1 Valentí Rull / Núria Cañellas-Boltà / Alberto Sáez / Santiago Giralt / Sergi Pla-Rabes / Olga Margalef Palaeoecology and human history of Easter Island (southern Pacific Ocean): some problems and potential solutions Abstract This paper briefly reviews the current hypotheses and their supporting palaeoecological evidence regarding Easter Island history since its human occupation, with emphasis on the assumed overexploitation of natural resources that allegedly caused an ecological and cultural collapse. The hypotheses about this keystone event in the history of the island are classified into anthropic (active deforestation by humans, excessive fruit consumption by introduced rats), climatic (forest demise due to mid-late Holocene droughts and/or other climate shifts), and combined (synergistic interactions among anthropic and climatic factors). It is concluded that the level of uncertainty about the tempo and mode of both human occupation and eventual deforestation, as well as their potential causes, is still too high for a definite statement. The existing evidence is utilised here to erect new hypotheses and to conceive appropriate studies to test them. The first available results of these studies are succinctly explained, and new promising outcomes are devised. Keywords: Rapa Nui, human settlement, deforestation, ecological disaster, societal collapse