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00:00:00It is one of the most remote places on Earth, an island shrouded in mystery.
00:00:06For centuries, people have marveled at these giant stone statues that dot the windswept terrain of Easter Island.
00:00:14Who carved these statues, and why?
00:00:19How did they carve them?
00:00:20And perhaps even more remarkable, how could they move statues that could be 32 feet tall and weigh close to
00:00:2882 tons?
00:00:31Now, a new experiment tests a theory for how the statues were moved.
00:00:36Okay, ready, pull, pull, release, pull, release.
00:00:39And attempts to find out how it was really done.
00:00:43The transportation of the statues is perhaps the most important contribution of these cultures to humanity.
00:00:50Can just 26 people, using only ropes, move a 10 foot tall, 5 ton statue?
00:00:57I think we can do it.
00:00:58I think we have the force, we have the manpower.
00:01:01Will this experiment help solve the mystery of Easter Island?
00:01:06Right now, on this NOVA National Geographic Special.
00:01:24Major funding for NOVA is provided by the following.
00:01:29The David H. Koch Fund for Science.
00:01:32Supporting NOVA and promoting public understanding of science.
00:01:37H. H. H. M. I.
00:01:41Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
00:01:44And the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
00:01:46And by PBS viewers like you.
00:01:49Additional funding from Lockheed Martin.
00:01:51Inspiring tomorrow's engineers and technologists.
00:01:54Additional funding for this program is provided by Pacific Islanders and Communications.
00:02:03In the middle of the South Pacific, over a thousand miles from land, a tiny island emerges from the sea.
00:02:11Hundreds of years ago, Polynesian explorers discovered this place and settled here.
00:02:17Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui.
00:02:24What happened on this island after they arrived has intrigued archaeologists for a century.
00:02:32We know the islanders carved close to one thousand massive stone figures instilled with the spirits of their ancestors.
00:02:41We know they moved them, possibly as far as 12 miles, and placed them on sacred platforms called Ahu.
00:02:50But we don't know how they did it.
00:02:54According to island lore, the statues called Moai had simply walked into place.
00:03:02But how could a people who had no metal tools carve such imposing figures?
00:03:08How could prehistoric farmers who didn't have the wheel move enormous statues up to 30 feet tall and weigh close
00:03:18to 82 tons?
00:03:24The transportation of the moai on Easter Island is perhaps one of the most important archaeological problems that we have.
00:03:32It's the biggest mystery.
00:03:35Sergio Rappu was born and raised on Rapa Nui and served as governor for six years.
00:03:41Also an archaeologist, he's long championed the idea that the statues were moved in an upright position.
00:03:48It is to us to build hypotheses and go after looking for the attributes on the statues that allow an
00:03:56explanation that they were moved vertically.
00:04:00Archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lippo are heavily influenced by Sergio Rappu's theory.
00:04:06The key to proving it, they hope, is inside this box.
00:04:11Here it is. It's a huge crane.
00:04:14Oh no.
00:04:16This is going to be sort of scary to see it come out of there. It's so enormous.
00:04:21Wow.
00:04:22I don't know if I'm going to feel better or worse when I see it because the box is big.
00:04:26And we're going to move it with a small number of people.
00:04:32Holy cow.
00:04:33Oh my God.
00:04:34That is amazing.
00:04:36Perfect replica.
00:04:37You know what? This is making me feel sick to my stomach.
00:04:42This precise replica of a moai is the centerpiece of a simple but radical experiment being conducted in Hawaii by
00:04:49Lippo and Hunt.
00:04:50But over the next two days, working with a small group of volunteers, they will attempt to move this statue
00:04:56by walking it upright.
00:04:59When people ask, how did your ancestors move the centuries, the answer was always, they walked.
00:05:03And for the Rapa Nui, that was the answer.
00:05:05And for the foreigners asking the question, they thought, oh, that's silly.
00:05:09You know, how crazy.
00:05:10What we're trying to do is evaluate our ideas, our ability to explain how they were moved, why the archaeological
00:05:17record looks like it does.
00:05:18What we're going to do is tricky, and it could easily not work, and we've never done this before.
00:05:24Rapa Nui people had centuries to figure this out, and lots of people involved.
00:05:29To conduct this experiment, Lippo and Hunt will have just two days and 26 volunteers.
00:05:38The statue tradition was brought by voyagers from Polynesia to Rapa Nui.
00:05:45Throughout Polynesia, carved wooden and stone figures are common.
00:05:49But no other island can compare with the size or number of statues found here.
00:05:57According to oral tradition, the moai were carved to represent the spirit of the islanders' ancestors.
00:06:07The statues are the living face of our ancestors.
00:06:11In order to look living, you have to put the inlaid eyes on the statues.
00:06:17Some statues are topped with a red stone hat, or a topknot, called a pukau.
00:06:24The moai were cut from volcanic tuff, a porous stone made from compressed ash.
00:06:31Almost all of them were carved here, at Rano Waraku, a massive quarry inside one of the island's three extinct
00:06:38volcanoes.
00:06:40Littered around the site are statues in various stages of completion, some still emerging from the rock.
00:06:47The most common way of carving the moai here is to carve around the face and the body, like awakening
00:06:54these statues from the rocks.
00:06:56To do this, carvers used very dense stone tools made of basalt, like this one, used by modern-day carver,
00:07:04Umikai, in Hawaii.
00:07:06What we're trying to do is just cut a design that we want to follow into the tuff.
00:07:13Umikai is using a replica of the same ancient tool, called a toki, to carve a small version of a
00:07:20moai eye socket into volcanic tuff.
00:07:22If I was to do this with a modern tool, and probably take maybe 45 minutes to an hour, this
00:07:29will take maybe a whole day to two days.
00:07:35It would probably take a team of 12 people a year to produce a moai of this site.
00:07:42Once the moai is completely carved, the back will be still attached to the mother rock with a keel.
00:07:48Eventually, that keel will be perforated, and some loose rock will be added under the back of the moai,
00:07:54so it remains floated as they cut off and release it from the mother rock.
00:07:59After they finish carving, they slide it down, raise it at the foot of the hill, then they finish carving
00:08:06the back.
00:08:07At this stage, the moai was ready to be moved to a sacred platform called an ahu, known to be
00:08:14a place of religious ritual.
00:08:17There have been lots of speculation about how the statues were moved from crazy theories of they were shot out
00:08:22of the volcano to aliens move them.
00:08:24But in modern research, there's been a whole family of ideas about using contraptions, using palm logs for tripods or
00:08:32sleds or rollers.
00:08:34According to several of these theories, the islanders used logs to move the moai.
00:08:41The most recent attempt was when University of California archaeologist Joanne Van Tilburg tried using a wooden sled to move
00:08:48a moai along wooden rails.
00:08:51It's similar to a traditional method Polynesians used to move canoes out of the water.
00:08:57Ultimately, the experiment worked, and it gained wide acceptance.
00:09:01But not everyone believes the log theory.
00:09:06The problem with these series is that they have not drawn on the evidence that we see on the moai,
00:09:12the statues themselves, on the roads.
00:09:15As they investigated the statues and the roads, they began to accumulate clues that they think will tell a different
00:09:23story.
00:09:26Building on another researcher's data and using satellite imagery, Hunt and Lippo have surveyed almost 20 miles of ancient roads.
00:09:38There are several roads that begin at the statue quarry at Barraku and go along the south coast.
00:09:44Some go north, some go across the center of the island.
00:09:46These roads were used to move moai to every corner of the island.
00:09:50They think the network of roads may have been even larger, but the degraded roadbeds can be hard to find
00:09:57with the naked eye.
