 The biggest mysteries of the past are the thought that we can't understand the scale of construction that can't be replicated. While we may never know the true purpose of some of the biggest structures on the planet, we can at least still experiment with what the ancients may have been thinking. In Russia for example, they have shown that crops grown in the vicinity of a pyramid yield far superior results and this has led to researchers studying the purpose of Easter Island statues to come up with a similar explanation. When the Dutch discovered Easter Island in the 1700s, however the island's population was already in deadly decline and its history getting hazy to the point that it wasn't being learned. The ship's officers recorded their observations but the most extensive documentation of the islander's views of their own culture didn't emerge until 1914 when an English anthropologist Catherine Rutledge teamed up with the residents of Easter Island to collect oral histories. By that time, after almost 200 years of Peruvian slave raids, missionary activity, and European disease, many memories of pre-colonial society including knowledge of the island's writing system which died with the elites who mastered it had been completely lost. Researchers studying the ancient monoliths are convinced they represented family lineage and prosperity and during a recent study led by the archaeologist Joanne van Tilburg testing the soil of the area where the gigantic rock was quarried, they found evidence that the statues not only symbolized prosperity but that the very creation of the Moai contributed to agricultural abundance. Joanne van Tilburg's team has spent the past five years excavating a quarry in the island's center whose rock accounts for 95% of the Moai. The team was analyzing statues found in the area when geoarcheologist Sarah Sherwood more out of habit than anything else tested the local soil according to the researcher. She said in a statement that when we got the chemistry results back, I did a double take. The team expected the quarry to just be a quarry, instead the analysis suggested that sweet potatoes and bananas had grown nearby and soil rich in calcium and phosphorus. On an island with limited resources where the rest of the soil had long since been depleted, the presence of such fertilized soil was stunning and will certainly change the history of the island as viewed by the world. Van Tilburg says that these findings also change our understanding of Easter Island's history, which is often described as a culture in phases. Different events seem to trigger separate worship and it is unclear what happened here exactly, but Easter Island's people develop innovative ways to produce food with limited resources and for the locals on Van Tilburg's team, the findings point to continuity and resilience despite cultural and demographic rupture. It did point to the fact that life went on in a very positive way, well past the point where it was suggested that the environment couldn't support a population, she said. The only thing that survives the ages is stone. Manmade metals begin to deteriorate within five minutes of being exposed to the elements, so only stone can survive millennia in this state. You can find the archaeologist findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science, which we will link below. The Moai that Van Tilburg's team excavated were discovered upright in place, one on a pedestal and the other in a deep hole, indicating they were meant to remain there. According to the research, this study radically alters the idea that all standing statues were simply awaiting transport out of the quarry. That is, these and probably other upright Moai were retained in place to ensure the sacred nature of the quarry itself. The Moai were central to the idea of fertility and in the belief their presence here stimulated agricultural food production. Anywho, we just wanted to touch on these findings today and bring them to your attention. The enormous effort to create these magnificent statues is unknown, but because of the setting of the island, it's not unfeasible to consider this to be true. However, the gigantic statues remain one of the biggest mysteries in the world and will continue to confound our interests after their true purpose. But what do you guys think about this? Comments below and as always, thank you for watching.