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I was listening to the Fall of Civilizations Podcast on Easter Island
The host argues that Easter Island did not collapse due to cutting down all the tree or that they over farmed the land. In fact that they had specially planted terraced farms using rocks for better water retention and they had groves of fruit trees and timber stands. They actually lived in comparative peace and did not have the warfare that other Pacific islands had. Instead, the initial collapse did not occur until Europeans brought diseases to the island and effectively the population was not finished off until widespread slavery and using the land for sheep farming.
Is this the state of the current scholarly consensus?
The host argues that Easter Island did not collapse due to cutting down all the tree or that they over farmed the land. In fact that they had specially planted terraced farms using rocks for better water retention and they had groves of fruit trees and timber stands. They actually lived in comparative peace and did not have the warfare that other Pacific islands had. Instead, the initial collapse did not occur until Europeans brought diseases to the island and effectively the population was not finished off until widespread slavery and using the land for sheep farming.
Is this the state of the current scholarly consensus?
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