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Researchers have long wondered why huge statues have been placed where they are.
However, a new study indicates that the inhabitants of Rapa Nui, as it is called in the local language, place them near the sources of the most vital resource of humanity: fresh water .
Archaeologists have studied the location of statues, or moai, and platforms on which many of them rest, called ahu. Polynesian seamen first arrived in Rapa Nui, 2,300 miles off the coast of Chile, about 900 years ago.
They then built more than 300 ahu and nearly 1,000 moai, which are supposed to represent important ancestors.
The authors of the new study, published in the journal PLOS One, sought to understand the distribution of the ahu to better understand their creators.
Carl Lipo, co-author of this study and professor of anthropology at Binghamton University in New York City, told CNN: "This knowledge would tell us something about how the early inhabitants of Rapa Nui have used the landscape and what they found important. "
Researchers from six US institutions have isolated an area east of Rapa Nui, containing 93 ahu. They badyzed natural resources near the ahu, focusing on mulch gardens in which crops such as sweet potato were grown, marine resources including fishing sites and sources of water. ;pure water.
There was no significant correlation between the location of the ahu and the presence of nearby gardens, suggesting that the Ahu were not located to monitor or report control of these resources.
While marine resources and fresh water the sources were found near the ahu, the researchers concluded that only the latter was significant; after all, the two usually occur in the same places and the fresh water was much less widely available.
The research team mapped the island – which has neither stream nor spring – to find freshwater sources. They discovered that it had come out of the basement in areas along the coast, according to a process called groundwater discharge.
"Fresh water would literally go out just between the coast and the ocean in a creek. We saw horses drinking outside the ocean and it turned out that they knew exactly where the fresh water was coming out, "Lipo said. This explains the high concentration of moai and along the coast, concluded the researchers.
Continental statues could also be connected to freshwater: they were near caves or other fresh water sources.
The findings suggest that the moai and ah of Rapa Nui were valuable beyond their ancestral significance to the first peoples of the island, the study authors concluded.
"Building the statues was not inexplicable behaviorbut something that was not only culturally important but also essential for their survival, "said Lipo.
The researchers then hope to understand why such large and elaborate statues were built. If their main function was to indicate or claim the property of a fresh water For Lipo, a simpler construction would surely suffice.
"It's amazing how much energy has gone into them," he observed. "The statues and the ahs themselves were not a mere event – they created the statues and platforms to put them on, then they redid the platforms and the additional statues."
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