Easter Island's population never collapsed, but it did have contact with Native Americans, DNA study suggests

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/easter-islands-population-never-collapsed-but-it-did-have-contact-with-native-americans-dna-study-suggests

The remote Pacific island of Rapa Nui, commonly known as Easter Island, never experienced a "self-inflicted population collapse," a new analysis of ancient DNA reveals.

Researchers have long debated whether the Polynesian island's population plummeted due to deforestation, the overexploitation of local resources and warfare during the 1600s, before the arrival of Europeans a century later, according to a study published Wednesday (Sept. 11) in the journal Nature.

But now, after studying the genomes of 15 inhabitants of the Polynesian island, researchers think there was never a rapid drop in population after all.

DNA taken from these 15 historical individuals showed there was "no evidence of a genetic bottleneck" that would have signified a collapse in the 17th century. Instead, the DNA evidence revealed that the island's small population "steadily increased" until the 1860s, when Peruvian slave raids overtook the island and decreased the population by one-third, according to the study.