Famous Easter Island statues were created without centralized management

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 13^th 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.