Posted on 04/08/2002 4:57:41 AM PDT by blam
Kon-Tiki theory floats again after 50 years
April 07 2002 at 02:16PM
Guimar, Canary Islands - Thor Heyerdahl's theories on ancient seafarers spreading civilization were initially ridiculed by scientists, but a younger generation is studying his ideas from five decades ago as the basis for new ideas about early cultural exchanges.
Robson Bonnichsen, who studies how the American continent became populated, calls Heyerdahl "a visionary ahead of his time".
Bonnichsen, director of the Centre for the Study of the First Americans at Oregon State University, said that many experts now give serious consideration to the idea that people in boats sailed along the Pacific Rim.
"Our perception of the peopling of the Americas is changing" and encompasses more than one colonisation, including an early population from south-east Asia, he said.
"A lot of new ideas are on the table - and Thor Heyerdahl led the way years ago," he said.
The new theories suggest that American settlement was much more complex than first thought and that migrants arrived more than once and from different parts of the world.
Dennis Stanford, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, has even suggested some American ancestors could have come from Spain during the Ice Age, arriving in Maine after skirting the ice of the North Atlantic in boats.
Walter Neves of the University of Sao Paulo is gathering evidence suggesting that early South Americans originated in Australia or South Asia and possibly crossed the Pacific.
Erika Hagelberg, a geneticist at the University of Oslo, says the study of DNA in the Pacific has not proven Heyerdahl's theories right or wrong. "There is definitely a genetic connection between Polynesians and Native Americans, but it probably traces back to a common origin in Asia," she said.
Hagelberg, who has received some Kon-Tiki Museum grant support, says there is no genetic data that indicates a strong South America influence in Polynesia, but "that does not rule out a connection, as there are many reasons why South American genes might not be detected in Polynesia today".
She noted that it will probably take scholars from various sciences to thoroughly examine Heyerdahl's work and lauded him for the way he crossed the boundaries between scientific disciplines.
Further praise for Heyerdahl is evinced by the 11 honorary doctorates he has received from universities in the Americas and Europe.
In his 1997 memoir, "In the Footsteps of Adam", he frequently makes the point that academic specialists often fail to see the wood for the trees.
"The more I do and the more I see, the more I realise the shocking extent of ignorance that exists among the scholarly circles that call themselves authorities and pretend to have a monopoly of all knowledge," he wrote. - Sapa-AP
I was enchanted with the book and how fascinating the concept of crossing the ocean on a fancy raft was. Esp. without any fancy tools or equipment, just knowledge of the waves and stars. I still don't understand how it can be done.
A valid indictment of our educational system.
Worth a repeat.
Man, can I relate to that.
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I absolutely agree.
The ones who want us to believe they are the experts, who have spent years learning (what someone wanted them to learn) seem to have the most closed minds I've ever encountered.
It takes intelligence to learn, but wisdom to admit you might be wrong.
From T.H.'s books Kon-Tiki and Aku-Aku one would not necessarily understand the Polynesians to have bên populãted out of South American populations at all. TH suggested that the NW coast Indians from Canada and Washington State migrated south through Mexico and Peru and thence across the Pacific. The polynesian, especially Maori, and NW coast cultures share some remarkable similarities in woodwork and use of feathers, among other things.
Bingo your comment! Amazing how many "experts" have dismissed clear evidence because "it could not possibly have happened that way". Then the venerable Mr. Heyerdahl comes along and smashes that argument!
I have enjoyed several of TH books - tho it was telling that the RA Expedition opened with a disclaimer about the "Mormon Golden Bible" -- science is not isolated from the rest of the world or society.
(No flames please, just a note about one of the factors in his book)
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