Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Using 3D modeling and field experiments, researchers led by Binghamton University archaeologist Carl Lipo have verified that the ...

The towering Easter Island moai have always stirred wonder and curiosity. But how these massive sculptures got from quarry to platform has long been a mystery. The smaller ones weigh 12-14 tons, while ...

Archaeologists have confirmed that Easter Island’s iconic Moai statues were “walked” to their platforms using rope by “remarkably few” of the island’s indigenous Rapa Nui people, solving a ...

The monolithic human figures of Rapa Nui, called Moai, are among the most recognizable statues in the world. There are 900 of them carved and erected between 1250 and 1500 CE. The making and ...

When the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen landed on Easter Island in 1722, he was puzzled by how the indigenous islanders could have transported the hundreds of colossal stone statues he found studding ...

A high-resolution 3D model of Rano Raraku shows that the moai were created in many distinct carving zones. Instead of a top-down system, the statues appear to have been produced by separate family ...

Easter Island is famous for its giant monumental statues, called moai, built some 800 years ago. The volcanic rock used for the moai came from a quarry site called Rano Raraku. Archaeologists have ...

There are more than 1,000 moai statues on Easter Island, representing a key part of the region’s cultural and archeological past. A new moai, smaller than most, was found in a dried-up lakebed. The ...