00:09:59So they're testing a drone equipped with a camera that will give them more precise observations.
00:10:05Three, two, one, go.
00:10:10Wow.
00:10:13We have satellite images, coverage for the entire island, and we can see certain kinds of features.
00:10:17This gives us a way of integrating that at a level where we get incredible detail.
00:10:21The drone may help identify new roads, which can then be ground-truthed with modern surveying equipment.
00:10:29Hunt and Lippo believe a crucial clue to how the statues were moved may lie in the slope of the
00:10:35roads,
00:10:35which they have measured, confirming the results of an earlier team.
00:10:43We found that the roads generally have a maximum of a three-degree rise as they go uphill,
00:10:50and then a maximum of about six degrees when they go downhill.
00:10:52The island is fairly hilly, and the inhabitants understood that to move the statues,
00:10:58the roads would have to be leveled so that they had a consistent and fairly gentle grade.
00:11:02But how did they move them?
00:11:05To find out, Hunt and Lippo studied more than 50 statues that fell, apparently, while being moved.
00:11:13We noticed that the statues that were headed uphill, away from the quarry,
00:11:18had fallen on their back most frequently.
00:11:21We also found that when statues were heading downhill, they'd fallen on their face.
00:11:26Statues on flat ground were kind of 50-50, and we could see that there was a pattern here.
00:11:30We tested it statistically, and realized that we had very clear indications
00:11:34that the statues were moved in a standing position.
00:11:37There was really no other way to explain that.
00:11:40This idea has the virtue of being consistent with oral tradition.
00:11:44In fact, the Rapa Nui language even has a word, neke neke,
00:11:49which translates as walking with no legs.
00:11:53For centuries, we have known that the Moai did walk, as our ancestors said.
00:12:01But how exactly they did the walking is what we, the archaeologists, are looking into.
00:12:06In fact, others have tried to move them vertically,
00:12:09including Thor Heyerdahl and a Czech engineer named Pavel Pavel.
00:12:15This is the statue that Pavel tried to move in 1986 with his experiments,
00:12:20moving the statues in an upright position.
00:12:22By shuffling it across the surface, there was a lot of friction on the base.
00:12:26And as he did it, in fact, there was damage done to the base
00:12:29that removed material right down from the bottom here.
00:12:33We thought, this can't really be quite right,
00:12:36because the shuffling and the grinding isn't consistent with what we saw in the statue.
00:12:40So, on the one hand, we were like, yes, they're moving standing up,
00:12:43but not exactly that way.
00:12:46To figure out a less destructive way to move them,
00:12:49they built on observations first made by Sergio Rappu,
00:12:53identifying differences between statues that made it to the platform
00:12:57and those that fell on the way.
00:13:00On the more than 50 fallen statues they analyzed,
00:13:03what researchers called road moai,
00:13:06the eyes hadn't been carved yet.
00:13:08They were left as sharp-angled slots.
00:13:11According to Hunt and Lippo's measurements,
00:13:14road moai were chunkier.
00:13:15Their bases were bigger.
00:13:17Their centers of gravity were lower,
00:13:19kind of like a bowling pin.
00:13:21Most of the road moai had a D-shaped base,
00:13:24and the base was angled so the statue leaned forward.
00:13:30These were key features to Lippo and Hunt.
00:13:36The statues were rolled across the front edge,
00:13:39and that front edge has a characteristic shape,
00:13:42especially as the statues get larger,
00:13:43that allowed that to happen.
00:13:44The statues that made it to the Ahu platform show the difference.
00:13:49The eyes had been carved,
00:13:50their sides had been trimmed,
00:13:52and their center of gravity shifted back and up.
00:13:55They'd been cut so that their bases were no longer angled, but flat.
00:14:00They leaned forward, but not as far as road moai.
00:14:04They stood more upright,
00:14:05and they'd lost a little weight.
00:14:07Based on all these differences,
00:14:10the difficulties faced by the Czech engineer Pavel are understandable.
00:14:15Pavel was using a statue
00:14:18that had already been reshaped for a platform.
00:14:22The eyes had already been carved.
00:14:25It didn't lean as far forward,
00:14:27and its sides had been trimmed.
00:14:31Ultimately, the evidence for how the statues were moved
00:14:33can be found on the statues themselves.
00:14:35They were engineered to move,
00:14:37and the details of the statues are telling us about transport.
00:14:42But the only way to show that the statues could walk
00:14:45is to test the theory.
00:14:48To do that, they need to make a replica moai,
00:14:51the most precise replica ever made.
00:14:54They collect data embedded in thousands of photos
00:14:57of two fallen moai,
00:14:59one that fell on its back and the other on its front,
00:15:02and enter it into a 3-D modeling software.
00:15:06Industrial designer Max Beach
00:15:08then translates the measurements into data,
00:15:11which is used to make a mold for the statue.
00:15:13Their photos depict an 18-foot-tall, 19-ton moai.
00:15:19Because of safety concerns and cost,
00:15:21they scale the replica down.
00:15:23Their statue will be 10 feet tall
00:15:25and weigh 5 tons,
00:15:27about the average of nearly 1,000 moai on the island.
00:15:32Hunt and Lippo nicknamed the statue
00:15:34Ho-2-E-T as a tribute
00:15:36to Easter Island's legendary first ruler.
00:15:40Max Beach is also creating an animation
00:15:43showing how Ho-2-E-T might move.
00:15:48Carl and I started with a small-scale model
00:15:51to move it around on a table
00:15:54to get an idea of how would this thing walk back and forth.
00:15:58We felt that there was some challenges
00:16:01with scaling this up,
00:16:02so we built a 5-foot model out of wood
00:16:05that would allow us to see
00:16:06what some of the dynamics involved are
00:16:08as this model scaled up.
00:16:11While this contraption doesn't look like a moai,
00:16:13the same principles of design and physics
00:16:16are still in play,
00:16:18like an accurate center of gravity
00:16:20and the rounded forward edge.
00:16:23It has enough of the features
00:16:24that gives us a sense when we pull it
00:16:27that it's going to behave something
00:16:28like what we expect with the large statue.
00:16:32You need to get it up high enough
00:16:34so that it starts to fall.
00:16:35You're kind of pulling on its side,
00:16:36but you're also pulling it
00:16:38so that it wants to rotate.
00:16:39Bringing that center of gravity back over the...
00:16:42Okay.
00:16:42That's the point that coordination is key.
00:16:45Yeah.
00:16:46There we go.
00:16:47That was a good step.
00:16:48Good, good.
00:16:49Yeah, beautiful.
00:16:50In addition to understanding the physics
00:16:52of how the statue should move,
00:16:54figuring out where to tie the ropes
00:16:56is going to be critical
00:16:58in making the experiment
00:16:59with a larger replica moai a success.
00:17:03The trick is to pull it in the right direction
00:17:06with the right force at the right time
00:17:07that it rocks forward on the forward edge
00:17:10which has that rounded, that D-shape.
00:17:12But will Hunt and Lippo's 10-foot-tall replica moai
00:17:15behave the same way?
00:17:17Wow.
00:17:18Let it fall forward.
00:17:21We are going to stay true
00:17:23to the original center of gravity.
00:17:25Engineer James Detish is designing the mold for Hotu-Eti,
00:17:28paying special attention to the center of gravity
00:17:31and how the statue is balanced.
00:17:33When I apply density to this model,
00:17:36it calculates the exact center of gravity
00:17:39and is saved in this coordinate system
00:17:42right here in the center.
