Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Famous Easter Island statues were created without centralized management

Model shows monuments arose from numerous independent working groups

PLOS

Megalithic statue (moai) production on Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) — image:
Three-dimensional model of Rano Raraku quarry produced through Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry. This comprehensive digital documentation, derived from 11,686 UAV images, reveals the complex spatial organization of production activities distributed across multiple workshop areas.
view more
Credit: Lipo et al., 2025, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

The famous statues of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) were carved by numerous independent groups, according to a study published November 26, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Carl Philipp Lipo of Binghamton University, New York and colleagues.

The island of Rapa Nui is famous for preserving hundreds of stone statues (moai) carved by Polynesian communities starting in the 13th century. Archaeological evidence consistently suggests that Rapa Nui society was not politically unified, consisting instead of small and independent family groups. This raises the question of whether the construction of moai was similarly decentralized.

In this study, researchers collected over 11,000 images of the primary moai quarry, Rano Raraku, to create a comprehensive 3D model of the quarry, including hundreds of moai preserved in various stages of completion. Detailed analysis of this model revealed 30 distinct centers of quarrying activity featuring a variety of carving techniques, suggesting multiple independent work areas. There is also evidence for transport of moai out of the quarry in many different directions. These patterns suggest that moai construction, like broader Rapa Nui society, was not organized by central management.

These findings challenge the common assumption that this scale of monument production requires hierarchical organization. The similarities that do exist between moai seem to reflect cultural sharing of information rather than communities actually working together to carve the figures. The quarry model created during this study also provides detailed data for future research and for cultural management of this UNESCO World Heritage site, and the data from here can be applied to carry out analysis at other sites.

The authors add: “Much of the so-called “mystery” of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) comes from the lack of openly available, detailed evidence that would allow researchers to evaluate hypotheses and construct explanations. Here, we present the first high-resolution 3D model of the moai quarry at Rano Raraku, the central quarry for nearly 1,000 statues, offering new insights into the organizational and manufacturing processes of these giant megalithic figures.”

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/49gsOyE

Citation: Lipo CP, Hunt TL, Pakarati G, Pingel T, Simmons N, Heard K, et al. (2025) Megalithic statue (moai) production on Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile). PLoS One 20(11): e0336251. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0336251

Author countries: U.S., Chile.

Funding: Funding for the fieldwork was supported by a National Science Foundation grant (Award #2218602). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0336251

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Megalithic statue (moai) production on Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile)

Article Publication Date

26-Nov-2025

First-of-its-kind 3D model lets you explore Easter Island statues up close

New interactive model reveals statues were built across multiple “workshops”

Binghamton University

3D model screenshot — image:
Screenshot from a three-dimensional model of Rano Raraku quarry produced through Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry. This comprehensive digital documentation, derived from 11,686 UAV images, reveals the complex spatial organization of production activities distributed across multiple workshop
areas.
view more
Credit: ArcGIS

Located in the middle of the South Pacific, thousands of miles from the nearest continent, Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is one of the most remote inhabited places on Earth. To visit it and marvel at the quarries where its iconic moai statues were created is a luxury few get to experience – until now.

You can now explore Rano Raraku, one of the major quarries on Easter Island, from the comfort of your home. A research team including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York has created the first-ever high-resolution 3D model of the quarry, providing people worldwide with a glimpse of the island, including almost 1,000 of its iconic moai statues.

“As an archeologist, the quarry is like the archeological Disneyland,” said Binghamton University Professor of Anthropology Carl Lipo and lead author of a new paper in PLOS One. “It has everything you can possibly imagine about moai construction, because that's where they did most of the construction. It’s always been this treasure of information and cultural heritage, but it's remarkably underdocumented.”

The new model allows visitors to zoom in and pan across various features of the quarry, both high and low, offering views that you wouldn’t be able to see even if you did make your way to Rapa Nui. The quarry itself is located in a volcanic crater that is too steep and rugged to safely traverse.

“You can see things that you couldn't actually see on the ground. You can see tops and sides and all kinds of areas that just would never be able to walk to,” said Lipo.

Lipo said that the 3D model opens the door for things that were never possible: 1) it provides researchers with a three-dimensional replica that they can study and 2) it allows everyone to experience the island.

“We can say, 'Here, go look at it.’ If you want to see the different kinds of carving, fly around and see stuff there. So it's really exciting to bring these two things together. We're documenting something that really has needed to be documented, but in a way that's really comprehensive and shareable.”

Mapping the island

In October 2023, a wildfire swept through the quarry, raising concerns about the site's future. When Lipo and his team arrived to conduct research in January 2024, a community group on the island asked if the researchers could document the quarry in the event that it was permanently damaged.

The researchers, who also included Thomas Pingel and Kevin Heard from Binghamton’s Geography Department, leapt at the opportunity. They conducted around 30 drone flights, snapping 22,000 photos of the quarry at 30-meter increments. Using computer software, the images were stitched together into the resulting 3D model, a process that took months.

"It’s amazing how far and how fast the technology has come,” said Pingel. “The quality of this model is far above what could be done even just a couple of years ago, and the ability to share such a detailed model in a way that is accessible from anyone’s desktop computer is remarkable."

“The project was of a scale of complexity that had never been attempted before,” said Lipo.

Putting the map to use

Using the new 3D model, the researchers examined the sites of 30 different “workshops” in the quarry. Examining the patterning of the quarrying, where carving techniques differed from site to site, the researchers found it aligned with previous evidence – that the island consisted of multiple independent groups working simultaneously rather than being managed by a centralized "chiefdom.”

“We see separate workshops that really align to different clan groups that are working intensively in their specific areas,” said Lipo. “You can really see graphically from the construction that there's a series of statues being made here, another series of statues here and that they're lined up next to each other. It's different workshops.”

While this theory isn’t necessarily brand new, Lipo said that it’s nice to see the evidence baked into the quarry itself.

“When we look at the ability for people to move giant statues, it doesn't take that many people to do it, so that it really connects all the dots between the number of people it takes to move the statues, the number of places, the scale at which the quarrying is happening and then the scale of the communities,” said Lipo.

Going forward, the researchers will utilize the 3D model for further analysis of the quarry. Lipo also hopes that people will use the model, from researchers to laypeople alike.

“What we would really like to do is be able to say, ‘Go visit it yourself. Learn from it.’ People on the island are afraid that if we build three-dimensional models that no one will go to the island. But I think this actually will inspire people to go there. Because otherwise, you're just seeing sort of snapshots of stuff. This is an incredible landscape of stuff that you could really go visit, that you'll want to see.”

The 3D model is available to view online.

The paper, “Megalithic statue (moai) production on Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile),” will be published in PLOS One on Nov. 26.

For video and other figures, access the media kit.

Three-dimensional model of Rano Raraku quarry produced through Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry. This comprehensive digital documentation, derived from 11,686 UAV images, reveals the complex spatial organization of production activities distributed across multiple workshop areas.

Production technique revealed through 3D modeling. Unfinished moai attached to bedrock by “keels” along their backs demonstrate how carvers worked underneath from both sides until figures were separated from the source material. This production stage, difficult to document through traditional methods, is visible in the 3D model.

Credit

Carl Lipo