雅思阅读 084: Rapa Nui — The Myth of Self-Inflicted Collapse

Adapted from "What really happened on Easter Island?" by Michael Marshall, Scientific American, 18 August 2026.

🎧 课文朗读音频（约 55 秒）

Reading Passage

For decades, schoolchildren learned a cautionary tale about Easter Island — or Rapa Nui, as its Indigenous people call it. The story, popularised by Jared Diamond's 2005 book Collapse, went like this: the Polynesian settlers cut down every tree on the island, eroded the soil, exhausted the land through a senseless statue-building frenzy, and collapsed into starvation and cannibalism. The moai statues were said to be monuments to human stupidity — a warning from one small island to a crowded planet.

But recent research has turned that story upside down. Archaeology, ancient DNA and aerial surveys now suggest that the Rapanui did not collapse on their own. Instead, they built a sustainable society that lasted centuries on one of the most remote islands on Earth — and were destroyed only after European ships brought disease, slave raids and forced labour.

The Island and Its People

Rapa Nui lies in the southeastern Pacific, 3,700 kilometres west of Chile and 1,900 kilometres from the nearest inhabited land. It is triangular, just 23 kilometres at its longest point. "You can walk across it in an afternoon," says archaeologist Carl Lipo of Binghamton University.

Polynesian voyagers settled the island around 1200 CE, after a long pause in their eastward expansion from central Polynesia. They found a subtropical island with erratic rainfall and no large hardwood trees — a problem for people who built ocean-going canoes. The island did have giant palm trees, but they were too floppy for boat building.

The first European to arrive was Jacob Roggeveen, a Dutch captain who sighted the island on Easter Sunday 1722. His sailors opened fire on landing, killing 10 to 12 Rapanui. Roggeveen described the statues — some 10 metres tall — and marvelled at how people without ropes or timber could have erected them. Crucially, he also described an island with rich soil and cultivated food. The Rapanui were not starving.

By the time Captain James Cook arrived in 1774, the picture had darkened. Cook complained that the island afforded little food and that some statues had been thrown down. But the cause may not have been the societal collapse described by Diamond. Recent evidence suggests that the toppling of moai happened after European contact, perhaps as internal political upheaval in response to outside interference.

The New Narrative

In the 20th century, archaeologists confirmed that Rapa Nui had indeed lost its native palm forest. Diamond argued that this deforestation led to erosion, famine and societal collapse. But modern dating methods tell a more nuanced story.

The Rapanui developed sophisticated agricultural systems — stone walls to trap heat, gardens protected from wind, water collection networks — that allowed them to feed a stable population for generations. They moved statues using methods that did not require vast quantities of wood or rope, as modern experiments have demonstrated. Far from being a society hell-bent on destruction, they adapted to a harsh environment with remarkable ingenuity.

The catastrophe came later. Starting in the 1860s, Peruvian slave raiders took more than 1,000 Rapanui — perhaps a third of the population — to work in guano mines. Smallpox and other diseases followed. Missionaries forced conversion and banned traditional practices. By 1877, just 111 people remained. When the surgeon J. Linton Palmer visited in 1868, he found an island whose people had been shattered not by their own hands but by contact with the outside world.

"The old story now looks like an accusation that hardened into a conclusion," writes author Michael Marshall. The real lesson of Rapa Nui may not be that people destroy their own environment, but that isolated societies are extraordinarily vulnerable when empires arrive uninvited.

Questions 1–5

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

1. Jared Diamond's book Collapse argued that the Rapanui

   • A. were destroyed by European disease.
   • B. caused their own environmental and social collapse.
   • C. built a sustainable agricultural system.
   • D. were conquered by Peruvians.

2. Rapa Nui is located closest to which of the following?

   • A. Chile
   • B. Tahiti
   • C. Pitcairn Island
   • D. Hawaii

3. When was Rapa Nui permanently settled?

   • A. Around 3000 BCE
   • B. Around 1200 CE
   • C. Around 1722 CE
   • D. Around 1860 CE

4. What did Roggeveen observe about the Rapanui in 1722?

   • A. They were starving and emaciated.
   • B. They had rich soil and cultivated food.
   • C. All statues had already fallen.
   • D. The island was densely forested.

5. What was the main cause of the Rapanui population collapse after European contact?

   • A. Soil erosion from deforestation
   • B. Cannibalism and civil war
   • C. Slave raiding and disease
   • D. A volcanic eruption

Questions 6–10

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer?

Write:

• YES
• NO
• NOT GIVEN

6. Modern archaeology supports Diamond's theory of self-inflicted collapse.
7. The Rapanui used agricultural methods adapted to a harsh environment.
8. Cook observed that some statues had been thrown down.
9. The Rapanui used large trees to build ocean-going canoes.
10. The Rapanui population was reduced to around 111 by 1877.

Questions 11–13

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–G.

11. The Rapanui lost their palm forest but developed
12. Peruvian slave raiders took roughly
13. The real lesson of Rapa Nui, according to the article, is that

A. one third of the population. B. sophisticated stone walls and water systems. C. isolated societies are vulnerable to outside contact. D. the moai were built by aliens. E. all trees should be preserved. F. Cook was the first European visitor. G. disease came only in the 20th century.

Answers

1. B — "the first settlers began cutting down palms… deforesting the entire island… descent into cannibalism."
2. A — "3,700 km west of Chile."
3. B — "permanently settled around C.E. 1200."
4. B — "Rapa Nui had rich soil, good weather and cultivated food."
5. C — "Peruvian slave raiders… smallpox and other diseases."
6. NO — The new research "makes that version increasingly hard to defend."
7. YES — "sophisticated agricultural systems… adapted to a harsh environment."
8. YES — "some of the moai had seemingly been thrown down."
9. NO — The island had no large hardwood trees for canoes.
10. YES — "by 1877, just 111 people remained."
11. B
12. A
13. C

Key Vocabulary