Easter Island's story is about an isolated Polynesian society (Rapa Nui) that developed a unique, powerful culture, famous for carving giant stone statues called Moai to honor ancestors, but faced environmental collapse (deforestation) and devastating contact with Europeans, leading to population decline, warfare, slavery, and near cultural ruin before modern recovery and cultural resurgence. 

• Discovery: Polynesians, possibly led by a legendary chief Hotu Matu'a, navigated the vast Pacific to find this remote land, calling it Te Pito o te Henua ("The Navel of the World").
• Culture & Moai: They established a rich civilization, developing their own script (rongorongo) and building magnificent shrines and the iconic Moai (statues) from around 1000 CE to the 17th century, representing deified ancestors. 

• Ecocide Theory: One theory suggests deforestation from excessive wood use led to ecological collapse, causing warfare, famine, and societal breakdown, with statues toppled as a sign of conflict.
• Counter-Theory: Others argue the society was thriving until European contact, with the real collapse coming from introduced diseases, slave raids, and exploitation. 

• First Contact (1722): Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen arrived on Easter Sunday, naming it Easter Island and encountering a society already in decline.
• Raids & Disease: Peruvian slave traders abducted thousands in the 1860s, carrying smallpox back to the island, drastically reducing the population and destroying cultural knowledge, including the rongorongo experts. 

• Chilean Rule: Chile annexed the island in 1888, leasing much of it for sheep farming, further disrupting Rapa Nui life.
• Recovery: Over the 20th century, the Rapa Nui people fought for and gradually gained more autonomy, blending their ancient Polynesian roots with modern life, preserving their language, culture, and ancestral identity.