00:17:43This is important because if the center of gravity was off,
00:17:46it could alter the way that these were moved.
00:17:49So if the experiment is to determine
00:17:52that these could be moved by walking them,
00:17:54then the center of gravity has to be
00:17:56at the same height as it was originally.
00:17:58The mold itself is comprised of four layers
00:18:02and made in two halves split down the nose.
00:18:06Hotu will come out of the machine
00:18:09with about plus or minus 30 thousandths
00:18:12of an inch accuracy overall.
00:18:14This is incredible in comparison
00:18:16to any other recreations that have been made
00:18:19that have been mostly glossed over and symmetrical.
00:18:21This is nearly exact of what you can find on Easter Island.
00:18:27After nine hours of machining time,
00:18:30each half of the mold is fitted
00:18:32with an internal rebar structure
00:18:34to support the massive weight of the statue.
00:18:37When we are ready to pour the statue,
00:18:40we are going to fill this thing
00:18:41with nearly six tons of concrete.
00:18:44What we'll see in this truck is the new high-tech mix
00:18:47that we've developed specifically for the mole-high statue.
00:18:49It's lighter in weight, higher in flowability.
00:18:52It's more sustainable.
00:18:54If you look really close,
00:18:55see the little beads, the spheres?
00:18:57The beads are expanded polystyrene,
00:19:01a type of synthetic foam.
00:19:03Putting it in the mix adds volume without adding weight.
00:19:07That makes the statue closer in weight
00:19:10to a real moai of this size made from volcanic tuff.
00:19:16We're burying him to equalize that hydraulic pressure
00:19:19from the outside so it can't move.
00:19:23It took 10 days from the time the concrete
00:19:26was poured into Hotu'iti's mold
00:19:28to the time the 5-ton, 10-foot-tall replica
00:19:31was carefully extracted from the ground.
00:19:37Trying to get this right
00:19:38and have him perform like the original Polynesians intended,
00:19:42that's what our mission is.
00:19:51There's a lot at stake in figuring out
00:19:54how the statues moved
00:19:55because it may cast light on the island's troubled past.
00:20:02There are vastly different ideas about what happened here.
00:20:06The story told by the islanders
00:20:08speaks of different clans and prolonged warfare.
00:20:12Fractured skulls from skeletons found on the island
00:20:15seem to confirm that.
00:20:17What would have brought on this violence?
00:20:23A widely accepted theory
00:20:24is that different clans around the island
00:20:26competed to build more and ever-larger moai.
00:20:30Needing logs to move them,
00:20:32they cut down the island's lush forest
00:20:34to keep up with rivals.
00:20:37As the forest disappeared
00:20:38and resources grew scarce,
00:20:40the rivalry turned violent
00:20:42and the society descended into chaos.
00:20:45Some have described this
00:20:46as a case of ecocide.
00:20:48A culture bent on overexploiting its resources
00:20:51spirals into cultural collapse and disaster.
00:20:57But is this a true picture of what happened here?
00:21:04Easter Island once looked very different.
00:21:07Pollen evidence shows that 25 various species of trees
00:21:11and shrubs once grew here
00:21:12and reveals a dramatic change
00:21:15as the island was deforested,
00:21:17something pollen expert John Flimley
00:21:19attributes to human activity.
00:21:22Our pollen results were strongly indicating to us
00:21:27that people had destroyed the forest.
00:21:30In fact, it was the clearest example in the world
00:21:32that I had ever come across
00:21:34of deforestation by people.
00:21:37Throughout the island,
00:21:39excavations have revealed the impressions
00:21:41of countless palm root molds like these.
00:21:44This island once had a palm forest
00:21:46and one way we know that
00:21:47is because of the preservation of these palm roots
00:21:50that document that there once was a palm forest,
00:21:53a very extensive palm forest across the island.
00:21:55These lines here, these black lines,
00:21:59trace the past that the roots
00:22:01of the palm trees once made.
00:22:03But some scientists believe
00:22:05that the trees were cut down
00:22:06not in a frenzy of statue building and moving,
00:22:10but for the simple reason
00:22:11that these were farmers.
00:22:14These people were agriculturalists.
00:22:15They needed to clear land.
00:22:17So in a sense, the forests
00:22:18were largely superfluous to them.
00:22:20It's garden land that was essential to them,
00:22:22not palm forests that they couldn't eat.
00:22:24The whole notion that it was the cutting down
00:22:26of these trees that led to a collapse,
00:22:29if you will, of Easter Island
00:22:30is a bit off the mark in my view.
00:22:33Archaeologist Pat Kirch
00:22:34studies human impact on island ecology.
00:22:37He's done a comprehensive study
00:22:39of the Mangareva Islands
00:22:41about 1,600 miles away.
00:22:44After the Pitcairins,
00:22:45they are the nearest islands to Rapa Nui
00:22:47and striking in their similarity.
00:22:49Both Mangareva and Easter Island
00:22:51were nearly deforested
00:22:53and both once had large colonies of seabirds
00:22:56whose guano fertilized the soil.
00:22:59But on both islands,
00:23:00people caught and ate.
00:23:02Nearly all the birds.
00:23:04When you eliminate those birds,
00:23:06you disrupt that nutrient flow.
00:23:08And we think that on both Easter Island
00:23:10and Mangareva,
00:23:11the elimination of large seabird populations
00:23:13was a key factor
00:23:15in the inability of the forest to regenerate.
00:23:17The people also slashed and burned down trees
00:23:20to make way for farmland
00:23:22and combined with the loss of seabird fertilizer,
00:23:25put their forest in jeopardy.
00:23:29And there may be another factor.
00:23:33During excavations here at Anacana Beach,
00:23:36the site of the first settlement on Easter Island,
00:23:39Hunt and Lippo unearthed evidence
00:23:41identifying what they believe
00:23:43dealt a significant blow to the forest.
00:23:47Rats, possibly brought as accidental hitchhikers
00:23:50by the original voyagers from Polynesia.
00:23:53Hunt and Lippo believe these rats
00:23:55played a decisive role
00:23:57in the deforestation of the island.
00:24:00We didn't really see the full significance of that
00:24:03until we started to realize
00:24:04that rats as an invasive species
00:24:06in fragile environments like this
00:24:08would play a pretty significant role
00:24:11in stopping the regeneration of new trees.
00:24:14They would eat the seeds of the native trees,
00:24:17in this case the palm trees,
00:24:18and the palms would not regenerate.
00:24:21From Southeast Asia
00:24:21and has spread through most of the central
00:24:23and western Pacific.
00:24:25Will Pitt is a wildlife biologist
00:24:27at the USDA Wildlife Research Center
00:24:30in Hilo, Hawaii.
00:24:32This is a female Polynesian rat.
00:24:34In the wild, a lot of these rats
00:24:35only have about a year life expectancy.
00:24:37But a female like this
00:24:38could produce four litters a year.
00:24:41When introduced to areas
00:24:43with abundant resources
00:24:44and no natural predators,
00:24:46the first generation of rats
00:24:47could, in theory,
00:24:49have exploded to millions
00:24:50in just a few years.
00:24:52Even a fraction of that number
00:24:54would consume a huge amount of food.
00:24:56And it turns out
00:24:57that the food that the rats ate
00:24:59was palm nuts.
00:25:01Inside of which
00:25:02are the seeds
00:25:03that would spawn a new forest.
00:25:08Throughout the island,
00:25:09remnants of palm nuts
00:25:10show gnaw marks from rat teeth
00:25:12supporting that argument.
00:25:15The role that these little
00:25:16Polynesian rats may have played
00:25:18in deforestation
00:25:19is a very interesting one
00:25:20and a little controversial.
