Rano Raraku, a steep-sided crater on the southeastern coast of Rapa Nui (as locals call the island), was the heart of moai ...

Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is often portrayed in popular culture as an enigma. The rationale is clear: The tiny, ...

We’re documenting something that really has needed to be documented, but in a way that’s really comprehensive and shareable.” ...

In A Nutshell Researchers used 11,686 drone photos to create the first complete 3D map of Easter Island’s main statue quarry, ...

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, ...

Unlike other studies, which think they were crafted by a powerful tribe, it's thought that individual clans and families ...

Researchers say Easter Island's 4-ton moai "walked" across the island -- thanks to physics, ropes and a little ancient choreography -- no magic necessary. Binghamton University Turns out, the heads of ...

The mystery of the Moai stone heads has eluded onlookers for centuries — and now, researchers say they finally know how they got there. The statues, which were carved and placed on the South Pacific's ...

When the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen landed on Easter Island in 1722, he was puzzled by how the indigenous islanders could have transported the hundreds of colossal stone statues he found studding ...

There are more than 1,000 moai statues on Easter Island, representing a key part of the region’s cultural and archeological past. A new moai, smaller than most, was found in a dried-up lakebed. The ...

From Atacama to Patagonia, Chile makes extremes easy with dark-sky nights, glacier days and coastal dinners.