Vanished Culture - Easter Island

Vanished Culture:Its inhabitants once called it "Te Pito o te Hanua", Navel of the World. Its gigantic stone statues, the "moais", its artistic temple platforms, and its mysterious rune writings puzzled explorers and anthropologists for years. Who were the ancient stone mason? Why did this civilization come to a sudden end in the mid-17th century? What knocked the statues from their pedestals? This program looks at some of the theories, and the information deduced from the recent deciphering of the "rongo rongo" runes.