00:25:21It's a disruptive force
00:25:22ecologically,
00:25:23but I'm skeptical
00:25:24that it was the sole
00:25:25or major force.
00:25:26And the reason I say that
00:25:27is rats were transported
00:25:29to every island
00:25:30across the Pacific.
00:25:31But not every island
00:25:32got deforested.
00:25:32So it had to be a combination
00:25:33of some other factors
00:25:35along with rats
00:25:36that led to deforestation.
00:25:39The forest was likely wiped out
00:25:42by a perfect storm
00:25:43of human impact,
00:25:44slash-and-burn farming,
00:25:47decimation of the seabird population,
00:25:49and the introduction
00:25:50of an exploding rat population
00:25:52on the island.
00:25:54But did the demand
00:25:56for logs
00:25:56to help move the statues
00:25:58also play a role?
00:26:01Or will Hunt and Lippo's experiment
00:26:03deliver on an alternative explanation?
00:26:09At the experiment site in Hawaii,
00:26:11the volunteers are about
00:26:13to get their first lesson
00:26:14in moving a moai.
00:26:16So what we want to do first
00:26:17is have you do a tug-of-war.
00:26:19We want to divide you
00:26:19into two groups,
00:26:20roughly an even amount of strength.
00:26:22The teams are learning
00:26:23how to work together
00:26:24by working against each other.
00:26:27Because cooperation's so important,
00:26:29we actually want you
00:26:30to be in a situation
00:26:31where it's really tough to win.
00:26:32On three.
00:26:33One, two, three.
00:26:37Balancing the teams
00:26:38will be vital
00:26:39to balancing the moa
00:26:40from the actual experiment.
00:26:42Okay, you guys
00:26:43are a little too good.
00:26:44So no one team
00:26:46can overpower the other.
00:26:49There you go.
00:26:50Come on, come on.
00:26:51I think we're balanced now.
00:26:53The volunteers then graduate
00:26:55from tug-of-war
00:26:56to balancing a 10-foot-tall
00:26:58wooden pole.
00:27:00Ready?
00:27:00So north.
00:27:02Stop.
00:27:04This is the maximum height.
00:27:06We would tie the rope
00:27:06on the statue.
00:27:07Give you an idea.
00:27:08What seems easy
00:27:09with a 4x4 post
00:27:11may not come so quickly
00:27:12with a 10-foot-tall,
00:27:145-ton statue.
00:27:16That's good coordination.
00:27:26Through a traditional Hawaiian blessing,
00:27:29everyone on site
00:27:30is reminded of the cultural importance
00:27:32of what they're about to do.
00:27:36A Rapa Nui ritual
00:27:37is also included,
00:27:39and everyone shares
00:27:40in the eating of a white chicken
00:27:42cooked in an earthen oven.
00:27:46The aroma released
00:27:47upon opening the oven
00:27:48is said to feed the gods.
00:27:51Mahalo.
00:27:53Mahalo, thank you.
00:27:57I do worry about the base
00:27:58isn't sharp enough,
00:28:00but the fact
00:28:00it's got the roundedness.
00:28:02To maneuver
00:28:03the 5-ton statue,
00:28:04a crane operator
00:28:06attaches rigging
00:28:07to Hotu E.T.'s neck.
00:28:09Oh, my God.
00:28:10Look at those cables stretching.
00:28:14It's back up there.
00:28:16Wow.
00:28:19The rigging
00:28:21will also act
00:28:21as a safety measure
00:28:22to prevent the statue
00:28:24from tipping over.
00:28:26Well done.
00:28:28Woo-hoo!
00:28:33This is the real test.
00:28:35We were sort of wondering
00:28:36what if he doesn't stand.
00:28:41Is he resting on the ground?
00:28:43No.
00:28:43Yeah, he'll fall over.
00:28:44Oh, my God.
00:28:46He's got to stand.
00:28:48Yeah.
00:28:49Yeah, yeah.
00:28:50Yeah, we need to see that.
00:28:53Worst case scenario.
00:28:55He's got to stand.
00:29:00He's got to stand.
00:29:01That's the whole key.
00:29:02He leans forward
00:29:03because that's the way
00:29:04it was made.
00:29:06Oh, my God.
00:29:10The statue will not stand
00:29:12on its own.
00:29:14Hunt and Lippo
00:29:15struggle to figure out
00:29:17why.
00:29:18Well, at the moment,
00:29:20you can see
00:29:20the way the straps
00:29:21and the way it's hanging.
00:29:23The center of mass line here
00:29:24goes straight down
00:29:25and is in front
00:29:27of the base itself.
00:29:28What we need to do
00:29:29is get it back
00:29:30so that this strap
00:29:31is hanging from over here
00:29:32to get it behind
00:29:33this point there.
00:29:35Right now,
00:29:35the way it's hanging,
00:29:36it's just going to fall over.
00:29:37It's in a leaning position.
00:29:39What can you do?
00:29:40Our plan is to turn
00:29:41his truck around.
00:29:42He's got rubber bumpers
00:29:43on the very back
00:29:44of his truck.
00:29:45Okay, okay.
00:29:45Yeah.
00:29:45Support it like that
00:29:46so that we can get
00:29:47the straps out.
00:29:48Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:48Okay, good, good, good.
00:29:49Yeah.
00:29:50My impression is that
00:29:51if he doesn't stand
00:29:52by himself,
00:29:53we'll probably
00:29:54have something wrong.
00:29:56The ancient Rapa Nui
00:29:58didn't have a crane.
00:29:59Their statues
00:30:00had to stand
00:30:01on their own.
00:30:02The rigging straps
00:30:04are adjusted,
00:30:05but Hotu Iti
00:30:06still does not stand.
00:30:10At this point,
00:30:11I have no idea
00:30:12what we could do
00:30:13to make this work.
00:30:19If Hunt and Lippo
00:30:20can't get Hotu Iti
00:30:21to stand,
00:30:22it will be hard
00:30:23to prove that
00:30:24their walking theory
00:30:24has legs.
00:30:26The only thing
00:30:27you can do
00:30:28is either take away
00:30:28material in the front
00:30:30or add material
00:30:31on the bottom.
00:30:35Finally,
00:30:36there's a solution.
00:30:39One more pull.
00:30:40Okay, go.
00:30:42Good, okay.
00:30:44We're good.
00:30:44It needed that much.
00:30:46It turns out
00:30:47that it needs
00:30:49just a tiny bit
00:30:49of help.
00:30:50In fact,
00:30:50it's a 2x4
00:30:52that's now resting
00:30:53right at the front
00:30:54of the base,
00:30:55and that tiny bit
00:30:56of addition there
00:30:57has balanced them all.
00:30:59He's standing on his own.
00:31:00There's no pressure
00:31:01on the cables.
00:31:01But it may be
00:31:02that in fact
00:31:03it was always made
00:31:04to be unstable.
00:31:05When they were moving,
00:31:06they were carved
00:31:07in such a way
00:31:07to always be falling,
00:31:08and what you would do
00:31:09is you would add
00:31:10something like we did
00:31:10with the 2x4,
00:31:11maybe a stone,
00:31:12things that we do
00:31:13find in the archaeological
00:31:14record underneath
00:31:15the front to stabilize it.
00:31:17Along the Moai roads
00:31:19on Easter Island
00:31:20are water-worn stones
00:31:21like these
00:31:22that may have been
00:31:23used this way.
00:31:25Sergio Arapu actually
00:31:26mentioned this
00:31:26a number of times
00:31:27about consistently
00:31:28finding these sort of
00:31:29flat, what are called
00:31:30poro stones.
