Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl is one of Norway Norway most famous person. He was born 6^th october in 1914 in Larvik and died 18^th April in Colla Micheri in Italy. Thor Heyerdahl was a zoologist, writer and adventurer. He was also an ethnographer that means to do research on different cultures. He first became known for his Kon-tiki expedition, where sailed 8000 km over the Pacific.

Kon-tiki

Thor Heyerdahl formed a theory that Polynesia was populated from America and not Asia as the common notion was. He wanted to prove that it could be posible for the Natice Americans to travel across the Pacific Ocean to Polynesia before the colonial era. Thor Heyerdahl started the journey 28th april 1947. The journey had to go all the way from Callao in peru, to the Tuamotu islands near Polynesia. They sailed with a balsa raft wich was an exact copy of the pre-historic Native Americans fleets. After 101 days the fleet had sailed about 8000 km across the open Pacific, and finally reached the Island Raroia in the Tuamotu Archipelago. The book about the expdition, became a bestseller and transelated into 70 languages. Thor had also filmed during the expedition. He made a documentary film, and the film received and Oscar for best documentary in 1951.

Galapagos and Easter Islands

Thor had now proved how Native Americans could come to Polynesia, but he alo wanted to prove that they actually had been there. Therefore he went on an expedition to Galapagos and Ester Islands. There he found antiquities with Native Americans origins who where both from the Inca era and older.

Ra

In May 1969 Thor Heyerdahl started a journey from Morocco to America with the boat Ra. He wanted to show that people from different countries could cooperate. He chose a crew of seven people from seven different countries and sailed with the United Nations flag.