Tiffany
Davis
English
102
21
October 2014
Research Proposal
Introduction:
Easter Island has long been a topic
of study for scientists around the world. How the people arrived on Easter
Island, where they came from, what they brought with them, how they lived, the
culture of the island, the famous rock sculptures they built, and how/why their
culture declined. There are many aspects of Easter Island that have been
researched thoroughly by numerous scientists and other academics. My research
paper however, will focus on the decline of Easter Island. Why did the Island’s
society collapse? What were the primary geographic causes of Easter Island’s
collapse? What are the differing opinions and studies on those causes? Was it
the people, or other environmental factors that led to the decline of Easter
Island’s civilization? How was their culture related to the collapse of their
society? There is much debate as to where the people came from, as well as to
what were the key elements of Easter Island’s societies’ collapse. Looking at
the primary experts on Easter Island’s collapse and comparing the different
arguments will help me show how and why Easter Island collapsed.
Review of Literature
Sources so far include a book
written in 2006, Collapse: How Societies
Choose to Fail or Survive by Jarred Diamond. It reviews various societies
in history that have collapsed, and focuses a great deal on Easter Island as an
example of “Ecocide.” An earlier book from 2005 also by Jarred Diamond called Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of
Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years also refers to Easter Islands collapse
as well as its establishment. Similarly a book by Thor Heyerdahl The Kon-Tiki Expedition: Raft Across the
South Seas written in 1950 studies the colonization of Easter Island. His
theories however, are believed to be incorrect and will be contrary to those
hypothesis presented in both of Jarred Diamond’s written works.
Another source will be J.D. Hughes
with his article “Easter Island: Model for Environmental History?” Hughes
delves into the resources that the Easter Island inhabitants destroyed and how
that led to their downfall. Barzin Pakandam goes in a similar direction to
Hughes with his working paper in 2009 “Why Easter Island Collapsed: An Answer
for an Enduring Question.” In Pakandam’s article he begins with how Easter
Island was discovered, then moves on to discuss what resources they had before
the fall, and finally goes on to state what causes he believes were most
influential in the collapse of Easter Island’s isolated society. Christopher M. Stevenson wrote a
scholarly article “Prehistoric and Early Historic Agriculture at Maunga Orito,
Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Chile,” which provides information on how the
inhabitants of Easter Island were using their resources as well as several images
of the island to show where and what resources were depleted. Knowing how
Easter Island used their resources and created more will help show my audience
what they had available on the Island. David K. Foot’s article, “Easter Island;
A Case Study in Non-sustainability,” from 2006 also delves into the topic of
resource depletion. Foot’s article focuses a great deal on how the use of wood
to move stone statues contributed to Easter Island’s deforestation and thus
collapse. Sue Hamilton, Mike Seager Thomas, and Ruth Whitehouse wrote an
article “Say it with Stone: Constructing with Stones on Easter Island,” which
delineates how the people of Easter Island built and moved their giant stone
statues. This source will tie into the causes of deforestation that Foot brings
up in his article.
Terry L. Hunt and Carl P. Lipo wrote
an article in 2009, “Revisiting Rapa Nui (Easter Island) “Ecocide” 1,” in which
they discuss Jarred Diamond’s research of Easter Island, as well as other
experts in the field. Hunt and Lipo discuss a collection of recent publications
on Easter Island in general in order to form their argument that although
deforestation and ecological catastrophe contributed to Easter Island’s
collapse, that the Island was not truly doomed until European contact resulted
in disease and slave trading. They state that “Deforestation and
contact-induced demographic collapse were separate in time and causation,”
(601). Joshua Pollard, Alistair Paterson, and Kate Welham wrote an article “Te
Miro O’one: The Archeology of Contact on Rapa Nui (Easter Island),” which will
be used as a source to show what contact people had with Easter Island
inhabitants before the collapse of the island’s civilization.
Plan to Collect Information
In addition to the sources I have
collected thus far, I will be asking my geography professor Dr. James McDougal
for a personal interview regarding Easter Island. He has studied the topic in
depth and has mentioned that at some point he will be lecturing us on it in
class. This interview I hope will help me narrow the focus of my research and
potentially provide me with more sources. I am hoping to find more visual aids
throughout scholarly articles or via google images to go along with my paper
once I have established an outline for my paper. There is an article by J.R.
Flenley and P. Bahn “Conflicting Views of Easer Island,” that I will also be
looking up via Google or Academic Search
Premier; if it is not in either of those locations I will look in Proquest. This article I hope will help
me delineate more opposing arguments. Kon-Tiki
by Jarred Diamond is coming via inter library loan (though I have read it
already), and both Collapse and Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jarred Diamond
are coming from the Bremerton Hazelwood Library (both of which I have also
already read).
Project Timeline
This coming week I plan to finish
collecting my sources. My last book should arrive by next Wednesday October 29th.
