There’s some research that indicates that denuding the island of forest didn’t actually significantly harm the people on the island. For example, this story describes a genetics-based study that indicates no evidence of a population bottleneck until Europeans (and slavers from Peru) visited the island.
The last part of the article is behind a paywall.
Paywalled article. Rand can you summarize in a sentence or two as to his reasoning as to why Diamond is wrong about Easter Island?
There’s some research that indicates that denuding the island of forest didn’t actually significantly harm the people on the island. For example, this story describes a genetics-based study that indicates no evidence of a population bottleneck until Europeans (and slavers from Peru) visited the island.
IIRC, disease got them and they never recovered