Easter Island and Peru

Both Easter Island and Machu Pichu in Peru have fascinated European explorers, archaeologist and the general public since their first discoveries. Today they are major tourism magnets as World Heritage listed icons of ancient cultural achievements.

Both Easter Island and Machu Pichu in Peru have fascinated European explorers, archaeologist and the general public since their first discoveries. Today they are major tourism magnets as World Heritage listed icons of ancient cultural achievements. Both sites are major cash honeypots with much of their collected revenues syphoned off to other purposes, to the detriment of sound management to control the growing visitor pressures. 

In 2015 I attended a major rock art symposium in Cuzco, Peru and was fortunate to visit both locations with local experts and management and gain some behind the scenes insights into the issues now in play. In this lecture I will focus on the current dilemmas confronting these sites as well as providing some background to the latest theories about the many mysteries that envelop them.