Easter Island — Rapa Nui

Rapa Nui (Easter Island) lies 3,700 km from the South American coast, making it one of the most remote inhabited islands on Earth. Between approximately 1100 and 1700 CE, the Rapa Nui people carved and transported 887 moai — monolithic human figures averaging 4 metres tall and 12.5 tonnes — from a single volcanic quarry to ceremonial platforms (ahu) around the island's coast. The largest moai ever erected stands 10 metres tall; the largest in the quarry, never completed, is 22 metres.

Experiments have shown the statues could be moved using ropes and coordinated human effort, consistent with the Rapa Nui oral tradition that the moai 'walked' to their platforms. The civilisation's collapse — deforestation, resource exhaustion, and internecine warfare — was already advanced when Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen arrived in 1722. The rongorongo script found on the island remains undeciphered.