BY VIRTUAL MEETING ON FRIDAY 4/10/2020 - LINK WILL BE POSTED AS SOON AS AVAILABLE. Dr. Hunt will share results from nearly 20 years of field research on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Among his findings, he and his colleagues have discovered how hundreds of multi-ton statues were transported to every part of the island. Painstaking, detailed study of the island’s nearly 1000 statues revealed they were engineered for transport in rather ingenious ways. Hunt’s scientific research complements the native islanders’ oral traditions and reveals how the history of Rapa Nui has been so dramatically misunderstood and misrepresented.
Dr. Terry Hunt ~ Biography
Dr. Terry Hunt is Dean of the UA Honors College and Professor of Anthropology in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Hawaii in 1976, his master’s degree at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1980, and his Ph.D. in 1989 from the University of Washington. Dr. Hunt previously served as dean of the Robert D. Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon, where the college secured a top 10 ranking by Public University Honors. In September, 2017 he was named dean of the UA Honors College. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on the human and environmental histories of the Pacific Islands, where he has conducted field research for more than 4 decades. Dr. Hunt has led study abroad courses for the past 18 years to Rapa Nui (otherwise known as Easter Island). He is the author of “The Statues That Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island and his research was the focus of a National Geographic magazine cover story and a Nova-National Geographic TV documentary in 2012.
