Moai of Easter Island

The article and the lecture are both about Moai statues. From the Reading and lecture contexts, it can be stated that the discussion is about how the statues of Estern Island construction has affected the Island population and local nature. While the author of the reading passage states that Moai´s building led to prejudice of natural sources, food colapse and population decline, the lecturer complete refutes the arguments in the article, arguing that explanations are faulty.

Firstly, it is stated by the professor that early population did not cut down trees leading to deforastation to move the Moai statues across the island. He argue that the method applied was using ropes which did not require trees. This idea disagress with the article that states that population had cut down almost all Island trees to move the statues.

Secondly, the lecturer explained that the reason for deforastation was the issue about palm trees and that ancient vegetation can be found at the island even nowadays, which corroborates with these claim. This directly opposes the reading passage that denotes that huge amounts of trees were cut leading to soil erosion, deforastation and affecting the local fauna behavior and avaiability.

Finally, the lecturer disagrees with the article explaining that the decline in population was not caused by food shortage in consequence of moai´s construction, on the other hand, he claims that these are based just on assumptions and that the time for the first population growth or peak was not enough. Consequently, the mass of died did not happen as stated by the article.