DNA analysis shows that people from Easter Island had contact with Indigenous Americans around the 1300s, and finds there was no population crash before the arrival of Europeans
DNA analysis of ancient remains from Easter Island shows that the population was in fact increasing when Europeans arrived, rather than collapsing as reported by some historical accounts.
By the time Europeans arrived in 1722, the vegetation had been largely destroyed by a combination of rats and overharvesting. The history of the island has often been portrayed as an example of unsustainable ecological exploitation and population growth followed by collapse.at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and his colleagues looked at 15 sets of human remains kept at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France, collected by expeditions in 1877 and 1935.
A population undergoing a bottleneck from a collapse in numbers will have signals in their DNA showing a drop in genetic diversity, says Moreno-Mayer.
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