Thor Heyerdahl, Ph.D., 1914-2002
by
The FERCO* Scientific Committee
Daniel H. Sandweiss, President (dan.sandweiss@umit.maine.edu, 207-581-1889)
Donald P. Ryan, Vice-President (RyanDP@plu.edu, )
James B. Richardson III (RichardsonJ@CarnegieMuseums.Org, 412-665-2601)
Madeleine Lynn (mf.lynn@verizon.net)


Thor Heyerdahl, intrepid Norwegian explorer, anthropologist and author died on April 18 in Italy. He was eighty-seven.

Born on October 6, 1914 in the small town of Larvik, Norway, Heyerdahl was interested in exploration and the Pacific from a very early age. After studying zoology and geography at the University of Oslo, he and his new bride sailed in 1936 to the remote Polynesian island of Fatu Hiva, where Heyerdahl was determined to get back to nature and to study the flora and fauna. While there, he became more interested in how Polynesia was first settled by people and the questions of long-distance migration and cross-cultural contacts in ancient times were to become the main themes of a lifetime of research.

At that time, most scientists believed that Polynesia was populated by people sailing from the west directly from Asia. Heyerdahl, however, noted that the winds and currents came steadily from the east and that South American plants such as the sweet potato were to be found in Polynesia. Contrary to the prevailing scientific opinion, he postulated that people could have reached the islands much more easily from the Americas to the east. After serving in the Free Norwegian Forces during World War II, Heyerdahl sailed over 4,000 miles from Peru to Polynesia in 1947 on a balsa-wood raft named the Kon-Tiki, accurately modeled after ancient South American rafts. The voyage of the Kon-Tiki demonstrated that such voyages were theoretically possible. He followed this up with archaeological work in the Galapagos Islands and a landmark expedition to Easter Island in the 1950’s to show that South Americans had, indeed, been in the Pacific before Columbus crossed the Atlantic. To carry out the Galapagos and Easter Island projects, Heyerdahl recruited an international team of professional archaeologists, setting the pattern he was to follow in all his archaeological research.

In the 1960’s and 70’s, Heyerdahl made three experimental voyages in reed ships modeled after ancient seacraft. The first two voyages traversed the Atlantic in the papyrus ships Ra I and Ra II. The expeditions were designed to demonstrate that such ancient craft were capable of surviving ocean voyages carrying both people and their ideas to far-flung lands. With a crew composed of diverse ethnic, religious and political backgrounds, Heyerdahl emphasized the ability for all people to cooperate and also called international attention to the pollution of the world’s oceans. The third voyage, aboard the reed ship “Tigris”, traveled from Iraq to the Red Sea via Pakistan to demonstrate that contact was feasible between the great ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and Egypt.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s, Heyerdahl organized and led archaeological projects to the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean and again to Easter Island, and from 1988-94 he investigated a complex of 26 ancient pyramids at Tucume, Peru. Like his earlier expeditions, these projects were designed to study long-distance interaction in prehistory. In 1994, Heyerdahl moved to Tenerife in the Canary Islands to work on a project to protect and investigate an enigmatic group of pyramids there. At that time, he co-founded FERCO, the Foundation for Exploration and Research on Cultural Origins, which awards annual research grants for scholars to explore the interactions between ancient peoples, primarily by sea.

Until March 2002, Heyerdahl continued to work on archaeological projects, and to write, give lectures and take part in public debates; keeping up a hectic schedule that would have daunted a much younger man. He was the author of numerous books and articles, both scientific and popular. Among the best known are “Kon-Tiki”, the story of his epic Pacific voyage which has been translated into 65 languages, “Aku-Aku”, about his work on Easter Island, and “The Ra Expeditions”. His last book, published in 2001 in Norwegian, was called “The Hunt for Odin”, in which he argued that the Norse God was actually a real historical figure.

The recipient of many medals, awards and honors from all over the world, he was deeply concerned about the environment and served on the Board of Green Cross International, founded by Mikhail Gorbachev.

From the very beginning of his career, Heyerdahl’s work was controversial and was routinely disputed by many scientists. He nonetheless calmly persisted in following his own vision and was always willing to enter into debate with his opponents. In fact, recent archaeological research in many areas is showing that early man was indeed much more mobile than had been previously accepted and an increasing number of scientists are gaining a new appreciation of Heyerdahl’s ideas.

Heyerdahl was a man of great personal charisma and charm and an ardent believer in friendship and cooperation across national borders. An important aspect of his research was to listen to and appreciate the oral history of indigenous people, rather than dismissing such lore as mere myth. A man of great integrity, he will be remembered as an original thinker always exploring new ideas and always seeking ways to test and improve those ideas. Additionally, he possessed extraordinary organizational abilities and leadership qualities. He was endlessly curious about the world and equally comfortable chatting with both the leaders of the world and the poorest of its inhabitants.

Heyerdahl is survived by his widow Jacqueline Beer Heyerdahl, four children, eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren

The work of Thor Heyerdahl is featured in the following museums around the world: The Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway, houses artifacts from his expeditions, including the original Kon-Tiki and Ra II experimental seacraft. The Casa de Chacona Museum at the Pyramids of Guimar Park in Tenerife, Canary Islands and Timexpo Museum in Waterbury, Connecticut in the USA both have exhibits dedicated to his research. There is also a small museum at the pyramids of Tucume site in Peru. An on-line bibliography of Heyerdahl’s writings can be found at: http://www.plu.edu/~ryandp/thor.html

The web-site of FERCO can be found at www.ferco.org

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