From "Easter Island: A Cautionary Tale" and "An Island of Questions", Illuminate [ELAGSE8RI9]

Question: How do the facts in "Easter Island: A Cautionary Tale" and "An Island of Questions" differ from each other?







Passage #1: Easter Island: A Cautionary Tale
1

Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, is an isolated island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and 2,350 miles west of South America. Easter Island is most famous for its 600 huge stone sculptures that dot the island, some 250 of them looking out to sea like sentinels.

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The island was formed by a huge volcano. It still has three extinct volcanoes, one of them around 1,600 feet high. Inhabitants of the island probably arrived from Polynesia around 318 A.D. They called their home Te Pito o Te Henua, or “Center of the World.”

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Rapa Nui once was home to around 7,000 people, many who were skilled stone carvers. Most sculptures were carved at the base of Rano Raraku, an extinct volcano, and then they were carried to different spots around the island. The sculptures were as large as 33 feet long and weighed as much as 80 tons, so transporting them was no small feat. Scientists believe that between 50 and 150 people placed each sculpture on rollers made from tree logs and slowly rolled the figures around the island.

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It is believed that so many trees were harvested to move the sculptures that the forests on the island disappeared. Because there were no forests, the soil became depleted and made farming difficult at best. Clans developed, clashing over the available resources.

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On Easter Sunday in 1722, the Dutch Admiral Roggeveen “discovered” Rapa Nui and named it Easter Island. He found only 3,000 people there, hungry and living in primitive conditions.

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As more and more Europeans arrived, the population decreased. Some died from diseases brought by the Europeans. Many healthy inhabitants were taken by the visiting ships and enslaved. By 1887, only 110 people lived on the island, and they were mostly the elderly or young people.

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Archaeologists and scientists have been perplexed about the mystery of Easter Island: They could easily see that at one time the society manufactured these incredible sculptures. With limited resources, engineers transported and erected them far away from the quarry. If they were so advanced, why did they live in such a mean state when the Europeans found them?

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Many scientists believe that the people of Rapa Nui wasted their resources until the land became useless. They cut down the trees, destroying the ecology and bounty that the land gave them. They interpret Easter Island as a cautionary tale, a warning for today’s civilizations.


Passage #2: An Island of Questions
1

Today, about 3,000 people live on Easter Island, a 64-square mile island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Tourists flock to the UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site, mainly to see the moai, mysterious stone sculptures that decorate the landscape.

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Easter Island is home to more questions than answers. Archaeologists have uncovered clues, but mystery still prevails. Who first settled there, how did they get there, and why did they disappear? Why did these people create the massive multi-ton statues, and how did they know how to build and move them from the quarries to different parts of the island?

3

One interesting fact we know is that the former inhabitants of Easter Island ate sweet potatoes and had great skill at stone carving. Thor Heyerdahl, an explorer, believed that Peruvians from South America sailed and settled on the island. He supported his theory by sailing 4,300 nautical miles from South America in a primitive boat like the ones used in ancient times. He further pointed out that sweet potatoes were first grown in South America. Last, he compared the walls on the island to ancient pre-Inca stonework found in Peru, both similar in construction and design.

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Heyerdahl’s theory was discounted when DNA samples tested on skeletons determined that the first inhabitants were Polynesian. So perhaps some Peruvian sailors visited the island and introduced the sweet potato, and perhaps they left some skilled stonemasons behind to teach the islanders how to carve. No one knows.

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Also, it’s unknown exactly when the Polynesians arrived. The estimates range from 400 A.D. to 1200 A.D. Questions remain about the population, but some scientists believe that the population swelled to some 9,000 people in 1550.

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When the first Europeans arrived in the 18th century, they reported the population to only be around 3,000. No one was carving statues anymore, and the society was dominated by fighting clans. By the 19th century, a little over a hundred people still survived on the island.

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What caused the decline? Some say that there were simply too many people on the island to sustain that many people, and the islanders fought one another for the food available.

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The Polynesians brought chickens with them to their new land for a food source. However, they also carried rats. Many people today believe that these rats contributed to the island’s decline, ruining the balance of nature. Rats would have eaten seeds, thereby stopping new growth of trees and eventually destroying the forests. Other animals, including birds, would have lost their habitat and would have disappeared as well.

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With no written records and conflicting evidence, Easter Island is likely to remain mysterious until new scientific tests are available. The solemn stone statues may have witnessed the events to answer the questions; but for the time being, they are not giving any answers.







Question: How do the facts in "Easter Island: A Cautionary Tale" and "An Island of Questions" differ from each other?

(1 point)
A. "Easter Island: A Cautionary Tale" gives answers to the island's mysteries, while "An Island of Questions" only asks questions.

B. In "Easter Island: A Cautionary Tale," it says the forests disappeared because people cut down all the trees to move the statues, but "An Island of Questions" blames rats, who ate seeds that would have helped new trees grow.

C. In "Easter Island: A Cautionary Tale" it mentions the role of the archaeologists, while "An Island of Questions" did not mention archaeologists.