Who led the Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947?
Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl, (born October 6, 1914, Larvik, Norway—died April 18, 2002, Colla Micheri, Italy), Norwegian ethnologist and adventurer who organized and led the famous Kon-Tiki (1947) and Ra (1969–70) transoceanic scientific expeditions.
Who sailed on the Kon-Tiki?
The Kon-Tiki expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl.
What did Thor Heyerdahl discover?
It was his research group that more than a decade ago discovered the first genetic evidence for early genetic contributions from Native Americans on Easter Island.
What voyage did Thor Heyerdahl make 1947?
Kon-Tiki
On August 7, 1947, Kon-Tiki, a balsa wood raft captained by Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl, completes a 4,300-mile, 101-day journey from Peru to Raroia in the Tuamotu Archipelago, near Tahiti.
Who is Heyerdahl and what did he do?
Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian explorer and scientist who rose to international fame following his 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition and the subsequent bestselling book and Oscar-winning film of the same name.
Where did Thor Heyerdahl sail?
The story of this voyage is recorded in the book The Ra Expeditions (1971) and in a documentary film. In 1977, Heyerdahl led the Tigris expedition, in which he navigated a craft made of reeds down the Tigris River in Iraq to the Persian Gulf, across the Arabian Sea to Pakistan, and finally to the Red Sea.
What did the Kon-Tiki expedition prove?
In The Voyage of the `Kon-Tiki’, the Norwegian archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl famously proved that early humans could have used the trade winds to sail from Peru to Easter Island – and thus be its first settlers.
Why was the Kon-Tiki expedition important?
After 101 days at sea the Kon-Tiki ran aground on a coral reef by the Raroia atoll in Polynesia. The expedition had been an unconditional success, and Thor Heyerdahl and his crew had demonstrated that South American peoples could in fact have journeyed to the islands of the South Pacific by balsa raft.
What did the Kon Tiki expedition prove?
Who did Thor Heyerdahl travel with?
In 1953 he traveled with two archeologists to the Galápagos Islands. Shards of prehistoric South American pottery and an Incan flute were among their findings, the evidence on which Heyerdahl and the two Norwegian archeologists, Arne Skjølsvold and Erik K.
Did the Kon Tiki really happen?
There is no doubt that the voyage of the Kon Tiki was a great adventure: three months on the open sea on a raft, drifting at the mercy of the winds and currents. That they did eventually reach Polynesia proved that such drift voyaging was possible.
Where are Polynesians originally from?
Taiwan
They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Southeast Asia and form part of the larger Austronesian ethnolinguistic group with an Urheimat in Taiwan. They speak the Polynesian languages, a branch of the Oceanic subfamily of the Austronesian language family.
Was the Kon-Tiki expedition successful?
Who first settled in Polynesia?
The first settlers of the far-flung Pacific islands of Tonga and Vanuatu likely arrived from Taiwan and the northern Philippines between 2,300 and 3,100 years ago, a new genetic analysis suggests.