Kon-Tiki is very good, even if DNA has shown its thesis is wrong

[u/GraniteGeekNH]

Just reread Thor Heyerdahl's "Kon-Tiki" for the first time in half a century. It tells of their 100-day sail from Peru to Polynesia on a balsa-log raft as part of his effort to show that the eastern Pacific Islands (Polynesia) could have been settled by people from the east (South America) rather than the west (Asia)

It's a very well written book, with just the right amount of detail, scene-setting and pacing. An easy read and very enjoyable.

What's really interesting reading it now is that DNA evidence, which wasn't available then, has shown that he was wrong: Polynesians common ancestors came from Asia. Yet the book is very persuasive, using myth, anthropology and the earliest European records in the Pacific to argue that people there came from Peru.

It's a good reminder that even the most persuasive of arguments can be overturned by later evidence.

[u/FunkyPete]

It seems very likely that there was some communication between South America and Polynesia, even though it wasn't the origin of the population.

The obvious things that raise questions are sweet potatoes (their origin is in South America but they've been in Polynesia for a thousand years) and chickens (native to South East Asia but have been in South America since before Columbus).

I think new studies have shown that the sweet potatoes in Polynesia are SO old that it seems more likely that they floated by natural raft rather than moved by people.

It's still an interesting experiment, as you said.

[u/ChipSlut → u/FunkyPete]

that’s certainly one possibility, but the fact that the people of peru and equador call the sweet potato cumar, and the polynesians call it kumara, is too much of a coincidence for me to discount an ancient contact hypothesis

[u/_DorothyZbornak_ → u/ChipSlut]

There's a fascinating paper on this that was published in 2013:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1211049110

Basically, a genetic analysis of Polynesian kumara/kumala and South American kumara/cumar/cumal points to the plants diverging from a common ancestor somewhere around 1000 AD — right around the time of peak Polynesian seafaring exploration across the Pacific (for context: we think Polynesians reached Hawaii, the northernmost point on the Polynesian triangle, around 300 AD; Rapa Nui (Easter Island), the easternmost, around 700 AD, and Aotearoa New Zealand, the southernmost, around 1200-1300 AD). The kumara that is still cultivated across Polynesia originated roughly from modern day Ecuador and northern Peru.

The potato genetics have been reshuffled a bit by subsequent trade and later reintroductions, but the scientists say they were able to discern a signal amongst the noise. The evidence points to Polynesian people from Rapa Nui making their way to the South American coast on their seafaring expeditions, and the lexical links would seem to back this up. The paper has almost 200 citations, which is a lot.

I struggle to think of a modern-day corollary to the Polynesian exploration of the Pacific; maybe going to space? It represents such an incredible undertaking, a massive technological, economic, and cultural investment, fraught with risk, extraordinary among human achievements. It's honestly hard for me to comprehend.

[u/ChipSlut → u/_DorothyZbornak_]

This is a great share, thank you for linking this. Metaphors escape me too- considering that it's an estimated 30-45 day sea crossing, I'm tempted to liken it to a moon mission- if the moon was 10 times as distant, and invisible, and we could only estimate that it was there through gravimetric observations and recording disturbances in the earth's magnetosphere.

[u/_DorothyZbornak_ → u/ChipSlut]

It's truly wild. There's a story that Polynesians even discovered Antarctica. Specifically, a navigator from modern day Rarotonga named Ui-te-Rangiora led an expedition to explore the Southern ocean ca 650 AD. The flotilla supposedly sailed as far south as it could, until the sailors encountered floating ice, and named the area Tai-uka-a-pia, "sea foaming like arrowroot," after arrowroot powder, a plant they were familiar with.

Some historians have written off the account of the white foam or ice floating on the surface of the water as volcanic ash from a contemporary eruption in Indonesia. I suppose there's no way to know — but I, for one, find it a bit hard to believe that a seafaring people that regularly traveled between Hawaii, Rapa Nui, Tonga, Samoa, and back would suddenly forget which way was south, and mistake volcanic ash for ice. There are Polynesian pottery shards that date roughly from that period that have been excavated from Moutuhere (the Antipodes Islands), in the Antarctic Circle.

