I'm listening to the fall of Civilization Podcast and have previously read Diamond's "Collapse". Now, the podcast author pointed out enormous issues with diamond's basic thesis of enviromental degredation. He points out that one of the central parts of Diamond's thesis: that the forests on the island were cut down to build Maoi statues, is wrong. And that Diamond's thesis of extensive wars waged throughout the island for dwindling resources are contradicted by the lack of foritified positions and weapons common on other Polynesian islands.
The podcast author portrays Easter Island society as more or less intact all the way until first contact with Europeans. And that it was the trauma of contact, European disease, slavers and violence which destroyed the society.
However, the one part that's not really accounted for is that the population of Easter Island purportly dropped from a high of 15,000 to only around 3,000 or so in the century BEFORE the first Europeans came to the island. It seems -something- not European had to be responsible for this drop.
So Did this population drop actually occur? Or did the first European estimate of the population simply undercount? Did enviromental degredation already led to the destruction of most of the island population and the Europeans simply finished off the rest? Or were European colonizers responsible for destroying a society which more or less found a way to exist within the ecological boundaries of the island? What's the current state of the debate on the cause of the destruction of the traditional Rapa Nui culture?
There is always more to say, but I touched on this topic in a previous answer, which you might like to review while you are waiting for fresh responses to your question.
Also, in case reddit search didn't spit out this terrific answer with lit review a few years back by /u/Legendarytubahero for a related question by the great /u/commiespaceinvader, it's worth a look.
While this is far outside my fields of expertise, like /u/Legendarytubahero I got reasonably interested in some of these questions during a brief visit to Rapa Nui, and the one thing I'd emphasize from the previous answer of /u/mikedash (who probably has forgotten more on this than I know) is just how devastating the Peruvian raids of 1862 were to our ability to interpret history here.
Of the 1500 or so people who were deported to the Peruvian mines and such, that cadre included almost all of the two classes that were literate: the royalty and priest castes of the island. The couple dozen or so survivors who were returned later also brought smallpox back, and killed off most of the rest of the population and by most accounts finished the job.
There's evidence that there were once far more rongorongo than the 26 that survived, but with literacy completely wiped out and wood short, most of them were apparently repurposed around that time for more basic necessities like constructing boats for fishing. Thus, while I've periodically reviewed what's new in the lit since that trip and seen some genuinely creative work chasing archeological leads that is usually way over my quant social scientist head, the fact that we have basically zero written or oral history left - and almost certainly never will - is something that is important to keep in mind when viewing conclusions here, especially of someone already dubious like Diamond.
Also, for /u/mikedash, one oddball question: do we have any idea when the small strait between Moto Nui and Rapa Nui became less shark infested? The Moto Nui edge of it is where the local dive boats generally ply their trade nowadays, and that never came up. Also for fun, a couple of better quality pictures of Moto Nui from that trip that might give some better context of the size and distance - edit: I just realized it looks like oddly enough I took one from an almost identical spot as the linked picture in the older post!
