who built the easter island statues?

Answer 1

The most widely-accepted theory is that the statues were carved by the Polynesian colonizers of the island beginning by about A.D. 1000-1100. In addition to representing deceased ancestors, the moai, once they were erect on ceremonial sites, may also have been regarded as the embodiment of powerful living chiefs. They were also important lineage status symbols.

Answer 2

The Union of Easter Island Statue Builders, local 247.

Answer 3

no human being looks to understand for confident,besides the undeniable fact that similar statues were considered in New Zealand, so that is understood that perhaps it would want to were the Ma-oi people or Polynesians. I don`t imagine they were cannibals, because I don`t bear in mind listening to something about human bones being found except for an total skeleton. How will all of us recognize in the journey that they were civilised, I doubt they were civilised interior an similar experience that we are, yet they were honestly smart stone masons and likely had a rudimentary understanding of mathematics, in the journey that they were given to the island by boat from elsewhere then honestly they used the celebrities as their`highway-map` to flow the oceans.that is going to proceed to be a secret until eventually such time that some one famous extra information, perhaps from excavation on the island.

Answer 4

The Easter Island natives.

Answer 5

The native Polynesians who first inhabited the islands. The islands used to be densely forested but the construction of the stone idols deforested the island and wreaked ecological catastrophe on the Easter islanders (a parable for us all there).

Peruvian slavers finally killed/carried off the remaining population.

Answer 6

Tim (Tool Time) Taylor - He started rough sanding them with the Binford Z4000 6hp circular sander. Next he had Al use the Binford 6000 etching tool. Next he erected them upright with the Binford Deluxe Model "Muscleman" Erecting Crane. Then the finishing touches were put on with the new Binford All Weather Resistant coating which has protected them for years. (H-m-m-m...there's a contradiction in there somewhere.)

Answer 7

A bunch of prehistoric rabbits. It was once a lovely picnic area, though now it is mostly a tourist attraction. The prehistoric rabbits of yore loved to frolic in the sunshine and hide eggs. The chief of these P.R.'s was Chief Cadbury the Half-mighty and Hairy. (Which is how we got the name for those dielicious cream eggs today.)

Answer 8

The people who lived on the island made them out of the trees on the island in memory of their dead. They cut down the last tree to make another perhaps? Bad move.

Answer 9

Rudolph Valentino.

Answer 10

Moai

Rano Raraku MoaiMoai are statues carved from compressed volcanic ash on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). The statues are all monolithic, that is, carved in one piece. The largest moai erected, "Paro", was almost 10 metres (33 feet) high and weighed 75 tonnes (74 Imperial tons, 83 American tons).[1] One unfinished sculpture has been found that would have been 21 metres (69 ft) tall and would have weighed about 270 tons.

Fewer than one-fifth of the statues that were moved to ceremonial sites and then erected once they had red stone cylinders (pukau) placed on their heads. These "topknots", as they are often called, were carved in a single quarry known as Puna Pau. About 95% of the 887 moai known to date were carved out of compressed volcanic ash at Rano Raraku, where 394 moai still remain visible today. Recent GPS mapping in the interior may add additional moai to that count. The quarries in Rano Raraku appear to have been abandoned abruptly, with many incomplete statues still in situ. However, the pattern of work is very complex and is still being studied. Practically all of the completed moai that were moved from Rano Raraku and erected upright on ceremonial platforms were subsequently toppled by native islanders in the period after construction ceased.


Maps of Easter Island showing locations of Moai
A close up of the moai at Ahu Tahai, restored with coral eyes by the American archaeologist William MulloyAlthough usually identified as "heads" only, the moai are actually heads and truncated torsos.

In recent years, toppled moai have been found untouched and face-down. This led to the discovery that the famous deep eye sockets of the moai were designed to hold coral eyes. Replica eyes have been constructed and placed in some statues for photographs.

The most widely accepted theory is that the statues were carved by the Polynesian colonizers of the island beginning by about A.D. 1000–1100. In addition to representing deceased ancestors, the moai, once they were erect on ceremonial sites, may also have been regarded as the embodiment of powerful living chiefs. They were also important lineage status symbols. The moai were carved by a distinguished class of professional carvers who were comparable in status to high-ranking members of other Polynesian craft guilds. The statues must have been extremely expensive to craft; not only would the actual carving of each statue require effort and resources, but the finished product was then hauled to its final location and erected. It is not known exactly how the moai were moved but the process almost certainly required human energy, ropes, wooden sledges and/or rollers. Another theory is that the moai may have been "walked" by rocking them forward. (Pavel Pavel and his successful experiment [2] showed that only 17 people with ropes are needed for relatively fast transportation of the statues). By the mid-1800s, all the moai outside of Rano Raraku and many within the quarry itself had been knocked over. Today, about 50 moai have been re-erected on their ceremonial sites.

Ancient island legends speak of a clan chief called Hotu Matu'a, who left his original home in search of a new one. The place he chose is now known to us as Easter Island. When he died, the island was divided between his six sons and later sub-divided among their descendants. The islanders may have believed that their statues would capture the chiefs' "mana" (supernatural powers). They may have believed that by concentrating mana on the island good things would result, e.g., rain would fall and crops would grow. The settlement legend is a fragment of what was surely a much more complicated and multi-faceted, mythic sketch, and it has changed over time.