Why did they build those statues on Easter Island ?
To be honest no one really knows. Most theories say they were for some type of religious worship and that they embodied the spirit after death. It must have been one heavy duty popular religion because they are around 900 of these statues on the island finished and unfinished. Some weighing in at 80 tons and 35 feet high. The average is like 15 feet tall and weighing in at 14 tons.
So either these statues were really hot sellers on their version of a Religious Polynesian QVC channel, or it was a bunch of manic, acid dropping, artists that were perfectionists and in their minds could not get it right so they had to keep starting over, or they could have suffered from OCD or short term memory lost and was forced to keep making the same statue over and over each day, or some type of massive Kool-Aide cult that was into really big stone heads, or maybe the place was run by a Stone Quarry Union thugs and forced it’s workers to keep turning out tons of these statues to keep getting government kick-back money.
Amother theory is that Easter Island, since it is basically sitting on three extinct volcanoes, is that is part of much larger land mass that sunk due to some catastrophism and this was the stone quarry that was used for a much larger population. Then there is the theory that an ice age glacier wipes it out leaving only Easter Island as the highest peak.
Then there are those from that Ancient Astronaut theory that say the statues represent a geodetic marker for an astronomical observatory from some lost civilization and it is as a marker for visitors from other planets.
So there you go. It is mainly a big mystery as to why they were built but it is a very impressive mystery as to how they made them and moved them around the island. Hope this is helpfully in some way. There are lots of good books on it on Amazon. I have like 6 on it because it has always facanated me.