Easter Island's giant statues were probably 'walked' upright

Rapa Nui's moai statues weigh up to 80 tons, and islanders had no wheels or draft animals to move them. Experiments since the 1980s have shown a small team using ropes can rock or sway a replica statue forward while upright, matching the islanders' own oral tradition that the statues 'walked' to their platforms.

— Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo, The Statues That Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island — Free Press, 2011
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