00:31:31And they're not just
00:31:31any old stone.
00:31:32They're very dense,
00:31:33and they tend to be
00:31:33really flat.
00:31:34You find them on the roads
00:31:35over and over again.
00:31:36We're nervously learning
00:31:37a lot right now
00:31:38in trying to do this,
00:31:40and that's science.
00:31:41It's great to be wrong,
00:31:42and we realize
00:31:43that there are
00:31:44a few other things
00:31:44that need a little
00:31:45more emphasis
00:31:46in our understanding.
00:31:50Before it's time
00:31:51to make the first
00:31:52attempt at moving
00:31:53the replica,
00:31:54the volunteers sit down
00:31:56to watch the training
00:31:57video to see
00:31:58how the statue
00:31:59should move.
00:32:02And as we talked
00:32:03about, the D-shaped
00:32:04is one of the keys.
00:32:05It's being leaned
00:32:06over to the side,
00:32:07and then it falls forward
00:32:09and rocks
00:32:09on that front edge.
00:32:10And I think
00:32:11we can do it.
00:32:12I think we have
00:32:12the force,
00:32:13we have the manpower.
00:32:14So now the question
00:32:14is getting the details.
00:32:17Before they try
00:32:17to move Hotuiti,
00:32:19the volunteers
00:32:20need to make sure
00:32:20they can hold
00:32:21the statue upright.
00:32:23I want to figure out
00:32:24with everybody
00:32:25and it tied
00:32:25at the highest point,
00:32:26can we hold it back?
00:32:27Okay.
00:32:27How many people
00:32:28do we want?
00:32:29Ten, so five on each side.
00:32:30Okay, we need
00:32:31five on each side,
00:32:32so six more people.
00:32:33Team leaders in the front,
00:32:34if it seems like
00:32:35you can't hold it
00:32:36as he releases
00:32:37the pressure from the crane,
00:32:38yell out
00:32:38so that we can stop
00:32:39and he can add
00:32:40more pressure, okay?
00:32:42Yeah, let's move the wood.
00:32:45Oh, wow.
00:32:46Okay.
00:32:46Okay, so now
00:32:48he's going to release
00:32:49the tension
00:32:49and it's going to be
00:32:50up to you guys
00:32:50to keep it from
00:32:51falling forward.
00:32:51He's going to want
00:32:52to fall forward.
00:32:53Yell out if it's too much.
00:32:55Coming down.
00:32:57Can you feel it?
00:32:59Is it a lot?
00:33:02All off.
00:33:03You guys are holding
00:33:04up the statue.
00:33:06Okay.
00:33:09Now the question
00:33:10is going to be
00:33:10getting it to fall
00:33:11on its front edge,
00:33:13which I think we can do
00:33:15with just two teams.
00:33:16This was always our idea
00:33:18is that the teams
00:33:18that are pulling
00:33:19are actually slightly
00:33:19behind the statue,
00:33:21keeping it from falling
00:33:22forward while rotating
00:33:23at the same time.
00:33:24With the safety rigging
00:33:26attached to the statue,
00:33:27Hunt and Lippo
00:33:28finally have the chance
00:33:29to test their walking theory.
00:33:32Starting out with Team A,
00:33:33I want you to pull.
00:33:34Just the harder,
00:33:35you keep it constant.
00:33:35Let's see if we can
00:33:36rock it a little bit.
00:33:37Woo!
00:33:39Woo!
00:33:40Woo!
00:33:41Okay, hold it.
00:33:43Let's see.
00:33:43I want you guys
00:33:44to spread out a little more
00:33:45so that you're holding it
00:33:46but more at an angle.
00:33:48Does this get harder
00:33:49or it's about the same?
00:33:51Easier?
00:33:52Yeah.
00:33:52Easier at this angle?
00:33:53I want you to pull Team A
00:33:54to pull to see what happens.
00:33:56Pull.
00:33:58Great.
00:34:00All right, hold.
00:34:03How's that?
00:34:04You guys exhausted?
00:34:07Okay.
00:34:08The teams continue
00:34:10to move farther
00:34:11and farther apart,
00:34:13simultaneously pulling
00:34:15and trying to twist the statue.
00:34:18But it's just not working.
00:34:23We're going to want it lower,
00:34:24the rope's lower
00:34:25on the shoulders
00:34:26because we have no leverage up there.
00:34:28But it looks like
00:34:28it's not so hard
00:34:29to hold it back right now.
00:34:30I know.
00:34:30So if it's around the neck,
00:34:31shoulder area,
00:34:32you can hold it back
00:34:34and probably tilt it.
00:34:35So we'll have to try
00:34:36re-roping it.
00:34:36As they reach the end
00:34:37of the day,
00:34:38Hunt and Lippo
00:34:39have to face the reality
00:34:40that so far,
00:34:41the experiment has failed.
00:34:43Unless they can get
00:34:44back on track,
00:34:46their failure will cast doubt
00:34:47on the statue-moving theory
00:34:48and on their other ideas
00:34:50about what happened
00:34:51to the island's
00:34:52once robust
00:34:53and productive people.
00:34:57No matter how this island
00:34:59was deforested,
00:35:00without any trees,
00:35:02wind and salt spray
00:35:03damaged the already poor soil.
00:35:08Seabirds were gone
00:35:09as both a source of food
00:35:10and nutrients
00:35:11that once increased
00:35:13the land's productivity.
00:35:15Some believe the loss
00:35:16of large trees
00:35:17meant they couldn't build
00:35:18canoes to leave the island.
00:35:20In one view,
00:35:22this is an environmental disaster
00:35:23leading to cultural collapse.
00:35:26But building on
00:35:27previous research,
00:35:28Hunt and Lippo
00:35:29came to believe
00:35:30that the islanders
00:35:31found a new way
00:35:32to adapt to the crisis.
00:35:33When we were first
00:35:34surveying here on the island,
00:35:35we were really annoyed
00:35:36by the loose rocks
00:35:38that we would walk over.
00:35:39Then we looked
00:35:39a little closer
00:35:40and we realized
00:35:41this was actually an area
00:35:42that was used
00:35:43for cultivation.
00:35:43And then on top of that,
00:35:44we would see the taro
00:35:46growing in the rock areas
00:35:47and not in the soil areas.
00:35:49It was kind of backwards
00:35:50of what we might have expected.
00:35:51It confirmed
00:35:52what previous archaeologists
00:35:54believed,
00:35:54that what looked like
00:35:56random piles of rubble
00:35:57are evidence
00:35:58of an ingenious method
00:35:59to improve the soil
00:36:01called rock mulching.
00:36:03It says you add the stones
00:36:04to the poor soil of Rapa Nui,
00:36:06you are increasing
00:36:07the nutrients available
00:36:08to plants.
00:36:09In addition to the phosphorus
00:36:11that leaches into the soil,
00:36:13the rocks help the soil
00:36:14retain moisture.
00:36:16If you look at rock mulch
00:36:18across the island,
00:36:19there are probably billions
00:36:21of stones that are moved.
00:36:22I mean, it's just incredible
00:36:23how much rock has been moved
00:36:25and concentrated into efforts
00:36:27that had to do
00:36:28with cultivation.
00:36:30But was it enough
00:36:31to stave off disaster?
00:36:34We have to really admire
00:36:35what the Easter Islands
00:36:36were doing,
00:36:36but not think that it was
00:36:38making their island
00:36:39into some incredibly
00:36:40productive system.
00:36:41It just helps to put off
00:36:42a worse kind of agricultural collapse.
