Vital Alsar Pacific raft expeditions that ancient mariners knew the Pacific currents and winds as well as modern humans know road maps. It was hoped to double the distance achieved by the Kon-Tiki expedition, the 1947 raft crossing by Thor Heyerdahl from South America to the Polynesian islands. Like the Kon-Tiki expedition, the aim was to see if a raft made from the materials available in the 16th century in pre-Columbian South America, when such vessels had been observed by Spanish sailors, could navigate the journey. Having been surprised by the seaworthiness of La Balsa, being confident they could have gone on to reach Africa
Marquesan Dog and is visible today at the site of Iʻipona. Only one of the dog carving is discernible now; the other one has weathered away. In 1956, Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl later claimed the reliefs on Tiki Makiʻi Tauʻa Pepe were llamas or pumas instead to bolster his theory that Polynesia was settled from South America. Later unidentified writers and rumors have insinuated that Heyerdahl deliberately altered and defaced the images in his process of restoring them. The modern consensus is that the carvings represent the extinct dog; they do not represent llamas, pumas or rats. In 1956, Robert