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 ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The Rapa Nui people are mostly invisible in the origin story of rapamycin. Posnov/Moment via Getty Images An antibiotic discovered ...

Easter Island is named for the Sunday in 1722 when Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen landed his crew on the distant Pacific island. It’s been misunderstood by outsiders ever since. In recent decades, ...

European explorers landed on Easter Island in the 18th century. Disease and emigration soon followed.

Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, never experienced a ruinous population collapse, according to an analysis of ancient DNA from 15 former inhabitants of the remote island in the Pacific Ocean.

One of the biggest mysteries surrounding Easter Island may finally be solved - as scientists pinpoint who built the iconic stone heads over 900 years ago. In the past, researchers assumed that the 12 ...

Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen has an exquisite track record, having “discovered” both the Polynesian islands of Bora Bora and Maupiti. However, it’s his accounts of Easter Island for which he is most ...

There is no place in the world like Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui. It feels like it is not even of this world. Located more than 2,000 miles from South America's mainland, it is one of the ...

New evidence reveals the real story of Easter Island and the builders of its stone heads. The giant stone heads of Easter Island have inspired theories for centuries. Now, new research reveals ...

Scientists have debunked a popular myth surrounding Easter Island. An analysis of the island's famed rock gardens, undertaken by a team of researchers including faculty from Binghamton University, ...

Finding out what actually happened in the deep past can be a slog, so when ancient history is packaged as mystery—spine-tingling but solvable—it’s hard to resist. Who doesn’t want to know how a lost ...

No one knows where Easter Island is, and that’s just the start of the island’s immutable mysticism. When I told people I was traveling to the small island this spring, people would say, “The place ...