Easter Island deforestation has traditionally been viewed as an abrupt island‐wide event caused by the prehistoric Rapanui civilization, which precipitated its own cultural collapse. This view emerges from early palaeoecological analyses of lake sediments, which showed a sudden and total replacement of palm pollen by grass pollen shortly after Polynesian settlement (800–1200 CE). However, further palaeoecological research has challenged this view, showing that the apparent abruptness and island‐wide synchronicity of forest removal was an artefact due to the occurrence of a sedimentary gap of several millennia that prevented a detailed record of the replacement of palm‐dominated forests by grass meadows. During the last decade, several continuous (gap‐free) and chronologically coherent sediment cores encompassing the last millennia have been retrieved and analysed, providing a new picture of forest removal on Easter Island. According to these analyses, deforestation was not abrupt but gradual and occurred at different times and rates, depending on the site. Regarding the causes, humans were not the only factors responsible for forest clearing, as climatic droughts as well as climate–human–landscape feedbacks and synergies also played a role. In summary, the deforestation of Easter Island was a complex process that was spatially and temporally heterogeneous and took place under the actions and interactions of both natural and anthropogenic drivers. In addition, archaeological evidence shows that the Rapanui civilization was resilient to deforestation and remained healthy until European contact, which contradicts the occurrence of a cultural collapse. Further research should aim to obtain new continuous cores and make use of recently developed biomarker analyses to advance towards a holistic view of the patterns, causes and consequences of Easter Island deforestation.

中文翻译：

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复活节岛的森林砍伐

复活节岛的森林砍伐传统上被视为由史前拉帕努伊文明引起的全岛范围内的突然事件，它促成了自身的文化崩溃。这一观点源于对湖泊沉积物的早期古生态学分析，该分析表明，在波利尼西亚人定居后不久（公元 800-1200 年），草花粉突然完全取代了棕榈花粉。然而，进一步的古生态学研究对这一观点提出了挑战，表明由于数千年的沉积间隙的出现阻止了以棕榈为主的森林更替的详细记录，森林清除的明显突然性和全岛范围内的同步性是一种人为因素通过草地。在过去的十年里，几个连续的（无间隙的）和时间顺序连贯的沉积岩芯已经被检索和分析，这些沉积岩芯涵盖了过去的几千年，提供了复活节岛森林砍伐的新图景。根据这些分析，森林砍伐不是突然发生的，而是逐渐发生的，并且发生在不同的时间和速度，具体取决于地点。关于原因，人类并不是造成森林砍伐的唯一因素，气候干旱以及气候-人类-景观的反馈和协同作用也发挥了作用。总之，复活节岛的森林砍伐是一个复杂的过程，在空间和时间上是异质的，并且发生在自然和人为驱动因素的作用和相互作用下。此外，考古证据表明，拉帕努伊文明对森林砍伐具有弹性，并在欧洲接触之前保持健康，这与文化崩溃的发生相矛盾。进一步的研究应旨在获得新的连续核心，并利用最近开发的生物标志物分析，以全面了解复活节岛森林砍伐的模式、原因和后果。