[00:00.24]Just 13 miles long and seven miles wide,
[00:03.95]Easter Island rises like a fortress from the waves, surrounded by thousands of miles of ocean in every direction.
[00:11.90]People first arrived here less than 1,000 years ago.
[00:15.64]Most of what we know about their civilisation can only be pieced together from the relics that remain.
[00:22.10]It is a strange and desolate place.
[00:25.38]The most striking features in this bleak and windswept landscape are the hundreds of giant stone statues, known as moai,
[00:34.52]thought to be carved in the likeness of chiefs or ancestors.
[00:38.53]It's difficult to believe that an advanced culture capable of carving and erecting these monoliths grew up in such a barren landscape.
[00:47.40]The truth is, it didn't.
[00:49.50]When those first colonisers discovered Easter Island, this was a paradise.
[00:55.18]These empty cliffs were once home to the largest seabird colonies in the South Pacific.
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