Mathematical Model of Easter Island Society Collapse

TL;DR

This paper presents a mathematical model analyzing the socio-environmental dynamics leading to the collapse of Easter Island society, emphasizing resource exploitation and critical thresholds, with applications to other extinct civilizations.

Contribution

It introduces a dynamic mathematical model of Easter Island's societal collapse, incorporating resource-human interactions and validating it against other ancient civilizations.

Findings

Identifies critical parameters leading to societal collapse.

Quantifies resource exploitation impact on societal sustainability.

Validates model with data from Copán Maya civilization.

Abstract

In this paper we consider a mathematical model for the evolution and collapse of the Easter Island society, starting from the fifth century until the last period of the society collapse (fifteen century). Based on historical reports, the available primary sources consisted almost exclusively on the trees. We describe the inhabitants and the resources as an isolated system and both considered as dynamic variables. A mathematical analysis about why the structure of the Easter Island community collapse is performed. In particular, we analyze the critical values of the fundamental parameters driving the interaction humans-environment and consequently leading to the collapse. The technological parameter, quantifying the exploitation of the resources, is calculated and applied to the case of other extinguished civilization (Cop\'an Maya) confirming, with a sufficiently precise estimation, the consistency of the adopted model.