Easter Island Earth Figure

Easter Island is located in the southeast corner of the Pacific, 3900 km from the coast of Chile, an area of 117 square kilometers. When the first time that the Dutch explorer, Jacob Roggeveen reached this island in 1772, he was shocked by the desolate scenes and mysteriously monolithic stone statues. Subsequently, Easter Islands statues attracted the interests of many visitors including archaeologists, historians, geologists, anthropology and physicists. Indeed, these stone statues have great academic values not only in the fields of humanities, natural sciences but also social sciences. However, when the question about how the knowledge produced by these three cultures differs is raised, answers cover more than one aspects. Jerome Kagan stated

When starting studying East Islands statues, the primary interests of natural scientists are to predict and explain physical, chemical properties of stone statues, for instance, the elements, the weight, the density, the solidification, the melting point, the hardness, the conductivity, and the ductility. In order to achieve aims, they brought material entities, stone statues to the laboratory, observing them with the help of sophisticated instruments, mixing a piece of stone with certain chemical reagent. How do they deal with the differences among numerous small pieces of stones? Generally, natural scientists adopt the nomothetic approach to study natural sciences. The nomothetic approach, or the nomothetic model, generalizes rules and patterns to seek general explanation of causes. Supposing that one thirds of stones were made up by basalt, tuff and tuffite; one thirds were made up by granite, tuff and tuffite; the left one thirds were diorite, tuff and tuffite, the scientific and conniving result should consist of common elements, tuff and tuffite. As it

Kagan claimed that “humanities are an understanding of human reactions to events and the meanings humans impose on experience as a function of culture, historical era, and life history”(4). Taking history as an example, it is the reflection of human civilization trajectory, recording and explaining a series of human activities, as Easter Islands statues being no exception. Consequently, the time, the context, historical backgrounds come into the view of historians: when were these large statues built, who built them? For what reason? What was going on in region when this was created? How do status help understand local culture and religions? What relevance can be found between the statues and the present day? In the process of solving problems mentioned above, written texts like historical records, private letters; oral narrates like folktales; remnants( boats, houses) play critical roles in gathering sources and evidence. According to the pilot study, these statues were built by Lapanuyi to memorize tribe chiefs, flamen in 12th century. In contrast with natural scientists, humanists use the idiographic approach to “specify one event, on person and understand the meaning of unique, continent, and often subjective outcomes”(McAllister). If one historical event is considered as a case, this case is the study of a single event in-depth and detailed study. Even if there