The invention of writing on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). New radiocarbon dates on the Rongorongo script (original) (raw)

Placing the origin of an undeciphered script in time is crucial to understanding the invention of writing in human history. Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, developed a script, now engraved on fewer than 30 wooden objects, which is still undeciphered. Its origins are also obscure. Central to this issue is whether the script was invented before European travelers reached the island in the eighteenth century AD. Hence direct radiocarbon dating of the wood plays a fundamental role. Until now, only two tablets were directly dated, placing them in the nineteenth c. AD, which does not solve the question of independent invention. Here we radiocarbon-dated four Rongorongo tablets preserved in Rome, Italy. One specimen yielded a unique and secure mid-fifteenth c. date, while the others fall within the nineteenth c. AD. Our results suggest that the use of the script could be placed to a horizon that predates the arrival of external influence. Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is located in the deepest recesses of the Pacific Ocean, some 3800 km off the coast of Chile. It was one of the latest landmasses to be settled by humans, according to radiocarbon dating, between 1150 and 1280 AD 1. Since then, the island underwent a gradual, if not total, process of deforestation 2. When Rapa Nui was discovered by Europeans seafarers in the 1720s, its soil had been to an extent eroded and depleted, and endemic species, once luxuriant, had disappeared, even though this ecocide picture of total devastation is now under serious scholarly debate 3,4. The arrival of European visitors, in any case, brought upheaval. Sporadic raiding and kidnapping of locals took place in the early 1800s, and later during that century Peruvian slave raids were carried out, while epidemics decimated the population 5. By the end of the century, most of its traditional culture was irretrievably lost. Writing is one of the local phenomena to fall prey to destruction. While the island is famous for its monumental sculptures, called moai and still preserved in situ, its inhabitants also developed a local script, Rongorongo, which was first noticed by outsiders in 1864. The script now survives on twenty-seven wooden objects 6 none of which is now on the island. Most were salvaged by missionaries in the 1860s and 1870s and sent abroad. Not all rescue attempts were successful, and some inscriptions were intentionally destroyed. The extant texts are relatively long and written by means of pictorial signs, often called 'glyphs' (Fig. 1). Discovering a writing system in such a remote recess is surprising, and debate is still ongoing as to its origins. While it is difficult to prove that contact with literate Europeans was not a stimulus for its creation, its pictorial glyphs do not resemble any known script. They, in fact, show their closest parallels in motifs of ancient rockcarved art found on the island 7. The shapes of the Rongorongo signs represent different classes of images, such as human postures and body parts, animals, plants, tools, heavenly bodies, etc. The use of these signs in complex ligatures and long, linear sequences, and evidence of corrections 8 , suggest proper language notation.