Researchers found that a severe drought began around 1550, leading to a significant drop in rainfall on Easter Island.

An antibiotic discovered on Easter Island in 1964 sparked a billion-dollar pharmaceutical success story. Yet the history told about this “miracle drug” has completely left out the people and politics ...

Easter Island, famous for its imposing moai statues, is often presented as a case of sudden societal collapse. However, a ...

Easter Island is named for the Sunday in 1722 when Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen landed his crew on the distant Pacific island. It’s been misunderstood by outsiders ever since. In recent decades, ...

A newly reconstructed rainfall record shows that prolonged drought, not societal collapse, reshaped Rapa Nui’s history.

Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, never experienced a ruinous population collapse, according to an analysis of ancient DNA from 15 former inhabitants of the remote island in the Pacific Ocean.

Scientists have debunked a popular myth surrounding Easter Island. An analysis of the island's famed rock gardens, undertaken by a team of researchers including faculty from Binghamton University, ...

For centuries, Easter Island‘s story hhas been framed as a tragic tale of environmental collapse. The islanders were often ...

A genetic study has revealed that a self-inflicted population collapse is unlikely to have caused the decline of the ancient inhabitants of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island. The latest findings, ...

DNA analysis of ancient remains from Easter Island shows that the population was in fact increasing when Europeans arrived, rather than collapsing as reported by some historical accounts. The results ...

Finding out what actually happened in the deep past can be a slog, so when ancient history is packaged as mystery—spine-tingling but solvable—it’s hard to resist. Who doesn’t want to know how a lost ...

There is no place in the world like Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui. It feels like it is not even of this world. Located more than 2,000 miles from South America's mainland, it is one of the ...