Fishing this one out of the depths....
Well, it looks like everything I thought I knew about Easter Island is wrong.
Great talk by Terry Hunt and Carly Lipo at
http://longnow.org/seminars/02013/ja...easter-island/
They've spent over a decade investigating the archeology of Easter Island, and they're pretty sure that the Collapse/ecocide story is wrong in just about every detail. There was a collapse, but it was caused (as in most other cases) by disease introduced by a Spanish ship.
They've got a book out too at Amazon (search their names).
Best,
F