On Monday October 27th I will be meeting with my geography professor
Dr. James McDougal to interview him on the subject, so this weekend I will be
compiling questions for him. October 30th I will be reviewing all of
my sources, taking notes, and highlighting key arguments to create my thesis
and highlight key voices and arguments. By November 4th I will have
compiled my annotated bibliography. By the first week of November I will also be
creating an outline for my paper, in order to keep it organized, and gathering
more visual aids. By November 13th I will have created my literature
review of at least 20 sources. November 20th I will have my final
draft of my outline, Rationale, and Abstract finished. November 25th
I will have completed my rough draft of my paper so that I can participate in
the peer editing lab. December 5th I will turn in my final paper.
Works Cited
Brander, James A., and M. Scott Taylor. "The Simple Economics
of Easter Island: A Ricardo-Malthus Model of Renewable Resource
Use." American Economic Review 88.1 (1998):
119-138. Business Source Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.
Diamond, Jared M. Collapse:
How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. London: Penguin Books. 2006.
Print.
----. Guns, Germs, and
Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years. London:
Vintage, 2005, 1997. Print.
----. “Easter Island Revisited.” Science, New Series 317 (2006): 1692-1694. American Association for
the Advancement of Science. JSTOR. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.
Finney, Ben. “Voyage to Polynesia’s Land’s End.” Antiquity 75.287 (2001): 172-81. Proquest
Research Library. Web. 7 Oct. 2014.
Flenley, John, and Kevin Butler. “Respect Versus Contempt for
Evidence: Reply to Hunt and Lipo.” Rapa
Nui Journal 21.2 (2007): 98-104. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.\
Flenley, John, Paul Bahn. “Conflicting Views of Easter Island.” Rapa Nui Journal 21.1
(2007): 11-13. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.
(2007): 11-13. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.
Foot, K. David. “Easter Island; A Case Study in
Non-sustainability.” Greener Management International 48
(2006): 11-20. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Oct 2014.
Good, David H., and Rafael Reuveny. “The Fate of Easter Island:
The Limits of Resource Management Institutions.” Ecological Economics 58.3 (2006): 473-490. Science
Direct. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.
Hamilton, Sue, Mike Seager Thomas, and Ruth Whitehouse. "Say
It with Stone: Constructing with Stones on Easter Island." World
Archaeology 43.2 (2011): 167-190. Academic Search Premier. Web.
21 Oct. 2014.
Heyerdahl, Thor. The
Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas. London: Allen and
Unwin, ltd, 1950. Print.
Hughes, J.D. “Easter Island: Model for Environmental History?” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 14.2
(2003): 77. Proquest Research Library. Web. 7 Oct 2014.
Hunt, Terry L. “Rethinking the Fall of Easter Island.” The American Scientist. (2014). Web. 2
Oct. 2014.
Hunt, Terry L., and Carl P. Lipo. “Revisiting Rapa Nui (Easter
Island); ‘Ecocide’ 1.” Pacific Science
63.4 (2009): 601-16. Proquest Research Library. Web. 7
Oct. 2014.
----. “Chronology, Deforestation, and ‘Collapse:’ Evidence vs.
Faith in Rapa Nui Prehistory.” Rapa Nui
Journal 21.2 (2007): 85-97. Academia.
Web. 23 Oct. 2014.
Koss, Lorelei. "Sustainability In A Differential Equations
Course: A Case Study Of Easter Island." International Journal Of
Mathematical Education In Science & Technology 42.4 (2011):
545-553. Computer Source. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.
Martinsson-Wallin, Helene, and Susan J. Crockford. “Early
Settlement of Rapa Nui (Easter Island).” Asian
Perspectives 40.2 (2001): 244-78. Proquest Research Library. Web.
7 Oct. 2014.
Pakandam, Barzin. “Why Easter Island Collapsed: An Answer for an
Enduring Question.” Economic History
working Papers, 117/09. Department of Economic History, London School of Economics
and Political Science, London, UK. (2009). Web. 2 Oct. 2014.
Pollard, Joshua, Alistair Paterson, and Kate Welham. "Te Miro
O'one: The Archaeology of Contact on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)." World
Archaeology 42.4 (2010): 562-580. Academic Search Premier.
Web. 14 Oct. 2014.
Rainbird, Paul. "A Message for Our Future? The Rapa Nui
(Easter Island) Ecodisaster and Pacific Island Environments." World
Archaeology 33.3 (2002): 436-451. Academic Search Premier. Web.
14 Oct 2014.
Stevenson, Christopher M., et al. "Prehistoric and Early
Historic Agriculture at Maunga Orito, Easter Island (Rapa Nui),
Chile." Antiquity 80.310 (2006): 919-936. Academic
Search Premier. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.
Stricker, Harding. "Easter Island: A Case Study for
Stewardship." International Congregational Journal 9.1
(2010): 87-102. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.
Trachtman, Paul. “The Secrets of Easter Island.” Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian (2002).
Web. 2 Oct. 2014.
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