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)

The History of Easter Island

As stated in the title, this is about the history of the island. It covers the natives and their culture. There is some comparison between them and others Islanders and how they survived. It explains what might have happened to the ecosystem and the interactions with foreigners. There was a lot of detail but not add much about the statues as I had hoped. Still recommend it though as an important part of history.

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.

interesting

This was way more interesting than I could have imagined. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire story.

Very interesting

If you were ever curious about the huge rock statues on Easter Island you will find this explanation to be satisfying. It was well performed, clearly read.

Interesting but Sluggish

Easter Island is fascinating, and this account of its history is no exception. The only downfall is, because it is an in-depth archeological and social study, sometimes the narration gets lost in technical terms and explanation of studies that would serve great purpose in Peer Reviewed Journals, but is too technical for casual reading.
The narration is great, and the story is interesting, overall. If you have any interest in Easter Island and its sometimes fraught history, give this a chance.

Great listen.

I grew up with a fascination of archaeology and this island in particular and this book provided me with all of the answers to questions I had and even more. I began to lose interest around chapter three where everything told starts feeling redundant but then suddenly I was captivated unable to stop listening as more and more of the research unfolded.

Fascinating story well told

As absorbing as a good well told as a police procedural. Filled with archeological and cultural science explained and not much it appears oversimplified.
I have a preference for the straight not over dramatic delivery of this narrator whose delivery focused the listener on the story rather than the performance

Great structure

They did a great job of presenting "established" myths and then debunking them one by one. Really held my interest!

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.

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.