Easter Island has long been misunderstood by the West. A new book by Mike Pitts sets the record straight.

Scientists used drones to produce this 3D model of Rano Raraku, the volcanic crater where 95% of Rapa Nui's giant statues were carved. Lipo et al., 2025, PLOS One, CC BY Rapa Nui, also known as Easter ...

Still, the fancy persists, implanted like a microchip, ever since Erich von Däniken’s 1968 best-seller, “Chariots of the Gods ...

In “Island at the Edge of the World,” Mike Pitts tells the story of the people who carved the giant heads on the remotest inhabited place on Earth.

A newly reconstructed rainfall record shows that prolonged drought, not societal collapse, reshaped Rapa Nui’s history.

In his “Island at the Edge of the World,” the British archaeologist Mike Pitts delves into the misconceptions and legends ...

For decades, the story of Easter Island has been used as a cautionary ecological tale: people cut down their own trees, chaos ensued, and the society collapsed. The long-standing myth paints the Rapa ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Carl Lipo, Binghamton University, State University of New York (THE CONVERSATION) Rapa ...