Showing posts with label Kon-Tiki. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kon-Tiki. Show all posts

October 6 Happy Birthday, Thor Heyerdahl

Posted on October 6, 2021


This is an update of my post published on October 6, 2010:



Born on this day in 1914 in Norway, Heyerdahl became an ethnographer. What the heck is an ethnographer, you ask? This is an anthropologist who deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures. Heyerdahl had a background in geography and zoology, which came in handy for his first expeditions to remote South Pacific islands, where he was to study how animals first came to the islands.

Heyerdahl is most famous for one particular expedition. He had discovered some native legends and some archeological evidence that suggested that Inca Indians from South America could have had contact with South Pacific islanders thousands of miles away. Although old Spanish reports of Incas included drawings of their rafts, most people didn't believe that Incas could travel so far with their technology.


Heyerdahl and his Kon-Tiki expedition proved it was possible when they went to Peru and used native materials and Inca techniques to build a raft with sails and a hut-like shelter, based on the old drawings. They then set out on a 4,300-mile (8,000 km) journey!


The Kon-Tiki traveled across the South Pacific for 101 days. The balsa-wood raft turned out to be easy to maneuver, and fish congregated between the logs in such great numbers that the expedition members could stay fed and hydrated. The raft carried the adventurers from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands.

Since this famous voyage, other rafts have repeated the feat. Heyerdahl continued his career with other exciting expeditions (such as crossing the Atlantic Ocean with a papyrus reed boat, the Ra).



Thor's Theories

Heyerdahl built up some theories about the colonization of the South Pacific Islands based on some old legends and some likenesses of statutes and structures and other artifacts. His ideas were exciting to many but never gained acceptance by anthropologists, and later data such as mitochondrial DNA has shown that the majority of anthropologists were right, and Heyerdahl wrong.


However, Heyerdahl's spectacular expeditions did rouse public interest in anthropology and also showed the benefits of experimental archaeology.

Do you have a theory of how an ancient culture could have built a pyramid, a henge (like the famous Stonehenge), or a monumental sculpture? Maybe you, too, can work to gather a team to try out your ideas: recreate ancient tools using native materials—and build a similar structure yourself!






Also on this date:







Birthday of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer






War "Holidays" in Egypt and Syria







(First Wednesday of October)


National Kale Day
(First Wednesday of October)





National Pumpkin Seed Day
(First Wednesday of October)



(First Wednesday of October)





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August 7 - Kon Tiki Smash!

Posted on August 7, 2020

These giant headed statues - and the unusual name of the islands where they're found - are they familiar to you? 

Statues on Easter Island 






 Would it surprise you to know that Easter Island is located in the South Pacific?



Would it surprise you to know that it is a special territory of Chile?


Easter Island's first inhabitants settled the island around 1200 A.D. - the time when Europe was still in the middle of "medieval times" and Genghis Khan was busy setting up the Mongol Empire. A Norwegian explorer and writer named Thor Heyerdahl believed that these first inhabitants, the Rapa Nui, came from Peru. But this idea goes against the oral history of the Rapa Nui. Also, studies of culture and language tie the Rapa Nui to other Eastern Polynesian peoples such as Hawaiians and Tahitians. 

Basically, Heyerdahl was almost surely wrong. (But, if you keep reading, you will find out that he is probably also partly right!)

Heyerdahl got it into his head that the big-headed statues - which are called moai - are more like pre-Columbian Peru art than like Polynesian art. In 1947, he set out to prove that sea travel between Peru and Easter Island was possible with the kinds of materials and seafaring knowledge that Peruvians had back in the 1200s.

Heyerdahl presided over the construction of a wooden raft. It was made from nine balsa tree trunks lashed together with hemp ropes. Pine splashboards were added to the bow so that the raft wouldn't sink in the waves, and mangrove wood was used to create A-frame masts. 


