Easter Island in the context of "History of Easter Island"

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, extending along a narrow strip of land between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. According to the 2024 census, Chile had an enumerated population of 18.5 million. The country covers a territorial area of 756,102 square kilometers (291,933 sq mi), sharing borders with Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. It also administers several Pacific islands, including Juan Fernández, Isla Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island, and claims about 1,250,000 square kilometers (480,000 sq mi) of Antarctica as the Chilean Antarctic Territory. The capital and largest city is Santiago, and the national language is Spanish.

Spain conquered and colonized the region in the mid-16th century, replacing Inca rule; however, they failed to conquer the autonomous tribal Mapuche people who inhabited what is now south-central Chile. Chile emerged as a relatively stable authoritarian republic in the 1830s after their 1818 declaration of independence from Spain. During the 19th century, Chile experienced significant economic and territorial growth, putting an end to Mapuche resistance in the 1880s and gaining its current northern territory in the War of the Pacific (1879–83) by defeating Peru and Bolivia.

The Austronesian people, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Southeast Asia, parts of mainland Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar that speak Austronesian languages. They also include indigenous ethnic minorities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Hainan, the Comoros, and the Torres Strait Islands. The nations and territories predominantly populated by Austronesian-speaking peoples are sometimes known collectively as Austronesia.

The group originated from a prehistoric seaborne migration, known as the Austronesian expansion, from Taiwan, circa 3000 to 1500 BCE. Austronesians reached the Batanes Islands in the northernmost Philippines by around 2200 BCE. They used sails some time before 2000 BCE. In conjunction with their use of other maritime technologies (notably catamarans, outrigger boats, lashed-lug boats, and the crab claw sail), this enabled phases of rapid dispersal into the islands of the Indo-Pacific, culminating in the settlement of New Zealand c. 1250 CE. During the initial part of the migrations, they encountered and assimilated (or were assimilated by) the Paleolithic populations that had migrated earlier into Maritime Southeast Asia and New Guinea. They reached as far as Easter Island to the east, Madagascar to the west, and New Zealand to the south. At the furthest extent, they might have also reached the Americas.

Today the term South Seas, or South Sea, most commonly refers to the portion of the Pacific Ocean south of the equator. The term South Sea may also be used synonymously for Oceania, or even more narrowly for Polynesia or the Polynesian Triangle, an area bounded by the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand and Easter Island. Pacific Islanders are commonly referred to as South Sea Islanders, particularly in Australia.

The term was coined as Mar de Sur, or "South Sea",  by Spanish conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 as he it encountered on the southern coast of the Isthmus of Panama and it was applied to the entirety today's Pacific Ocean. In 1520, Ferdinand Magellan named the same ocean the Pacific Ocean, and over time Magellan's name became more well-known.

Stonemasonry or stonecraft is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. Stonemasonry is the craft of shaping and arranging stones, often together with mortar and even the ancient lime mortar, to wall or cover formed structures.

The basic tools, methods and skills of the banker mason have existed as a trade for thousands of years. It is one of the oldest activities and professions in human history. Many of the long-lasting, ancient shelters, temples, monuments, artifacts, fortifications, roads, bridges, and entire cities were built of stone. Famous works of stonemasonry include Göbekli Tepe, the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Cusco's Incan Wall, Taqwesan, Easter Island's statues, Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Tihuanaco, Tenochtitlan, Persepolis, the Parthenon, Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, the Mesoamerican pyramids, Chartres Cathedral, and the Stari Most.

Reed boats and rafts, along with dugout canoes and other rafts, are among the oldest known types of boats. Often used as traditional fishing boats, they are still used in a few places around the world, though they have generally been replaced with planked boats. Reed boats can be distinguished from reed rafts, since reed boats are usually waterproofed with some form of tar. As well as boats and rafts, small floating islands have also been constructed from reeds.

The earliest discovered remains from a reed boat are 7000 years old, found in Kuwait. Reed boats are depicted in early petroglyphs and were common in ancient Egypt. A well-known example from the Book of Exodus is the ark of bulrushes in which the baby Moses was set afloat. They were also constructed from early times in Peru and Bolivia, and boats with remarkably similar design have been found in Easter Island and also New Zealand where they were made by indigenous Māori. Reed boats are still used in Peru, Bolivia, Ethiopia, and until recently in Corfu. The explorations and investigations of the Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl have resulted in a better understanding of the construction and capabilities of reed boats.

Polynesians are an ethnolinguistic group comprising closely related ethnic groups native to Polynesia, which encompasses the islands within the Polynesian Triangle in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Southeast Asia and are part of the larger Austronesian ethnolinguistic group, with an Urheimat in Taiwan. They speak the Polynesian languages, a branch of the Oceanic subfamily within the Austronesian language family. The Indigenous Māori people form the largest Polynesian population, followed by Samoans, Native Hawaiians, Tahitians, Tongans, and Cook Islands Māori.

As of 2012, there were an estimated 2 million ethnic Polynesians (both full and part) worldwide. The vast majority either inhabit independent Polynesian nation-states (Samoa, Niue, Cook Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu) or form minorities in countries such as Australia, Chile (Easter Island), New Zealand, France (French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna), and the United States (Hawaii and American Samoa), as well as in the British Overseas Territory of the Pitcairn Islands. New Zealand had the highest population of Polynesians, estimated at 110,000 in the 18th century.

Austronesian vessels are the traditional seafaring vessels of the Austronesian peoples of Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar. They also include indigenous ethnic minorities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Hainan, the Comoros, and the Torres Strait Islands.

They range from small dugout canoes to large lashed-lug plank-built vessels. Their hull configurations include monohulls as well as catamarans and outrigger boats (single-outrigger boats and trimarans). Traditional sail types include a variety of distinctively Austronesian crab-claw and tanja configurations, though modern vessels are typically motorized. These vessels allowed the migrations of the Austronesian peoples during the Austronesian expansion (starting at around 3000 to 1500 BC from Taiwan and Island Southeast Asia) throughout the islands of the Indo-Pacific, reaching as far as Madagascar, New Zealand, and Easter Island. They were also used to establish trading routes, including the Austronesian maritime trade network which formed the maritime leg of the spice trade and later, the maritime silk road.

The Polynesian Triangle is a region of the Pacific Ocean with three island groups at its corners: Hawaii (Hawaiʻi), Easter Island (Rapa Nui) and New Zealand (Aotearoa). This is often used as a simple way to define Polynesia.

Outside the triangle, there are traces of Polynesian settlement as far north as Necker Island (Mokumanamana), as far east as Salas y Gómez Island (Motu Motiro Hiva), and as far south as Enderby Island (Motu Maha). Also, there have once been Polynesian settlements on Norfolk Island and the Kermadec Islands (Rangitahua). By the time the Europeans first arrived, these islands were all uninhabited.