News Anthropology

Polynesian Latecomers: Easter Islanders took fast track to culture

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

Massive stone statues of humanlike figures on Easter Island in the South Pacific stand mute sentry over the remains of a now-defunct society thought by many researchers to have originated as early as A.D. 400.

STONE COLD. Figures carved in rock stare impassively from their perches on Easter Island, which may have been settled as late as A.D.