Heyerdahl named the raft Kon-Tiki. He outfitted the raft with drinking water in both modern cans as well as sealed bamboo rods, which would have been like water containers created by early Peruvians. He also carried coconuts, sweet potatoes, and other fruits and roots. Of course, he had packed some modern equipment - radios and cameras, for example - but those pieces of equipment were to keep the expedition safe and to record the journey. They were incidental to proving the claim that early Peruvians could have made the ocean crossing.



Along with five companions and a pet parrot, Heyerdahl sailed the raft for 101 days. On this date in 1947, the Kon-Tiki smashed into a reef surrounding an island in Eastern Polynesia (an island called Raroia, not Easter Island), and all six men safely disembarked.

I imagine that this was a later photo.
The Kon-Tiki crew did not look like THIS
after 101 days on the ocean!

They had crossed almost 7,000 km (around 4,300 miles) of open ocean.

Even though Heyerdahl's expedition didn't reach Easter Island itself, the raft journey was proof-of-concept that pre-Columbian Peruvians could have made the sea journey to the island. 

Since Heyerdahl's time, we now have the ability to trace genetic heritage through DNA evidence. And - although scholars say that the Rapa Nui were Polynesian - DNA evidence indicates that at least a few Peruvians did indeed make the sea crossing. There was a "genetic mixing event" near the beginning of humans living on Easter Island!

Even though the moai have disproportionally large heads,
they DO also have bodies. But in some shots, we see
moai that are buried up to their shoulders...and so we
often think of the Easter Island statues as being giant
heads!


Also on this date:
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October 6, 2010


Happy Birthday, Thor Heyerdahl


Born on this day in 1914 in Norway, Heyerdahl became an ethnographer. What the heck is an ethnographer, you ask? This is an anthropologist who deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures. Heyerdahl had a background in geography and zoology, which came in handy for his first expeditions to remote South Pacific islands, where he was to study how animals first came to the islands.

Heyerdahl is most famous for one particular expedition. He had discovered some native legends and some archeological evidence that suggested that Inca Indians from South America could have had contact with South Pacific islanders thousands of miles away. Although old Spanish reports of Incas included drawings of their rafts, most people didn't believe that Incas could travel so far with their technology. Heyerdahl and his Kon-Tiki expedition proved it was possible when they went to Peru and used native materials and Inca techniques to build a raft with sails and a hut-like shelter, based on the old drawings. They then set out on a 4,300-mile (8,000 km) journey!

The Kon-Tiki traveled across the South Pacific for 101 days. The balsa-wood raft turned out to be easy to maneuver, and fish congregated between the logs in such great numbers that the expedition members could stay fed and hydrated. The raft carried the adventurers from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands.

Since this famous voyage, other rafts have repeated the feat. Heyerdahl continued his career with other exciting expeditions (such as crossing the Atlantic Ocean with a papyrus reed boat, the Ra, pictured here).


Thor's Theories

Heyerdahl built up some theories about the colonization of the South Pacific Islands based on some old legends and some likenesses of statutes and structures and other artifacts. His ideas were exciting to many but never gained acceptance by anthropologists, and later data such as mitochondrial DNA has shown that the majority of anthropologists were right, and Heyerdahl wrong.

However, Heyerdahl's spectacular expeditions did rouse public interest in anthropology and also showed the benefits of experimental archaeology. Do you have a theory of how an ancient culture could have built a pyramid, a henge, or a monumental sculpture? Try out your ideas by recreating ancient tools using native materials—and build a similar structure yourself!


Find out more!

Here is a short biography of Heyerdahl and his most exciting expeditions—with plenty of photos!

And here are even more photos (and even a short silent video) of the Kon-Tiki expedition. 

The Academy Award winning documentary of the Kon-Tiki expedition is available on You Tube!  Warning: it's an hour long and seems to me to be a bit slow. This 2-minute video with real footage of the raft bangs right into the exciting stuff and hints at some of the dangers and difficulties. 



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