A new study challenges the idea that Rapa Nui islanders caused an ‘ecocide’
A new analysis of rock garden farming suggests islanders maintained a small, stable population

Rapa Nui’s famous stone statues watched over a population that grew sweet potatoes on a modest scale and reached a peak of only around 3,900 individuals, too few to have triggered a previously hypothesized ecological disaster, a new study contends.
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