00:36:46When Pat Kirch studied
00:36:47the islands of Mangareva,
00:36:491,600 miles away,
00:36:51he found the same kind
00:36:52of deforested landscape
00:36:54as on Easter Island.
00:36:55But ultimately,
00:36:56the outcome for the people there
00:36:58was different.
00:37:00When you compare
00:37:01Easter Island and Mangareva,
00:37:02both of them
00:37:03were heavily deforested.
00:37:04But on Mangareva,
00:37:05there's a huge lagoon,
00:37:07barrier reef,
00:37:07very rich marine resources.
00:37:09So the Mangarevans
00:37:10turned to those marine resources
00:37:12and really depended on them
00:37:13to develop their economy.
00:37:15On Easter Island,
00:37:16there's essentially no reef.
00:37:17There's very limited coral,
00:37:18very limited fish.
00:37:19So with their backs to the wall,
00:37:21did Easter Island
00:37:22descend into conflict?
00:37:24The population was growing,
00:37:26the scarcity of resources,
00:37:27there were a lot of competition,
00:37:29social conflicts
00:37:31started building up,
00:37:32and tensions between groups.
00:37:34And toward the end
00:37:35of Easter Island prohistory,
00:37:36there was a lot of war,
00:37:38a lot of conflict
00:37:39between one group and another.
00:37:43These sharp-edged obsidian implements
00:37:45found scattered across the island
00:37:47are often seen
00:37:48as the smoking gun,
00:37:50weapons,
00:37:51proof of a people at war.
00:37:53What I have in my hand
00:37:55is obsidian tool,
00:37:56and I think definitely
00:37:57it was used
00:37:58for defense or attack
00:38:01as a weapon.
00:38:02But again,
00:38:04Hunt and Lippo disagree,
00:38:05saying these obsidian implements
00:38:07were everyday tools.
00:38:09The edge here
00:38:10has a lot of useware
00:38:11that's consistent
00:38:12with carving wood,
00:38:14hard materials,
00:38:14and use with plant materials.
00:38:17But these implements
00:38:18have actually been found
00:38:20embedded in human skulls.
00:38:22I think most of the evidence
00:38:25that we have,
00:38:27it points more
00:38:28to use as a weapon.
00:38:30We have found catches of them
00:38:32next to a skull
00:38:33that mark exactly the shape
00:38:35of this tool
00:38:36engraved on that skull.
00:38:40The remains of some 500 Rapa Nui people
00:38:44have been studied
00:38:45to get a clearer picture
00:38:46of just how violent
00:38:48the society was.
00:38:53Enough of these bones
00:38:54show signs of injury
00:38:56and trauma
00:38:56that experts believe
00:38:58this was a place
00:38:59of significant conflict.
00:39:04In my view,
00:39:06it was a society in distress.
00:39:07It had a lot of problems.
00:39:09They were pushing
00:39:10their agricultural system
00:39:11very hard.
00:39:12I think there's good signs
00:39:13that warfare was periodic
00:39:15and endemic.
00:39:16This tumultuous period
00:39:18began before European contact,
00:39:20which came in 1722
00:39:23when a Dutch merchant ship
00:39:25arrived on Easter morning,
00:39:27hence the name of the island.
00:39:32As more Westerners arrived,
00:39:35stories about the island
00:39:36grew more lurid,
00:39:38even incorporating tales
00:39:39of cannibalism.
00:39:42Cannibalism seems to turn up
00:39:45when Europeans start to talk
00:39:46about it a lot
00:39:47in the mid-19th century.
00:39:49We don't see any evidence
00:39:51like that on Easter Island.
00:39:53We don't see chopped up
00:39:55human bones.
00:39:56We don't find human remains
00:39:58in the earth ovens.
00:40:00There's good reason
00:40:01to believe that the 19th century
00:40:03idea of cannibalism
00:40:05is that you were not yet
00:40:07Christianized.
00:40:08So you're Christian
00:40:09or you're cannibal.
00:40:10And cannibal had sort of
00:40:11a generic meaning.
00:40:14So could it have been
00:40:15something other than violence
00:40:17that eventually spelled
00:40:18the downfall
00:40:19of Easter Island society?
00:40:22We know over and over again
00:40:24when Europeans arrived
00:40:25in the Americas
00:40:26and in the Pacific,
00:40:27they introduced disease.
00:40:28They did so really unwittingly.
00:40:30For example,
00:40:31I mean, a disease like cholera
00:40:33would have a devastating impact
00:40:34on this population
00:40:35because it's waterborne.
00:40:36And once the disease
00:40:37gets into water supply,
00:40:38it's going to be easily
00:40:39passed on to other people.
00:40:40And as they got sick,
00:40:41it would pass on to them.
00:40:42In the 19th century,
00:40:44Peruvian slave traders
00:40:45also abducted hundreds
00:40:47of Rapa Nui people.
00:40:48By 1877,
00:40:50ravaged by slavery and disease,
00:40:52a devastated remnant
00:40:54of the people
00:40:54who over the centuries
00:40:55had carved and moved
00:40:57massive moai
00:40:58had plummeted
00:40:59to only 110.
00:41:01But their oral history
00:41:03of the time
00:41:03before the Europeans
00:41:04remains a tantalizing collection.
00:41:07Tales of warfare,
00:41:09ritual,
00:41:10exploration,
00:41:11and statue building.
00:41:13Whatever passage
00:41:15of our history we have,
00:41:16we protect it
00:41:18like precious information.
00:41:19And in our doing
00:41:20of archaeology experience,
00:41:22tell me how important
00:41:24it is to listen carefully
00:41:25to these little bits
00:41:27of information
00:41:28from our history.
00:41:30The oral history
00:41:32says the statues
00:41:33walked.
00:41:35And Hunt and Lippo
00:41:36are trying to figure out
00:41:38whether it's true.
00:41:40It's 9 a.m.
00:41:42on the last day
00:41:43of the experiment.
00:41:44Okay.
00:41:46Just eight hours left
00:41:47to figure out
00:41:48how to move a moai.
00:41:51Let's be optimistic.
00:41:52How about there?
00:41:54Hunt and Lippo
00:41:54decide to set a goal,
00:41:57marking a finish line
00:41:58at 50 yards.
00:42:00We've got this marked
00:42:01at 50 yards,
00:42:0225 yards,
00:42:03and 10 yards.
00:42:04You know,
00:42:04it'd be great
00:42:05if we got it
00:42:06even part of that way.
00:42:10What we want to do
00:42:10is have the knot
00:42:12I think right here.
00:42:14Yeah.
00:42:14Because we want,
00:42:14because it's going to,
00:42:15we want it to pull like that.
00:42:16Pull, yep.
00:42:18After spending the morning
00:42:19tying, retying,
00:42:21and tying the ropes again,
00:42:23it's 11.30
00:42:24before the experiment teams
00:42:25make their first attempt
00:42:26of the day
00:42:27to move Ho Tu E.T.
00:42:29Until they master
00:42:30the motion
00:42:31to move the statue,
00:42:32the crane rigging
00:42:33will act as a safety.
00:42:35We're going to start
00:42:36with the two ropes
00:42:36and the two large teams.
00:42:38We've got longer ropes
00:42:38this time,
00:42:39so there's more room
00:42:39for you guys to pull.
00:42:41You guys ready over there?
00:42:42Yes.
00:42:43So we're going to let
00:42:43your side go forward
00:42:45to let it lean forward,
00:42:46but you guys
00:42:47are going to pull
00:42:47at the same time, right?
