I canāt speak for the dna data, itās often a lot more contested and contestable than popular depictions of it, but historical records hold a very different nuance to the collapse theory. And also the post colonisation/kidnap/slavery collapse.
And rightly so. We see this pattern aDNA studies a lot:
āHere the authors require the bones of 15 āancientā Rapanui individuals to carry the heavy weight of paradigm shifting but without the aid of archaeological support. The 15 bones they studied were among hundreds removed post-European contact from the mixed contents of exposed or open cists,ā she told Live Science in an email. āThose collected by Pinart have no proper documentation and only a few crania in similar collections world wide have thus far been traced by multiple researchers to even a site name.ā
Basically they used bones they canāt securely date to more than something between the Middle Ages and the Age of Steam because they were ripped out of ancestral burials that might still have been in use and shipped to France.
Thereās a lot of hubris in aDNA studies where they often feel they donāt need archaeological contextualisation because their methods are better and can speak on their own.
Police evidence has entered the chatā¦.
Send a copy of that to Max at Tasting History! That would be fascinating.
ETA: BoingBoing gets a shout-out from the guy who owns this ghost town!
Noooo, Keanu! Donāt get involved with that huckster! 
