Spend even a few minutes on YouTube, and you’ll find endless videos exploring humanity’s greatest unsolved questions — from how the pyramids were built to what really went on at Stonehenge.
But one mystery that doesn’t get quite as much screen time is how the enormous statues of Easter Island, located off the coast of Chile, were moved into place so many hundreds of years ago.
For decades, researchers have been mystified by how the Rapa Nui people managed to transport these colossal structures across the island without modern tools or technology.
Now, new findings suggest that ancient islanders may have relied on clever engineering rather than brute force to make it happen.
What remained unclear, however, was how they managed to move such massive pieces of stone through rugged terrain with limited resources.
Carl Lipo, a Professor of Anthropology at Binghamton University, and Terry Hunt from the University of Arizona have spent years studying the statues and the island’s roads.
Their research suggests that the Rapa Nui people used ropes to “walk” the Moai upright, rocking them from side to side along carefully prepared paths.
Lipo explained: “Once you get it moving, it isn’t hard at all – people are pulling with one arm. It conserves energy, and it moves really quickly.”
When demonstrated, the process is surprisingly graceful — the statue appears to wobble slightly, shifting from left to right as it slowly moves forward.
Watching the motion, it’s easy to imagine how ancient builders might have guided these towering figures across the island centuries ago.
To test their theory, the research team built a 4.35-ton replica of a Moai. With the help of just 18 people, they were able to “walk” the statue 100 meters in only 40 minutes, proving that the technique was not only possible but efficient.
He also pointed out that the network of ancient roads on the island supports their findings, showing how the statues could have been moved in stages rather than dragged in one go.
“We actually see them overlapping each other, and many parallel versions of them. What they are probably doing is clearing a path, moving it, clearing another, clearing it further, and moving it right in certain sequences. So they’re spending a lot of time on the road part.”
“Find some evidence that shows it couldn’t be walking,” he said. “Because nothing we’ve seen anywhere disproves that.”
