Polynesia of the plant in the Cook Islands have been radiocarbon-dated to 1000, and current thinking is that it was brought to central Polynesia c. 700 and spread across Polynesia from there, possibly by Polynesians who had traveled to South America and back. Thor Heyerdahl proposed in the mid-20th century that the Polynesians had migrated from the northwest coast of Canada by large whale-hunting dugouts, and from South America on balsa-log boats. Many anthropologists have criticised Heyerdahl's theory, including Wade Davis in his book "The Wayfinders". Davis says that Heyerdahl "ignored the overwhelming body of linguistic, ethnographic, and ethnobotanical evidence, augmented
Knut Haugland Knut Haugland Knut Magne Haugland, DSO, MM, (23 September 1917 – 25 December 2009) was a resistance fighter and noted explorer from Norway, who accompanied Thor Heyerdahl on his famous 1947 "Kon-Tiki" expedition. Haugland, born in 1917 in Rjukan, Telemark, Norway, took his examen artium in 1937, qualifying him for university study. In 1938 he enrolled in military radio studies and afterward joined the Norwegian Army. In February 1940 he was stationed in Setermoen, and soon fought in battles near Narvik as a part of the Norwegian Campaign against Germany. After Germany's defeat of the Norwegian forces and the Nazi