New excavations and high tech scans on one of the world’s most remote islands are forcing archaeologists to redraw the story of how complex societies rise, adapt and endure. On Rapa Nui, better known ...

A newly identified drought on the Pacific island of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, could have spurred islanders to invest fewer resources in building their legendary stone monuments. But some ...

For decades, the global image of Rapa Nui — Easter Island — has been reduced to giant stone heads rising from the earth, as if the moai were incomplete sculptures missing their bodies. But this ...