The work undertaken at Ahu Motu Toremo Hiva (Poike Peninsula, Easter Island) between 2004 and 2006 has brought to light several unexpected elements: the sequential emplacement of ritual platforms, testifying the use of the site that has at least two times been completely rearranged since its initial occupation in the late 13th-14th century AD, the systematic disassembling of pebble pavements before each phase of abandonment, and the recycling of one statue. All these discoveries shed new light on the history of Easter Island ritual platform construction. Now we can recognize that the abandonment of an ahu is not strictly connected with an ecological crisis: recycling, disassembling and reuse of architectural elements and statues also characterize monuments of the 14th or 15th century AD. In other respects, the geomorphologic study of the site allowed us to determine that each ahu abandonment phase was coupled with agricultural exploitation. Evidently, the traditional settlement pattern of villages inserted between the ritual platform and the agricultural land, all functioning simultaneously, must be questioned. In addition, at Ahu Motu Toremo Hiva, each abandonment of an ahu represents an important work requesting manpower and time. We propose to call this process "condemnation". These data ask a change of our approach of the story of the ahu in ruins: is it really ruins or the result of a process of "condemnation"?