Archeologist Chris Stevenson finds Easter Island exotic but hardly carefree
No South Pacific
By Martha Steger
Chris Stevenson, 57, has come a long way since Frank Zappa was his culture hero. Stevenson has traveled to the southeastern Pacific island that natives call Rapa Nui 19 times in the past 25 years, staying four to six weeks each visit. A territory of Chile, the island is 2,180 miles to its west and more than a five-hour flight from Santiago. Martha Steger interviewed Stevenson at his office at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, where he serves as a regional archaeologist.
Q: What are the most common misconceptions about Rapa Nui?
A: The main image of the island comes from films like South Pacific. People think it’s an exotic, carefree life. It is exotic in terms of geology and archaeology, but in terms of lifestyle, it isn’t. Roads are narrow, and there are too many vehicles – with dogs, horses and cows freely roaming the streets. The population of approximately 4,500 indigenous Rapa Nui, including the Chileans who’ve moved there, has TV – and e-mail arrived about five years ago – but salaries are low, and living conditions are demanding. If you want to own a house, you have to work very hard and build it yourself with the assistance of family. Everything on Easter Island is a mission, whether it’s buying a bag of potato chips or getting the ingredients for tonight’s dinner. Things aren’t readily available.
Q: How does your work on Easter Island fit into your work for the commonwealth of Virginia?
A: When I went to Easter Island the first time, nearly 30 years ago, I saw a volunteer-based dig supported by Earthwatch. I was able to integrate this approach into the way VDHR conducts its volunteer programs in the lab and in the field. I specialize in landscape archaeology, the dating of natural and manufactured glasses, and the chemical analysis of other archaeological materials present in Virginia — skills originally acquired on Easter Island.
Q: How did archaeology become such a passion in your life?
A: During my college years, my father sent me to Israel on an archaeological dig for a month when I was majoring in sociology — and that’s all it took for me to get hooked. Now I use all of my vacation time working on the island.
Q: Do you speak Spanish?
A: I am semi-functional in Spanish, which means ordering food, calling for a taxi and making simple conversation. My Rapa Nui colleagues speak English.
Q: A lot has been published about the huge stone statues — moai —built by the island’s inhabitants, as well as about their society’s demise. What’s your theory?
A: The interpretation of Rapa Nui has changed with new methods of analysis in recent years. Current thinking on initial settlement is that it probably did not occur until 1100 to 1200 A.D., instead of 700 to 800 A.D. We know natives built the moai very quickly, as dictated by their leaders, who had them build the statues as homage to ancestors. My theory is that they realized their leadership had failed them — their environment was very fragile, and it could not sustain a highly extractive agricultural economy. The warfare that ensued was to overturn the leaders. However, people don’t opt to die — they opt for survival, so they set about innovating. My principal focus has been the ancient rock gardens, an agricultural strategy used in the absence of trees. It’s my belief the population died from exposure to the diseases of Europeans, who reached the island in the 1700s.
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Martha Steger, a Richmond freelance writer, is the former public relations director for the Virginia Tourism Corporation.
