A Case Study of Inherent Cultural Bias: the Statues of Easter Island

Cultural biases can fog objectivity.

Surely you have, over the years, seen photographs of the extraordinary stone statues carved centuries ago.

How were the massive moai (as they are properly called) moved?

Archaeologists and anthropologists and engineers have puzzled about that for two centuries.

Were they rolled on logs? No. The moai are so heavy that they would have crushed logs!

So how did they do it?

According to ancient island folklore -- they walked.

Yes. Walked!

Western minds long have discounted the oral accounts of walking, dismissing them as either mythical or fanciful. Tons of stone walking. Yeah, sure, right.

It’s now been empirically proven. Yes, they walked to their final positions!

Have you ever moved a refrigerator or washing machine? It’s done in sets of walking motions, isn’t it?

The carvers sculpted the moai (using only stone tools, mind you) with slightly offset centers of gravity. This rendered a slight wobble. Using ropes, teams of people rocked the figures back and forth – and caused them to “walk”, a little bit at a time.

Earlier this month, the BBC published a detailed article about this. It’s worth a read: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220906-the-walking-statues-of-easter-island

The moral of the story? Cultural biases can fog objectivity.