Soil nutrient analysis of Rapa Nui gardening

Ladefoged, Thegn N.; Stevenson, Christopher M.; Haoa, Sonia; Mulrooney, Mara; Puleston, Cedric O.; Vitousek, Peter M.; Chadwick, Oliver A.

doi:10.1002/j.1834-4453.2010.tb00082.x

Cited by 36 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(23 reference statements)

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“…In the model, the shrinking forest frees more and more land that can be used for agriculture. This process triggers a distinct change in the islanders' livelihood and is consistent with the evidence for a labor-intensive agriculture that developed after a period of slashand-burn forest clearance and may have covered up to 12.5% of the island's surface (Stevenson et al, 2006;Hunt, 2007;Ladefoged et al, 2010Ladefoged et al, , 2013. In this scenario, the normalized clearance rate ( Figure 2F) and the annual clearance ( Figure 2D) are more consistent with the distribution of charcoal remains than in the ecocide and the genocide scenarios (Figure 2F).…”

Section: Slow Demisesupporting

confidence: 80%

The slow demise of Easter Island: insights from a modeling investigation

Brandt

Merico

2015

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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The history of Easter Island and its supposed social-ecological collapse is often taken as a grim warning for the modern world. However, while the loss of a once lush palm forest is largely uncontested, causes and timing of the collapse remain controversial, because many paleoecological and archaeological data are afflicted with considerable uncertainties. According to a scenario named ecocide, the overharvesting of palm trees triggered a dramatic population decline, whereas a contrasting view termed genocide deems diseases and enslavement introduced by Europeans as the main reasons for the collapse. We propose here a third possibility, a slow demise, in which aspects of both ecocide and genocide concur to produce a long and slow decline of the society. We use a dynamic model to illustrate the consequences of the three alternatives with respect to the fate of the paleoecological system of the island. While none of the three model scenarios can be safely ruled out given the uncertainties of the available data, the slow demise appears to be the most plausible model scenario, in particular when considering the temporal pattern of deforestation as inferred from radiocarbon dates of charcoal remains.

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Section: Slow Demisesupporting

confidence: 80%

The slow demise of Easter Island: insights from a modeling investigation

Brandt

Merico

2015

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…Soil properties related to soil fertility vary substantially across Rapa Nui, reflecting variation in climate, age of the volcanic substrate, and topography (44,45). Differential rainfall has caused substantial variation in Rapa Nui soil nutrients, as it does in volcanic substrates of similar age in Hawai'i (46,47), and older substrates generally are depleted in soil nutrients compared with younger ones.…”

Section: The Rapa Nui Environment and Study Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Differential rainfall has caused substantial variation in Rapa Nui soil nutrients, as it does in volcanic substrates of similar age in Hawai'i (46,47), and older substrates generally are depleted in soil nutrients compared with younger ones. Although soils of the lowland areas with moderate rainfall are richer in biologically available nutrients than are wetter, higher elevation soils (45), all but the richest Rapa Nui soils are nutrient depleted in comparison with the soils where precontact Hawaiian farmers intensified agricultural production (48). On Rapa Nui, the primary cultigens were sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), dryland taro (Colocasia esculenta), yam (Dioscorea spp.…”

Section: The Rapa Nui Environment and Study Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variation in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) land use indicates production and population peaks prior to European contact

Stevenson

Puleston

Vitousek

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Many researchers believe that prehistoric Rapa Nui society collapsed because of centuries of unchecked population growth within a fragile environment. Recently, the notion of societal collapse has been questioned with the suggestion that extreme societal and demographic change occurred only after European contact in AD 1722. Establishing the veracity of demographic dynamics has been hindered by the lack of empirical evidence and the inability to establish a precise chronological framework. We use chronometric dates from hydrated obsidian artifacts recovered from habitation sites in regional study areas to evaluate regional land-use within Rapa Nui. The analysis suggests region-specific dynamics including precontact land use decline in some nearcoastal and upland areas and postcontact increases and subsequent declines in other coastal locations. These temporal landuse patterns correlate with rainfall variation and soil quality, with poorer environmental locations declining earlier. This analysis confirms that the intensity of land use decreased substantially in some areas of the island before European contact.Rapa Nui | population | obsidian | dating | collapse

