In the 1600s, the population of Easter Island experienced a sharp demographic decline. This event has been the subject of much speculation by scientists and laymen alike, and has spawned dozens of theories; people have guessed everything from alien influence to slavery to plague to a combination of things. For decades, scientists mainly thought it was because the locals used so much of the island's natural resources. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay Before 2006, the prevailing theory that around 800 CE-give or take a few hundred years-a small group of settlers, most likely Polynesians, arrived on Easter Island. At one point, the population reached a peak of around 20,000 people. They used few resources and their lifestyle was compatible with the environment. Around 1200, they began to use more and more resources, such as trees. There is much speculation as to why this happened, but most believe it was to build boats to transport the rock to the Maui Heads. Such destruction can only lead to disaster. The island was increasingly losing its ability to support life and the inhabitants began to starve. By the time Europeans arrived around the 18th century, Easter Island was reduced to a population of around 3,000 people suffering on a virtually uninhabitable sandy wasteland. The last plausible theory about this says that this whole thing is completely incorrect, from start to finish. A study carried out by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo in late 2006 resulted in radiocarbon dating of ancient soils on Easter Island. The results place the date of the arrival of the settlers on the island around 12:00 p.m.; centuries later than we thought. This discovery implies that they did not have centuries of peace beforehand, nor did they have time to reach a population close to 20,000. It was the people who arrived on this island who destroyed it from the start. That being said, there may not have been a massive population collapse. Another possibility is that the island was never really capable of supporting more than 3-5,000 people. Furthermore, Hunt and Lipo do not believe that what happened was necessarily the fault of the Polynesian settlers, but that of the Europeans. Or rather their rats. They took the Polynesian settlers as slaves and also brought rats (and subsequently diseases) on their ships. Since rats had no predators, they reproduced incredibly quickly and ate all the palm seeds on the island (and everything else). In fact, Lipo thinks that the story of settlers destroying themselves may just be the scare stories of 20th century missionaries, and that we can't just assume that the terrible things we do to the environment today Today, we have also done it in the past. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay like Therefore, I believe that, assuming there was a significant drop in population, it is unlikely that this could happen again. I think the Theroy rat is the most plausible. If that were the case, it couldn't actually happen in much of the country, like North America, or even Australia or Greenland. There are too many resources and we have technology that can eliminate vermin. This would be a possibility on a small isolated island.