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A New Zealand-led group of scientists plan to try to solve the mystery of the sudden collapse of the population on Easter Island in pre-European times.
The group, led by environmental scientist Troy Baisden of GNS Science and plant ecologist Mark Horrocks of Microfossil Research, want to test a hypothesis the Easter Island population "over-shot" the carrying capacity of their aged and weathered volcanic soils.
If the same situation occurred today, Dr Baisden said, the population would either migrate or top-dress with industrial fertilisers.
But the Polynesian inhabitants didn't have that luxury and paid a heavy price.
Dr Baisden and his colleagues have won funding of $770,000 over three years from the Marsden Fund for the project.
Often, the most valuable possession of ancient civilisations was their soil, Dr Baisden said.
"Easter Island developed a remarkable agricultural civilisation that was capable of erecting stone statues weighing up to 80 tonnes each.
"However, we suspect their populations overshot the carrying capacity of their fragile soils."
The scientists will collect about a dozen sediment cores for analysis.
The aim will be to determine the timing of changes in plant, animal, and human populations, as well as soil fertility, Dr Baisden said.
"We want to know if the collapse holds lessons for modern society.
"If the Easter Islanders overshot the carrying capacity of their soils, there's a strong parallel to the current financial crisis, in which Wall St overestimated the returns from the housing market."
- NZPA
