One mystery of Easter Island's statues finally solved

What was the purpose of the statues on Easter Island ?

Located off the shoreline of Chile, the endurance story of early occupants at the modest volcanic island of Rapa Nui has long insinuated archeologists. Now, a team of researchers believes they’ve uncovered how the historical island population – among 15,000 and 20,000 at its peak – had been able to keep their society for centuries within the absence of an adequate deliver of sparkling water, and what led them to famously construct loads of
An 18th-century account of European first contact with the Pacific Islanders particular natives being capable of drink seawater with out harm – a feat we all realize is impossible today (the human body can not process excessive concentrations of seawater, eventually killing a person thru dehydration).  By 1887, the local population of Easter Island dropped to just one hundred ten largely because of slave trading and disease, decimating any danger of uncovering the people’s oral

How tall are Easter Island statues?

A group of researchers conducted subject surveys across the island. With the exception of difficult-to-get entry to lakes and a flow that regularly turns to a wetland bog, they determined that Easter Island does not have a extensive supply of freshwater.
"The permeable volcanic soils rapidly retain downpour, following in lost streams and waterways," expressed watch creator Carl Lipo in an announcement.So the group became to the 4-meter-tall (13-feet) sculptures arranged along the coast for direction.


When it rains, water underneath the ground flows downhill and exits the ground in which the rock meets the ocean. 3-. At the point when tides are low, this "results inside the drift of freshwater on the double into the ocean.  ” The sparkling and saltwater mix to create a “brackish but potable water alongside the coastline” that consists of low enough stages of salt to be safely consumed by humans, which the researchers think the islanders need to have done.

What is Easter Island known for ?

"Albeit beach front groundwater resources are of horrendous quality, they have been clearly adequate to help the people and permit them to assemble phenomenal rules for which Easter Island is well known," composed the creators in their watch distributed in Hydrogeology.
It’s notion the 4-meter-tall (13 foot) statues placed in these regions were indicative of groundwater that became discharged, permitting early inhabitants to skim freshwater from the surface, build trenches, or create different coastal impoundments.  These reserves could have helped the Rapa Nui live on periods of drought by using diversifying their water supply.
However, others argue that small cisterns determined on the island might have been used for accumulating rainfall. Lipo argues that if gathering rainfall was relevant to the culture, then the cisterns would were an awful lot larger (they most effective keep between 2-four liters of water  Furthermore, Rapa Nui handiest receives 1,240 millimeters of rainfall every year. Paired with the price of water evaporation here, the cisterns would likely have most effective been a possible supply of water for less than one-1/3 of the year.In their next excursion, the group plans to investigate how the accessibility of freshwater.