No #collapse, Jared. - #Genome analysis once for all takes wind out of #ecoside narrative's sails that #RapaNui’s population crashed due to #overexploitation, confirming #precolonial contact with #Indigenous Americans:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02962-w by Ewen Callaway via @nature
Original study:
J. V. Moreno-Mayar et al., Ancient #Rapanui #genomes reveal #resilience and pre-European #contact with the Americas, Nature 633, 389–397 (2024). 
@jens2go
I read the article with mounting horror. The article says that the French have at least 12 Rapanui bodies in a museum in France
Why horror? Aside from being disrespectful, racist it terrifying if they practiced in ancestor worhip, . African ancestor worship requires that the dead be buried near their ancestors. If they aren't, their spirits will wander lonely, alone and angry until they are returned to their ancestoral homes.
@ThePiper Hence the very clear (and imho important and strong) statement in the first article linked above:
"Nägele, who works in Polynesia, thinks the researchers did a good job of engaging with people in Rapa Nui. But she adds that scientists should have a stronger role in pressuring foreign institutions to return Indigenous remains to their place of origin."
@jens2go My problem is that talk us kinda cheap.
A wonan called Sarah (Saatjie) Bartman was taken to Europe in the early 1800s
She died and was kept as a specimen in France.
1940 was the first request to have her body repatriated.
1980s another surge happened
Then in 1994 SA dumped Apartheid and Nelso Mandela was president
He requested her repatriation
The issue was hotly debated in the French National Assembly
There were legal challenges
1/
@jens2go Finally and grudgingly she was repatriated.
Her repatriation was probably only made possible by Mandela's intervention
The Easter Islanders do not have a globally acknowledged leader like Madiba so they will probably get short shrift from the French.