Archaeological stone of Easter Island

With the scarcity of other resources, stone assumed great importance in the culture of Easter Island. The volcanic rocks display a compositional continuum paralleled by changes in physical characteristics. The most abundant rock type, porphyritic hawaiite, was the least useful as it is poorly jointed and difficult to work. Mugearites and benmoreites usually have a flaggy structure and were used as dressed stone in the early ahu, in the houses of Orongo and in stone implements. Rhyolitic obsidian was used for scrapers, knives, and a variety of weapons, especially the tanged mataa. Statue carving reached its zenith on Easter Island largely because of the availability of a suitable rock type, the Rano Raraku tuff. The tuff was not erupted from the present Rano Raraku crater but from another vent southeast of the surviving portion of the cone. Red scoria from Puna Pau was quarried for the topknots. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.