#Kon-TikiExpedition

[whencyclopedia]

Kon-Tiki Expedition

The Kon-Tiki expedition of 1947, led by the Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002), successfully crossed 8,000 km (5,000 miles) of the Pacific Ocean from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands on a balsa-wood raft. The aim of the expedition was to demonstrate that ancient peoples could have crossed the Pacific from east to west using ocean currents and so possibly populated Polynesia. The consensus of modern scientists, however, is that Polynesia was first populated from the west.

Heyerdahl's four-month crossing of the Pacific is one of the most famous examples of experimental archaeology, where theories are put to the test of physical realities. Heyerdahl wrote a bestselling book about this epic voyage, The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas, first published in Norwegian in 1948 and then in many other languages.

Heyerdahl & Tiki

Thor Heyerdahl was born in Norway in 1914. He studied zoology and geography at the University of Oslo, and, as part of his ongoing research, he and his wife, Liv, lived on the small island of Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas group in Polynesia in 1937. One night, Heyerdahl talked to an old man called Tei Tetua. As they gazed out from the beach to the vast Pacific Ocean, Tei Tetua mentioned that according to oral legend, a chief and sun god called Tiki had been the founder of the population there and that he had come from "a big country beyond the sea" (Heyerdahl, 14). Heyerdahl was struck with the idea that perhaps voyagers from ancient South America had indeed crossed the Pacific. Heyerdahl was also struck by similarities in the monumental sculpture and architecture of Polynesia and South America, and that the Inca civilization of Peru had believed in a sun god Viracocha, once called Kon-Tiki. Scientists in 1947 were not wholly agreed on who had first settled Polynesia. Heyerdahl proposed that settlers came from the ancient Americas. In this, he would be proved wrong, but the migration theory became less important than proving the physical possibility of sea travel over vast distances using only ancient design and materials. As Heyerdahl himself noted, "where science stopped imagination began" (Heyerdahl, 16).

Heyerdahl believed, based on sketches made by the first Europeans in South America, that the ancient people, if they had crossed the Pacific, would have done so using balsa-wood rafts, the craft they had used for centuries to travel up and down the coast. East-direction currents and winds would carry any raft across the Pacific, provided it stayed afloat. Heyerdahl was determined to build his own raft, but in order to prove long sea voyages had been possible in antiquity, the raft would have to be built without using modern techniques and materials. Heyerdahl now faced two groups of sceptics: those who thought his theory of migration nonsense and those who thought the idea of a raft crossing the Pacific suicidal. The Norwegian pressed on regardless and found funding from a newspaper on the promise of future articles and a lecture tour. The expedition was also bolstered by material supplies from other explorers and both US and UK military organisations, which were keen to test items like dried rations.

Thor Heyerdahl, 1951

Al Ravenna (Public Domain)

Continue reading...

[whencyclopedia]

This map illustrates the route and story of the Kon-Tiki Expedition (1947), a groundbreaking voyage led by Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002), in which a crew of six sailed a balsa-wood raft from Callao, Peru, to Raroia Atoll in the Tuamotu Islands of Polynesia. Covering 8,000 km (5,000 miles) in 101 days, the journey aimed to test Heyerdahl’s theory that pre-Columbian South Americans could have reached...