The Enigmas of Easter Island

Easter Island, an unimaginably remote volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean, produced one of the most fascinating and yet least understood prehistoric cultures, a people who vanished but left behind the giant statues known around the world. Who were these people and where did they come from? Why, and equally intriguingly, how did they erect the giant stone statues found all over the island?
Paul Bahn and John Flenley tackle these and a host of other questions, introducing us, along the way, to the bizarre birdman cult found in the island's art, and the only recently deciphered Rongorongo script engraved on wooden panels. The Enigmas of Easter Island combines a wealth of new archaeological evidence, intriguing folk memories and the records of Captain Cook and other early explorers, to reveal how the island's decline may stem from ecological catastrophe. The result is a fascinating portrait of a civilization that still retains many of its mysteries. This book provides a wealth of new material, including much information only recently discovered and not available in any other book for general readers.
One of the most mysterious places on the planet, Easter Island has been an object of intense fascination since rediscovered by European explorers. Attractively illustrated with numerous photographs throughout the book, The Enigmas of Easter Island is the finest volume ever written on this inscrutable and tantalizing isle, the latest word on one of the world's great conundrums.

Paul Bahn is one of the leading writers and broadcasters on archaeology for a popular audience. He is the author of the standard introduction to cave art, Images of the Ice Age, The Bluffer's Guide to Archaeology, and the popular Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction. John Flenley is currently Professor of Geography at Massey University in New Zealand. A world authority on the ecology of tropical rainforests, he was the first to publish evidence that Easter Island was once forested.