In his “Island at the Edge of the World,” the British archaeologist Mike Pitts delves into the misconceptions and legends ...

Easter Island has long been misunderstood by the West. A new book by Mike Pitts sets the record straight.

In ‘Island at the Edge of the World,’ Mike Pitts tells the story of the people who carved the giant heads on the remotest inhabited place on earth.

Still, the fancy persists, implanted like a microchip, ever since Erich von Däniken’s 1968 best-seller, “Chariots of the Gods ...

A newly reconstructed rainfall record shows that prolonged drought, not societal collapse, reshaped Rapa Nui’s history.

For decades, the global image of Rapa Nui — Easter Island — has been reduced to giant stone heads rising from the earth, as ...

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." For decades, archeologists have debated whether the writing system of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), known as ...

Easter Island is named for the Sunday in 1722 when Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen landed his crew on the distant Pacific island. It’s been misunderstood by outsiders ever since. In recent decades, ...

For generations, the massive moai of Easter Island, called Rapa Nui by the locals, have stood in quiet testimony to one of archaeology’s longest-standing mysteries. How did an island society, remote ...

An antibiotic discovered on Easter Island in 1964 sparked a billion-dollar pharmaceutical success story. Yet the history told about this “miracle drug” has completely left out the people and politics ...

Conducting research on the main quarry of Easter Island is challenging in ordinary circumstances. The easternmost Polynesian island is a six-hour flight from the nearest airport and reaching parts of ...