00:42:48We're going to see
00:42:49if we can twist it slightly.
00:42:50Okay.
00:42:51Ready, set, pull.
00:42:54Pull.
00:42:55Okay, hold, hold.
00:42:57Hold.
00:42:58With no luck
00:42:59on the first attempt,
00:43:00the problem solving begins.
00:43:04Yeah, widen that up.
00:43:05That's good.
00:43:06Okay.
00:43:07Go.
00:43:13Okay, hold.
00:43:14Hold.
00:43:16Okay.
00:43:17We got twisted.
00:43:18Now we want to see
00:43:19if we can get
00:43:20the other way.
00:43:22No matter what they try
00:43:23or how they move,
00:43:24the team can't seem
00:43:26to twist the statue forward
00:43:27even an inch.
00:43:30Over the next hour,
00:43:32the statue doesn't budge.
00:43:33Hey, hold.
00:43:34It seems to be swinging
00:43:36and rocking,
00:43:36but not moving forward.
00:43:39Things are exactly
00:43:40what we want.
00:43:41Just have to trust
00:43:42in the way it moves.
00:43:43and if it fails,
00:43:44we have a crane.
00:43:45Trust the ancestors here.
00:43:48Okay, so you're going
00:43:49to be pulling.
00:43:49They continue to try,
00:43:51but rocking Hotu E.T.
00:43:53forward and back
00:43:54is the best they can do.
00:43:55Woo!
00:43:57Woo!
00:43:57Woo!
00:43:58Woo!
00:43:59In fact,
00:44:00it's the only thing
00:44:01they can do
00:44:02for hours.
00:44:04Hunt and Lippa
00:44:05are convinced
00:44:06the ropes need
00:44:06to be around the shoulders
00:44:08to get the leverage needed
00:44:09to twist the statue
00:44:10at the base.
00:44:12Okay, so let's get,
00:44:13can we get tension
00:44:14on the statue?
00:44:17They adjust the ropes again,
00:44:19even taking the advice
00:44:20of a nautical knot expert
00:44:21when nothing else is working.
00:44:24As long as there's tension
00:44:25on here,
00:44:26that won't slip,
00:44:26and I think they really want
00:44:27the perch is to come
00:44:29from right here,
00:44:30so it's on the shoulder.
00:44:31Ready?
00:44:32Ready?
00:44:33Go!
00:44:38The clock keeps ticking.
00:44:40Just three hours left
00:44:42to figure this out.
00:44:44Whoa!
00:44:45Whoa!
00:44:47Oh, we almost lost it there.
00:44:48Oh.
00:44:50Hunt and Lippo
00:44:50struggle to understand
00:44:52why two ropes
00:44:53aren't working
00:44:53to move the statue forward
00:44:55since it worked
00:44:56with the wooden model.
00:44:57They decide to try
00:44:58something else,
00:45:00and everyone has an idea.
00:45:03That's what I was saying
00:45:03to you earlier.
00:45:05Let's get Carl in there.
00:45:07Hey, Carl,
00:45:07you need to referee in this.
00:45:09It was a lot easier
00:45:10yesterday when we were up high.
00:45:14That's where I feel
00:45:15like it's going to happen.
00:45:16You have a rope on the top
00:45:17keeping it from falling.
00:45:18So if there's three,
00:45:19it's like a Y.
00:45:20Let's pull in this rope
00:45:21right now.
00:45:21It's not going to work.
00:45:23Pull in it.
00:45:24So one rope up there
00:45:26just holding it back.
00:45:27It would be like one rope
00:45:28holding him back.
00:45:29We have a third rope?
00:45:30Yeah.
00:45:30Yeah, we do.
00:45:32Nothing's happening.
00:45:33It's basically
00:45:34we can move it like this,
00:45:35you know, or like this,
00:45:36but we can't really get it
00:45:37to do what it's supposed to do.
00:45:39So what we've done
00:45:39is added a third rope,
00:45:40which we think
00:45:41is going to be really critical.
00:45:43And now we think
00:45:43with three teams,
00:45:44we're going to be able
00:45:45to get the motion going,
00:45:46take advantage
00:45:47of the kinetic energy
00:45:48that's built into the statue,
00:45:49allow it to fall forward
00:45:51on the front edge
00:45:52of the moai,
00:45:53but team in the middle
00:45:55not allowing it
00:45:56to fall too much.
00:45:58As they retie the ropes,
00:46:00Lippo and Hunt
00:46:01make a new observation.
00:46:03Thinking back
00:46:04to the fallen statues
00:46:05on Easter Island,
00:46:06they remember moai
00:46:07and transport
00:46:08had sideways V-shaped notches
00:46:10where the eyes should be,
00:46:12a feature that now
00:46:13seems very important.
00:46:16The V-shaped of the eyes
00:46:17and the bridge of the nose
00:46:18is perfectly suited
00:46:19for tying a rope around
00:46:20and creating a place
00:46:22that you can put ropes
00:46:23and have friction.
00:46:24It's also tall enough
00:46:24to provide the leverage
00:46:25you need to move it.
00:46:26Perhaps the finishing
00:46:27is done because that area
00:46:29takes a little abuse
00:46:30with the ropes tied up high
00:46:31for that leverage.
00:46:32And so you finish them,
00:46:34add the eye sockets
00:46:35when the statues reach
00:46:36their final place
00:46:37on the platforms.
00:46:38It's an intriguing speculation,
00:46:41but it's a little late
00:46:42in the day for new theories.
00:46:45So we're going to alternate pulling.
00:46:46You guys are going to be
00:46:47pulling back
00:46:48and then releasing.
00:46:49It's 4 p.m.
00:46:51There's just one hour left
00:46:53to figure out
00:46:53how to make this statue walk.
00:46:56With the 10 people in back
00:46:57and more people on each side,
00:46:59they're ready to try
00:47:01one last time.
00:47:03Release the tension.
00:47:04How you guys doing?
00:47:05Good?
00:47:06Okay.
00:47:06Ready?
00:47:08Set.
00:47:09P.
00:47:10Ho!
00:47:11Ho!
00:47:12Ho!
00:47:13Ho!
00:47:14Ho!
00:47:14Ho!
00:47:15Ho!
00:47:15Ho!
00:47:16Ho!
00:47:16Ho!
00:47:18Ho!
00:47:26Ho!
00:47:27Ho!
00:47:29Ho!
00:47:29Ho!
00:47:30Ho!
00:47:30Ho!
00:47:32Ho!
00:47:34Ho!
00:47:35Ho!
00:47:36Ho!
00:47:36Ho!
00:47:36Ho!
00:47:38Ho!
00:47:38Ho!
00:47:39Ho!
00:47:39Ho!
00:47:40Ho!
00:47:48As the statue starts to move a few feet, it all starts coming together, and the safety
00:47:53straps come off.
00:47:55The crane is out, we're taking the training rolls off, we are going to move the statue
00:47:59without any help, um, exhilarated, and just amazed, really happy, and we're going to get
00:48:06right back to it here.
00:48:08Let's go for the finish line.
00:48:09So, this is how you move a moai.
00:48:15Once the teams get the hang of moving the statue, it becomes easy.
00:48:24Confident in their ability, they get a little overzealous, and Hotu E.T. takes a nosedive.
00:48:37But there's learning, even in failure.
00:48:40When Hotu E.T. fell, he fell exactly the same way the ancient moai on Easter Island fell.
00:48:48Face first, at an angle, right along the road.
00:48:53In most cases, when the statues fell, they weren't able to retrieve them.
00:48:56We've seen a couple of examples on the roads.
