The Viracocha expedition first reed boats built? Were ancient mariners able to cover large distances in reed rafts? Did ancient cultures utilize the ocean currents and winds as highways rather than barriers in search of new lands? Were the ancient navigators able to find their way across endless miles of ocean? These are questions the scientific world has debated for centuries. The expeditions of explorer/anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl captured the imagination of the world with the Kon-Tiki balsa log raft voyage on the Pacific in 1947, his Ra Expedition, a reed raft journey across the Atlantic in 1970 and his Tigris reed boat voyage
Tuamotuan language they were settled c. 700 AD by people from the Society Islands. Europeans first discovered the islands in 1521, when Ferdinand Magellan reached them while sailing across the Pacific Ocean. Subsequent explorers visited the islands over the centuries, including Thor Heyerdahl, the famous Norwegian ethnographer who sailed the Kon-Tiki expedition across the Pacific in 1947. The effects of early European visits were marginal as they had no political effects. The language, however, was ultimately affected by the Tahitian language, which was itself affected by European expansion. The eventual arrival of European missionaries in the 19th century also led to loanwords,