Thor Heyerdahl

Heyerdahl, Thor (1914– ), Norwegian ethnologist and author best known for his expeditions to prove the feasibility of his theories of cultural diffusion. In 1947 he and his crew sailed the Pacific on rafts to demonstrate the possibility that the Polynesians may have originated in South America. His book Kon-Tiki was an account of the voyage. He also sailed across the Atlantic in rafts (The Ra Expeditions, 1969 and 1970) and did the same in the Persian Gulf, trying to show that the Sumerians could have reached Africa by sea (Tigris, 1977–78).

See also: Ethnography.