making the moai should really be seen as a collective work event, much like the construction of the temple complex at Göbekli Tepe more than ten thousand years ago (see Chapter 5). Or more recently on the island of Nias, west of Sumatra, where in the early twentieth century as many as 525 men were observed to drag a large stone statue on a wooden sled. No doubt endeavours like these could have been carried out more efficiently, but that wasn’t the point. These were not prestige projects dreamed up by some megalomaniacal ruler. They were communal rituals that brought people together.

— Humankind by Rutger Bregman (Page 126)