Rapa Nui Journal Volume 19 Issue 2

A BAR IN THE NUGGET HOTEL in Reno, Nevada, advertises "Island Drinks" and amongst the usual suspects (Zombie, Pina Colada, Blue Hawaiian, etc.) they offer an "Aku-Aku" which is described as a ginger brandy base decorated with a flaming sugar cube; and "Easter Island Grog", a mixture of Cuban and Jamaican rums served in a communal bowl.

THE MOM MURDERS WOULD BE a good book to take along on the flight home from a visit to Rapa Nui; reading time is just about the same as the flight time. The story can help you remember the sites you visited, and maybe you might learn a bit more about the island's history. But the book mainly is aimed at those who love mysteries, and it just happens to be set on our favorite island.

THE REVIEWER, XIMENA CEARDI of El Mercurio de Valparaiso, describes this book as being "somewhere between a book and a booklet...whose objective is the presentation of cultural and natural patrimony ....

"IN SEARCH OF... " IS THE LATEST EFFORT from the lunatic fringe and, of course, this book takes in Easter Island, along with Mt Shasta and the Hopi Indians.

ANYONE INTERESTED IN PETROGLYPHS will appreciate this book. It consists of five chapters plus an introduction, conclusion, and seven addenda. The book is extensively illustrated, as books that concern rock art should be. There are black and white photographs, line drawings, and maps.

MANY READERS OF THIS JOURNAL will already have an entire bookshelf - or at least a large part of one - dedicated entirely to Rapa Nui. However, until now, those shelves will have lacked a straightforward and complete history of the island and its people. So much has been written about the island's prehistory that it has been easy to ignore the absence of an actual history. Only after one begins to read Island at the End of the World does it become obvious· what has been missing all this time.

ONE OF THE MOST EAGERLY AWAITED PAPERS in anthropology is at last in print: Terry Jones and Kathryn KIar's case for transoceanic contact between Polynesians and the Chumash of southern California. It is appropriate that their paper should appear in an important venue as American Antiquity, as it has implications for the entire discipline of archaeology, extending beyond the two geographic areas upon which it focuses.

THROUGH JANUARY 15, 2006, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is featuring a special exhibition of Marquesan art, Adorning the World: Art of the Marquesas Islands, which is drawn from the Met's collection and fifteen lenders. In his "Statement from the Marquesan People," in the catalog accompanying the exhibition, Toti Te'ikiehu 'upoko celebrates the fact that a larger public will be introduced to the artistic achievements of generations of Marquesan cultural masters.

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where sailors never go, there is an isolated and mysterious island; there are no other islands nearby and the island is surrounded by vast and empty rolling seas for more than eight hundred leagues in every direction. The island is planted with monstrous tall statues, carved by an unknown race of people that has either disappeared or dispersed, and its history remains an enigma.

During the Marquesan Archaeological Rock Art Survey (1984 to 1989), over 6,000 petroglyphs, 110 pictographs, and 81 sculptured anthropomorphic figures (tiki) were located and recorded (e.g., Edwards and Millerstrom 1995; Millerstrom and Edwards 1998; Millerstrom 1997, 2001, 2003). Some forty-one valleys were visited on five of the presently six inhabited islands; Nuku Hiva, Ua Huka, Ua Pou, Hiva Oa, and Tahuata. The majority of the rock art occurs on Nuku Hiva (Table 1).

A stone statuette, said to be an "ancient piece" from Easter Island, was for sale recently on eBay. It looked a bit too perfect, too polished. It prompted me to review some small statuettes that I had seen and photographed on the island in 1981 and 1982.

Rongorongo, the writing of Easter Island, has evoked great scientific interest since its discovery. From the numerous inscribed artifacts observed by Eyraud in 1864 (Englert 1948:315), only a few survive.

Q. How did you get into archaeology, and specifically Easter Island archaeology? What triggered your interest?

When I was a sophomore at Pennsylvania State University, I participated in an archaeological excavation in Israel. It was a great experience, one that included living in a kibbutz and digging ancient wells full of pottery and sheep bones. I became inspired by the discipline of archaeology.

Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is often depicted as a microcosm for world ecosystem disaster (Diamond 2004; Kirch 2004; Flenley and Bahn 2002). The island is thought to have been settled around AD 700 and by ca. AD 1150 the population had risen to the point where descent groups were defining territorial units focused around spectacular ceremonial platforms and statues (Kirch 1984; Skj¢lsvold 1994; Stevenson 2002). Pollen changes have been interpreted as evidence for deforestation as early as AD 750, and between AD 950 and AD 1400 it is thought that virtually the entire island was cleared as a result of widespread agricultural development to meet the demands of increasingly competitive chiefdoms (Flenley and Bahn 2002).

Exchange of material between societies has long been a worldwide phenomenon (Ana tasio 1972; Braun J986; Brurnfiel 1987; Carlson 1994; Hatch et al. 1990; Hayden and Schulting 1997; Hutterer 1977; Kirch 2000; Stark and Arnold 1997; Summerhayes 2001; Weisler 1997). As a fundamental focus of archaeological study for decades, researchers investigate the organizational attributes of prehistoric exchange through the recovered material pattern found in the networks' different stages; raw material procurement (Neff 1998; Weisler 1997) commodity production (Torrence 1986), product distribution (Renfrew 1969), utilization and conumption (Earle 1982). But in the last twenty years, researcher began to emphasize the role of acquisition (Glascock 2002), because geochemical techniques provide a scientific and quantifiable means to source material, and have become increasingly accessible to archaeologists (Ericson and Baugh 1993). As a result, exchange research became more focused on the linking of two locales versus the study of cultural factors that perpetuate exchange networks.

In the summer of 2003, the author excavated a marae site on the island of Rurutu in the Austral archipelago, French Polynesia. Among the find from the Classic period deposit (ca. late 18th- early 19th centuries AD) was a tiki pendant of a hitherto-unknown iconography. This find is unique because it is the only carved Austral ornament from the Classic period that has ever been excavated from an archaeological site.