The Statues That Walked

Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island

By: Terry Hunt, Carl Lipo

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works?

No such astonishing numbers of massive statues are found anywhere else in the Pacific. How could the islanders possibly have moved so many multi-ton monoliths from the quarry inland, where they were carved, to their posts along the coastline? And most intriguing and vexing of all, if the island once boasted a culture developed and sophisticated enough to have produced such marvelous edifices, what happened to that culture? Why was the island the Europeans encountered a sparsely populated wasteland?

The prevailing accounts of the island’s history tell a story of self-inflicted devastation: a glaring case of eco-suicide. The island was dominated by a powerful chiefdom that promulgated a cult of statue making, exercising a ruthless hold on the island’s people and rapaciously destroying the environment, cutting down a lush palm forest that once blanketed the island in order to construct contraptions for moving more and more statues, which grew larger and larger. As the population swelled in order to sustain the statue cult, growing well beyond the island’s agricultural capacity, a vicious cycle of warfare broke out between opposing groups, and the culture ultimately suffered a dramatic collapse.

When Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo began carrying out archaeological studies on the island in 2001, they fully expected to find evidence supporting these accounts. Instead, revelation after revelation uncovered a very different truth.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2011 Terry Hunt and Carl Weber (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Hunt and Lipo make a major contribution to global history. They decipher the tangled skeins of Easter Island’s history with cutting edge scholarship and vivid writing. Their meticulous research tells a tale not of ecological armageddon, as so commonly believed, but of brilliant human achievement under difficult, isolated circumstances. This important book revolutionizes our understanding of ancient Polynesia and is a must-buy for anyone visiting this extraordinary place." (Brian Fagan, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara)

"Finally, a fair and balanced account of the deeper human and environmental histories of Easter Island by people who not only know the records intimately but also helped produce them. In the midst of an ocean of sensationalist accounts of these histories, The Statues that Walked rights many wrongs." (Donald K. Grayson, Professor, Department of Anthropology and Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington)

"A great read and a genuinely exciting account of how the science of archaeology is done at its best." (John Edward Terrell, Professor and Regenstein Curator of Pacific Anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History)

an interesting revison of the Easter Island story

Where does The Statues That Walked rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

A book of really interesting and well supported theories, that counter the prevailing theories about what happened to the statue builders of Easter Island. It also provides insight into Polynesian culture and its adaptability in difficult circumstances.

No More Mystery

Easter Island was always a mysterious place I've wanted to see. Now that I'm getting older, it is officially a bucket list item. While still an exotic destination, this book has taken all the mystery away. Everything (the statues, the people, the deforestation) solved. Great to read about and glad to finally have answers but while all very interesting it lessens the appeal of one of my favorite places. A little mystery is good.

I don't have too much to say on this one without spoiling it, so I will sum it up with a quote from Commander Barclay of the HMS Topaz from the book. It is regarding the consequence of Europeans arriving on the shores of Easter Island.

"It is a sad fact that in these islands as in North America, wherever the white man establishes himself, the aborigines perish."

No matter how benign their intent, makes me wonder what would happen to us should aliens ever come to Earth.

Fascinating correction of Rapanui History and it’s people.

This book and the science within is truly fascinating and valuable for anyone interested in Polynesian history.

It corrects the long maligned narrative about the Rapanui people and shows them to be the magnificent stewards they were of their island.

Jared Diamond owes them an apology.

My only gripe is that the narrator makes an extreme effort to correctly pronounce all of the tongue twisting names of the European navigators while mangling the Rapanui words, names, terms etc used throughout the book.

Love Those Mysterious Islands!

Before listening to this quite enjoyable book, I knew nothing about Easter Island (except there are big statues there), so I cannot really comment on this as opposed to other scholarly approaches to the history and archeology of the area. I can say that I found this to be very informative and well-narrated.

The authors take on not only the mysteries of the island, but also the preconceptions about the inhabitants and the ecology that other scientists have brought to the study. It makes perfect sense to me that a society may not have to develop in the same way Europeans did to be considered "enlightened" cultures.

Glad I bought this during a recent sale!

Easter Island Rules

Would you listen to The Statues That Walked again? Why?

I would listen to it again because it is something that must be digested...

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Statues That Walked?

One of the most memorable moments was the depiction of how the moai could have moved across easter island.

Have you listened to any of Joe Barrett’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

no

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

The heads that face away from the sea.....

Any additional comments?

tiki jay one urban landscape specialist....

New info for me

If you could sum up The Statues That Walked in three words, what would they be?

I remember watching shows on Easter Island but this book was fantastic as far as the history of the island and how they carved the stones and moved them. It was a great learning experience for me.

Not what I was expecting, but worth the listen

I originally picked this book up to get a more thorough understanding of the history of the statues that exist on Easter Island and what I received was so much more. The authors take you on a journey of understanding the inhabitants of this small island, their challenges, and what life was like with finite resources. You leave understanding why they created the statues in such mass, how they moved them, and what life was like after they were visited by various expeditions.

It was an eye opening listen that I'm glad I endured. Be prepared for a bit of social psychology, physics, and history all rolled into this one.

interesting

An in- depth, scientific account of the island, the people who lived there and how the statues may have been transported and by whom.

This is definitely an informative, academic book. I enjoyed the narrator as he seemed soothing, rather than dry.

Take Another, Different Look at Easter Island

I'm not a big reader (or listener) of non-fiction books (though I'm big on National Geographic, Smithsonian, Science magazines), but I found this book kept me as fascinated as a great novel - not a dry text book style non-fiction book, but rather one that gives life to history. I enjoyed this very much and it has led to many discussions.

Archaeology Comes Alive

If you could sum up The Statues That Walked in three words, what would they be?

Intriguing, Insightful, Illuminating

What other book might you compare The Statues That Walked to and why?

Jared Diamond's Collapse, and Guns, Germs and Steel. Both these books are referenced in The Statues That Walked, and like them, this book discusses cutting edge information pertaining to one of the world's most intriguing mysteries. Beyond that, this book actually clarifies and updates some of Diamond's information in Collapse by revealing new discoveries that were not known at the time of his writings.

What does Joe Barrett bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Joe Barret brings a sense of relaxed, personal, first-hand familiarity with the subject. He translates a highly-technical topic into a very accessible listen for laymen and armchair archaeologists alike.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

The haze of mystery and speculation to dispelled by scientific pragmatism.

Any additional comments?

One of the strengths of this book is that it shows how scientific and anthropological fallacies are often constructed out of incomplete data, untested hypotheses and romanticized speculations.