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
Thor Heyerdahl Best Foreign Language Film at the 70th Golden Globe Awards. It was the first time that a Norwegian film was nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Anthropologists continue to believe that Polynesia was settled from west to east, based on linguistic, physical, and genetic evidence, migration having begun from the Asian mainland. There are controversial indications, though, of some sort of South American/Polynesian contact, most notably in the fact that the South American sweet potato is served as a dietary staple throughout much of Polynesia. Blood samples taken in 1971 and 2008 from Easter Islanders without any