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“…Soil moisture levels are higher in modern lithic mulch gardens and manavai compared to natural soils (Hunt & Lipo, 2011), which would favor denitrification (e.g., Houlton et al, 2006). Furthermore, numerous studies have demonstrated that soil nutrients are higher in Rapa Nui lithic mulch gardens and manavai compared to natural soils, in part as a result of human interventions (Hunt & Lipo, 2011;Ladefoged et al, 2010;Louwagie, Stevenson, & Langohr, 2006;Vitousek et al, 2014). In addition, modern manavai and rock garden soils have significantly (Commendador et al, 2013;Fogel et al, 1997), and it has been demonstrated that guano as a fertilizer can have a substantial effect on…”

Section: Jarman Et Al | 357mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Evidence for this comes from ethnohistorical accounts (e.g., M etraux, 1940;Roggeveen, 1908), surveys of the current flora (Flenley, 1993) and from microfossils in bioarchaeological and paleoecological studies (e.g., Dudgeon & Tromp, 2014;Horrocks et al, 2012aHorrocks et al, , 2012bHorrocks & Wozniak, 2008). Archaeological evidence documents extensive use of lithic mulch in small-scale rock gardens and planting enclosures (manavai) that served to increase soil nutrients, regulate soil conditions, and offset the effects of aridity and strong winds (AyalaBradford, Lipo, & Hunt, 2005;Ladefoged et al, 2010). The importance of seafood in prehistoric Rapa Nui diet has been subject to debate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diet of the Prehistoric Population of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) Shows Environmental Adaptation and Resilience

Popp¹,

Jarman²,

Larsen³

et al. 2017

Geological Society of America Abstracts With Programs

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Objectives: The Rapa Nui "ecocide" narrative questions whether the prehistoric population caused an avoidable ecological disaster through rapid deforestation and over-exploitation of natural resources. The objective of this study was to characterize prehistoric human diets to shed light on human adaptability and land use in an island environment with limited resources. Materials and methods:Materials for this study included human, faunal, and botanical remains from the archaeological sites Anakena and Ahu Tepeu on Rapa Nui, dating from c. 1400 AD to the historic period, and modern reference material. We used bulk carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses and amino acid compound specific isotope analyses (AA-CSIA) of collagen isolated from prehistoric human and faunal bone, to assess the use of marine versus terrestrial resources and to investigate the underlying baseline values. Similar isotope analyses of archaeological and modern botanical and marine samples were used to characterize the local environment.Results: Results of carbon and nitrogen AA-CSIA independently show that around half the protein in diets from the humans measured came from marine sources; markedly higher than previous estimates. We also observed higher d | I N T R O D U C T I O NRapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) is frequently used as an exemplar of human social competition and an avoidable ecological disaster, in which rapid destruction of the native palm forest had devastating consequences for the island's environment and human population (e.g., Diamond, 2005). Recent archaeological research has brought such Malthusian claims into question: the arrival of the Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) shortly after the island's colonization may have extensively contributed to the palm forest's demise (Hunt, 2007) and with the use of fire the island was transformed into an agricultural landscape (Hunt & Lipo, 2006).Revised chronologies indicate settlement of Rapa Nui centuries later than previously supposed, with evidence for a more balanced use of the environment and a greater degree of human adaptability to a changing ecosystem than the "ecocide" model purports (Hunt & Lipo, 2006;Stevenson et al., 2015). Knowing past diets is crucial for understanding the impacts of human occupation on Rapa Nui. Despite the intrinsic connection between human behavior and the utilization of natural resources in this small and ecologically-constrained island environment, prehistoric diets of the native islanders are still debated and poorly understood. Dietary evidence is spatially and temporally scattered, and its quality is affected by unfavorable preservation and taphonomic transformations; thus diet has been inferred from stable isotopic compositions.Rapa Nui is a small (171 km 2 ), remote volcanic island located in the south-eastern Pacific initially colonized in the early 13 th century AD (Hunt & Lipo, 2006). Polynesian settlers introduced chicken (Gallus gallus) and the Pacific rat, but the island has no endemic mammals or land birds (Klemmer & Zizka, 1993). Int...

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Soil nutrient analysis of Rapa Nui gardening

Cited by 36 publications

References 26 publications

The slow demise of Easter Island: insights from a modeling investigation

The slow demise of Easter Island: insights from a modeling investigation

Variation in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) land use indicates production and population peaks prior to European contact

Diet of the Prehistoric Population of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) Shows Environmental Adaptation and Resilience

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