00:48:58I mean, some of the smaller ones, they probably undoubtedly cropped back up, but once they
00:49:02got larger and larger, it became a pointless effort.
00:49:05Hotu E.T. fares better, thanks to modern machinery.
00:49:09With just minutes left in the day, Hunt and Lippo revised their goal of moving the statue
00:49:1450 yards.
00:49:16We're going to call this point at 10 yards the goal line, and once we get there, that's
00:49:21going to be our finish.
00:49:22And we know we can move it anywhere, absolutely anywhere.
00:49:51We're going to call this point at 10 yards.
00:49:54O-E-O-E-O-E!
00:50:15We did it! Yay!
00:50:19Woohoo!
00:50:21Alright!
00:50:26I feel fantastic this has been a great success about mid-afternoon I was feeling
00:50:32pretty low and I'm pretty high right now it moved exactly the way we thought it
00:50:37would we just had to figure out how to get it started what struck everyone was
00:50:43that once we got going there was almost no effort involved we were on the ropes
00:50:49and we could feel that first tug was work and then when it started swinging you
00:50:56could feel I mean we weren't even pulling on the ropes the the energy of the statue
00:51:00moving did all the work and we were just kind of gently directing it the method
00:51:07the inputs that we doing on a 10-foot version are exactly the same that would
00:51:10be acquired in a 30-foot version all that would matter was scaling the initial
00:51:14input of energy in later experiments Hunt and Lippo were able to
00:51:19move the statue more than 100 yards in only 40 minutes they also successfully
00:51:25walked Hotu Iti upgrades of three to four percent we may never know if this is how
00:51:31the statues were actually moved but this success presents an intriguing new
00:51:36explanation it perhaps goes one step further to solving the mystery what
00:51:41happened on Easter Island what we're doing today we're pinpointing the
00:51:47archaeological evidence that come from our history the Moai walk the
00:51:51transportation of the status is perhaps the most important contribution of
00:51:55these cultures to humanity if this really is how the Islanders move the
00:52:01statues it raises an important question do these statues that rise above this
00:52:08ravaged treeless landscape serve as a cautionary tale for our times where is a
00:52:15monument to the human ability to innovate create and survive
00:52:32major funding for NOVA is provided by the David H Koch fund for science supporting NOVA and promoting public understanding
00:52:39of science
00:52:43HHMI Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by PBS viewers like you thank you additional
00:52:53funding from Lockheed Martin inspiring tomorrow's engineers and technologists additional funding for this program is provided by Pacific Islanders and
00:53:01communications the exploration continues on NOVA's website where you can watch this and other NOVA programs see expert interviews interactives
00:53:10video extras and more follow NOVA on Facebook and Twitter and find us online at pbs.org slash NOVA
00:53:34this NOVA program is available on DVD and blu-ray to order visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY
00:53:42-PBS NOVA is also available for download on iTunes
00:53:47the
00:54:01is one of the most remote places on earth an island shrouded in mystery for centuries people have marveled at
00:54:11these giant stone statues that dot the windswept terrain of Easter
00:54:16island
00:54:17who carved these statues and why how did they carve them and perhaps even more remarkable how could they move
00:54:26statues that could be 32 feet tall and way close to 82 tons
00:54:33now a new experiment tests a theory for how the statues were moved
00:54:39okay ready pull pull pull release and attempts to find out how it was really done
00:54:45the transportation of the statues is perhaps the most important contribution of these cultures to humanity
00:54:52can just 26 people using only ropes move a ten foot tall five-ton statue
00:54:59I think we can do it I think we have the force we have the manpower will this experiment help
00:55:05solve the mystery of Easter Island
00:55:08right now on this NOVA National Geographic special
00:55:20stone figures
00:55:21stone figures instilled with the spirits of their ancestors
00:55:26we know they moved them possibly as far as 12 miles and place them on sacred platforms called ahu
00:55:35but we don't know how they did it
00:55:39according to island lore the statues called moai had simply walked into place
00:55:46but how could a people who had no metal tools carve such imposing figures
00:55:53how could prehistoric farmers who didn't have the wheel move enormous statues up to 30 feet tall and weighing close
00:56:03to 82 tons
00:56:10transportation of the moai on Easter Island is perhaps one of the most important archaeological problems we have
00:56:17it's the biggest mystery
00:56:19Sergio Rappu was born and raised on Rapa Nui and served as governor for six years
00:56:26also an archaeologist he's long championed the idea that the statues were moved in an upright position
00:56:32it is to us to build hypothesis and go after looking for the attributes on the statues that allow an
00:56:41explanation that they were moved vertically
00:56:45archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lippo are heavily influenced by Sergio Rappu's theory
00:56:50the key to proving it they hope is inside this box
00:56:55here it is
00:56:57here it is
00:56:57it's a huge crane
00:56:59oh no
00:57:01this is going to be sort of scary to see it come out of there it's so enormous
00:57:06wow
00:57:06I don't know if I'm going to feel better or worse when I see it because the box is big
00:57:11and we're going to move it with a small number of people
00:57:15um
00:57:17holy cow
00:57:17oh my god
00:57:19that is amazing
00:57:20perfect replica
00:57:21you know what this is making me feel sick to my stomach
00:57:26this precise replica of a moai is the centerpiece of a simple but radical experiment being conducted in Hawaii by
00:57:34Lippo and Hunt
00:57:35over the next two days working with a small group of volunteers they will attempt to move this statue by
00:57:42walking it upright
00:57:43when people ask how did your ancestors move this statue the answer was always they walked
00:57:48and for the Rapa Nui that was the answer and for the foreigners asking the question they thought oh that's
00:57:53silly you know how crazy
00:57:54what we're trying to do is evaluate
00:58:03major funding for NOVA is provided by the following
00:58:08the David H Koch Fund for Science
00:58:11supporting NOVA
00:58:12and promoting public understanding of science
00:58:17HHMI
00:58:19Howard Hughes Medical Institute
00:58:22and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
00:58:25and by PBS viewers like you
00:58:27thank you
00:58:28additional funding from Lockheed Martin
00:58:30inspiring tomorrow's engineers and technologists
00:58:33additional funding for this program
00:58:34is provided by Pacific Islanders and Communications
00:58:41in the middle of the South Pacific over a thousand miles from land a tiny island emerges from the sea
00:58:49hundreds of years ago Polynesian explorers discovered this place and settled here
00:58:55Easter Island also known as Rapa Nui
00:59:03what happened on this island after they arrived has intrigued archaeologists for a century
00:59:11we know the islanders carved close to one thousand massive
00:59:14our ideas our ability to explain how they were moved
00:59:18why the archaeological record looks like it does
00:59:21what we're going to do is tricky and it could easily not work
00:59:25and we've never done this before
00:59:27Rapa Nui people had centuries to figure this out
00:59:30and lots of people involved
00:59:32to conduct this experiment
00:59:34Lippo and Hunt will have just two days
00:59:37and 26 volunteers
00:59:41the statue tradition was brought by voyagers from Polynesia to Rapa Nui
00:59:47throughout Polynesia
00:59:49carved wooden and stone figures are common
00:59:52but no other island can compare with the size
00:59:55or number of statues found here
01:00:00according to oral tradition
01:00:01the moai were carved to represent the spirit of the islanders ancestors
01:00:10the statues are the living face of our ancestors
01:00:14in order to look living you have to put the inlaid eyes on the statues
01:00:19some statues are topped with a red stone hat
01:00:22or a top knot
01:00:23called a puka
01:00:26the moai were cut from volcanic tuff
01:00:29a porous stone made from complete
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