roa, with Chilean Navy training ship Buque Escuela Esmeralda cruising behind. This moai is currently the only one with replica eyes.
Ahu Tongariki, restored in the 1990's
Ahu Akivi, the only moai facing the oceanThe large stone statues, or moai, for which Easter Island is world famous were carved during a relatively short and intense burst of creative and productive megalithic activity. Archeologists now estimate that ceremonial site construction and statue carving took place largely between about AD 1100 and 1600 and may have consumed up to 25% of island-wide resources -- with some statues probably still being carved at about the time Jacob Roggeveen arrived. According to recent archaeological research 887 monolithic stone statues, called moai, have been inventoried on the island and in museum collections. This number is not final, however. The on-going statue survey continues to turn up new fragments, and mapping in Rano Raraku quarry (see below) has documented more unfinished statues than previously known. In addition, some statues incorporated into ceremonial site construction surely remain to be uncovered. Although often identified as "heads", the statues actually are heads and complete torsos. Some upright moai, however, have become buried up to their necks by shifting soils. Most moai were carved out of a distinctive, compressed, easily-worked volcanic ash or tuff found at a single site called Rano Raraku. The quarry there seems to have been abandoned abruptly, with half-carved statues left in the rock. However, on closer examination the pattern of use and abandonment is more complex. The most widely-accepted theory is that the statues were carved by the ancestors of the modern Polynesian inhabitants (Rapanui) at a time when the island was largely planted with trees and resources were plentiful, supporting a population of at least 10,000-15,000 native Rapanui. The majority of the statues were still standing when Jacob Roggeveen arrived in 1722. Captain James Cook also saw many standing statues when he landed on the island in 1774. By the mid-19th century, all the statues had been toppled, presumably in internecine wars.

As impressive as the statues are, the ahu platforms contained 20 times as much stone, and actually required even greater resources to build.

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Stone Chicken Houses
There is archaeological evidence of intensive agriculture, including 1,233 prehistoric stone chicken houses (hare moa), which are more conspicuous than the remains of the prehistoric human houses (which only had stone foundations). They were 20 or more feet long, 10 feet wide, with a small entrance for the chickens connecting to a stone-walled yard. The houses are believed by some to have originally served as graves.

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Rongorongo
Tablets found on the island and bearing a mysterious script known as Rongorongo have never been deciphered despite the work of generations of linguists. In 1932 Hungarian scholar Wilhelm or Guillaume de Hevesy called attention to apparent similarities between some of the rongorongo characters of Easter Island and the ancient Indus script of the Indus Valley civilization in India, correlating dozens (at least 40) of the former with corresponding signs on seals from Mohenjo-daro. This correlation was re-published in later books,[6] but later works showed these comparisons to be spurious.

Some writers have asserted rongorongo means peace-peace and that their texts record peace treaty documents, possibly between the long ears and the conquering short ears. However, such explanations have been strongly disputed, particularly since the "long-ear/short ear" designations of historical islanders have become increasingly unsupportable.

Like most indigenous tellers of Easter Island histories or legends, islanders continue to have questionable motives for their accounts and have always been creative, imaginative and quick to give answers to inquisitive archaeologists and historians. Rongorongo's purpose and intent remain as puzzling as the script's meaning. While there have been many claims of translation, none have withstood peer review and become generally accepted.

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Demography
Population at the 2002 census was 3,791 inhabitants, up from 1,936 inhabitants in 1982. This increase in population is due mainly to the arrival of people of European descent from the mainland of Chile. Consequently, the island is losing its native Polynesian identity. In 1982 around 70% of the population were Rapanui (the native Polynesian inhabitants). At the 2002 census however, Rapanui were only 60% of the population of Easter Island. Chileans of European descent were 39% of the population, and the remaining 1% were Native American from mainland Chile. 3,304 of the 3,791 inhabitants of the island live in the town of Hanga Roa.

Rapanui have also migrated out of the island. At the 2002 census there were 2,269 Rapanui living in Easter Island, while 2,378 Rapanui lived in the mainland of Chile (half of them in the metropolitan area of Santiago).

Population density on Easter Island is only 23 inhabitants per km² (60 inh. per sq. mile), much lower than in the 17th century heyday of the moai building when there were possibly as many as 15,000 inhabitants. Population had already declined to only 2,000-3,000 inhabitants before the arrival of Europeans. In the 19th century, disease due to contacts with Europeans, as well as deportation of 2,000 Rapanui to work as slaves in Peru, and the forced departure of the remaining Rapanui to Chile, carried the population of Easter Island to the all time low of 111 inhabitants in 1877. Out of these 111 Rapanui, only 36 had descendants, and they are the ancestors of all the 2,269 Rapanui currently living on the island.

Answer 7

no one really knows