Pre-Columbian rafts voyaged as far as Mexico and introduced metallurgy to the civilizations of that country. Some scholars and adventurers of the 20th and 21st century have asserted that the rafts and their crews journeyed thousands of miles across the Pacific to Polynesia, most notably Thor Heyerdahl who reached Polynesia on the Kon-Tiki raft. Several other people and groups have also built rafts based on prehistoric models and undertaken trans-Pacific voyages. Balsa is the Spanish word for raft. The use of rafts for commerce on the coasts of Peru and Ecuador, from northern Chile to southern Colombia, continued until the late 19th
Kon-Tiki expedition sea. A book documenting the voyage and raft was released in 1948 by Thor Heyerdahl, called "". A film documentary about the voyage and raft was released in 1950, called "Kon-Tiki". It won the 1951 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. "Kon-Tiki" is a 2012 Norwegian historical dramatized feature film about the 1947 "Kon-Tiki" expedition. It stars Pål Sverre Valheim Hagen as Thor Heyerdahl and is directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg. It was the highest-grossing film of 2012 in Norway and the country's most expensive production to date. Kon-Tiki expedition The "Kon-Tiki" expedition was a 1947 journey by raft