Time scale of Easter Island 'Die-off'
Posted: Mon 15 Feb 2016, 11:16:58
With Monte's return to the forum I decided to try and get my head around the time-scale of a 'die-off'.
I get the general idea of 'die-off' and I have been looking at some of the 'poster children' for this such as the Reindeer of St.Matthew Island and the human population decline on Easter Island.
The first one seems to have been fast (over one EXTREMELY SEVERE winter – from papers by D.R.Klein), but the Easter Island 'die-off' seems to have taken place over about 200 years. For me that seem more of a sustained 'die-back'.
There seem to be a number of different estimates of the populations but one time line, of information I found on the internet, is below.
Do people have better data?
And
If the population reduction takes 200 years can it be called a ”die-off”?
Time line (all dates AD/CE)
400 – 700 First settlers
1200 – 1500 Peak of Statue Construction. Estimated population 7,000 (others up to 20,000).
1400s Palm trees become extinct – forest totally destroyed
1500 Loss of sea going canoes (loss of porpoise meat from diet)
1600s-1700s time of civil war
evidence of spear/dagger heads (pop est to have dropped 75-90%)
1770 beginning of toppling of other tribe's statues (until 1864)
1700s-1800s European visitors estimate population of about 2,000.
Thanks (in advance) for your help.
I get the general idea of 'die-off' and I have been looking at some of the 'poster children' for this such as the Reindeer of St.Matthew Island and the human population decline on Easter Island.
The first one seems to have been fast (over one EXTREMELY SEVERE winter – from papers by D.R.Klein), but the Easter Island 'die-off' seems to have taken place over about 200 years. For me that seem more of a sustained 'die-back'.
There seem to be a number of different estimates of the populations but one time line, of information I found on the internet, is below.
Do people have better data?
And
If the population reduction takes 200 years can it be called a ”die-off”?
Time line (all dates AD/CE)
400 – 700 First settlers
1200 – 1500 Peak of Statue Construction. Estimated population 7,000 (others up to 20,000).
1400s Palm trees become extinct – forest totally destroyed
1500 Loss of sea going canoes (loss of porpoise meat from diet)
1600s-1700s time of civil war
evidence of spear/dagger heads (pop est to have dropped 75-90%)
1770 beginning of toppling of other tribe's statues (until 1864)
1700s-1800s European visitors estimate population of about 2,000.
Thanks (in advance) for your help.