Wow! That's pretty incredible! I also didn't know that there are more than 1,000 statues. It would be fascinating if more facts about the people who built them can be determined. Thanks, Rob for this.

I learned about this decades (literally) ago. You can probably do some simple googling to learn a great deal about the earlier, indigenous population.

I learned about this decades (literally) ago. You can probably do some simple googling to learn a great deal about the earlier, indigenous population.

So good you said it twice rhizo! I am totally kidding. ;)

Really? Wonder why it isn't more commonly known. I also have to wonder why it's in a current news source. Truly. I know we can't read through the screen, but I want to know why they chose to write about it now. Maybe there was something more to it. I'll keep delving. It's so much like Stonehenge. Here's how. How in the heck did those statues get so far down into the ground? They weigh how much? And why just up to the head? Why not all the way? Why bury them any amount? Curious indeed! Well, the physical moving part of Stonhenge. I get how they moved the rocks to where they stand, and celestial things line up, but how in the heck did they get the stones across the TOP up there?!

"Photos of the dig posted on the project website four months ago (they somewhat say this is probably the recent surge cause), and older photos taken of full-bodied Easter Island statues that were excavated in the 1950s...In fact, archaeologists have studied the statues on the island for about a century, and have been aware of the torsos beneath the statues' heads since the earliest excavations in 1914"

Here is a link that might be useful: Yahoo's story about it.

I've long....long been a reader of national Geographic and knew a long time ago, about the same time that I knew about the Rapa Nui statues that they were more buried that above ground....and in fact Eric Von Danikan had a theory about extra terrestials building them.( remember Chariots of the Gods?)
They are buried by wind blown sand, over hundreds and hundreds of years...like a sand fence on a dune gets buried in a few months.
Ther is some interesting history of the island.....about the long eared and the short eared people and tribal warfare. They have found at the quarry un finished statues and the supposed instruments used to make them.
There are not timber trees on the island now but there were when the statues were built. most of the statues face inland....but not all.....and the ones further inland are not so deeply buried.
And some have a writing on them in a symbol language called rongo rongo...or maybe wrongo wrongo...I forget. No one knows the language because it is cursed or forbidden??
This is just a bit of sketchy stuff I remember....I am sure all the details are on line somewhere.
Linda C

I remember reading about Easter Island in one of the Thor Hyerdahl books....about thirty or more years ago. Can't remember the name of the book (not Kon Tiki) but I do recall the photographs. He conducted research on the island.

How strange that I didn't know this. My folks even traveled there, and I can't recall it being mentioned. Maybe they thought I knew.

It does make sense, though, that they are full statues.