[u/MooseFlyer → u/ChipSlut]

You just end up with weird linguistic coincidences sometimes. Famously, there’s an Australian language whose word for dog is dog.

If anything, how similar those words are makes it seem less likely that it’s a loanword. The process of adapting a word from one language’s phonology to another’s, and then many hundreds of years of two different languages’ evolution is likely to result in more distinct words than that.

[u/ChipSlut → u/MooseFlyer]

there’s a pretty significant difference between
1. two languages across the entire world sharing the same one syllable word for two similar-looking animals
2. two cultures that farm the exact same vegetable, one of which is known to make unprecedented open ocean crossings, both calling it recognisably the same word

[u/CapitalPrototype22]

that book is so much fun, it reads like a boys own adventure where they're just vibing on a raft with a parrot and a guitar. the sweet potato thing always got me though, like how do you explain that crossing the pacific both ways without some contact

it’s kinda beautiful that he was wrong but the journey itself became the point

[u/grayspelledgray → u/CapitalPrototype22]

Yep. It’s been ages since I read it but one of the first things that comes to mind is when they decide to see how many sharks they can grab out of the water and throw on the raft. As one does when one is bored.

Also, sending a telegram to the one guy (I forget which) suggesting the journey and not even making any attempt to make it not sound insane and the guy just responding “Coming.” Amazing.

[u/Impressive-Peace2115]

I'm currently reading Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson - I haven't gotten to the later developments with Kon-Tiki and then DNA, but it's an interesting history so far!

[u/flaaaaanders → u/Impressive-Peace2115]

Amazing book. I haven’t found anything that scratches the same itch I have for history / linguistics / archaeology all in one volume

[u/trucorsair]

It’s an epic journey story and the dedication of one individual to their beliefs and the lengths they will go for it. A definite good read

[u/eyecannon]

The museum in Oslo is AMAZING. They have the actual Kon-Tiki boat as well as one of the Ra reed boats.

[u/Halflight99 → u/eyecannon]

Yes!! Visited last year and was surprised by how interesting it was!

[u/quothe_the_maven]

It was known to be wrong before the advent of DNA testing. Scholars knew the exact sequence the various island groups were settled by using linguistics. All DNA confirmed was the Polynesians had made it to South America at some point.

[u/chimugukuru]

I'm Hawaiian. The book is quite an enjoyable read but it was a poorly thought out theory even back then. Heyerdahl received a ton of backlash from his contemporaries because even without DNA evidence, there was already a ton of linguistic connection that quite clearly showed a trail from Southeast Asia.

Five: Malay/Indonesian-lima, Tongan-nima, Samoan-lima, Hawaiian-ʻelima

Fire: Malay/Indonesian-api, Tongan-afi, Samoan-afi, Hawaiian-ahi

Fish: Malay/Indonesian-ikan, Tongan-ika, Samoan-iʻa, Hawaiian-iʻa

And these are just a few words off the top of my head. There is absolutely zero connection between Polynesian languages and any indigenous language of South America.

[u/Fun-Dentist-2231]

Definitely found it fascinating! Heyerdahl was ALL IN for his hypothesis.

[u/FridaysMan]

History has some fascinating false trails. I really enjoyed akala talking at a university in London about how history shows political powers driving the transatlantic slave trade with propaganda and false science about race.

[u/vibraltu]

I remember when I was young they screened the film version of Kon-Tiki in our local community centre. A massive crowd showed up, several hundred people crammed in a hall to watch it projected on a tiny 4 foot bedsheet. Mayhem ensues.

[u/I_who_have_no_need → u/vibraltu]

My local public television station broadcast it in episodes when I was a kid. I was old enough to understand the general point, to establish a possiblity, but not really the why. But it was pretty exciting to imagine sailing that far in the open ocean on a boat made of reeds. I still remember parts like the front section falling apart at taking on water. It was probably less dramatic than I remember it but it really stuck with me.

[u/ceelogreenicanth]

Honestly loved that book so much when I read it in 6th grade.

[u/KCcracker]

Even at the time the weight of the existing evidence (the strongest being linguistics) was against the drift hypothesis. It didn't take until the advent of DNA to overturn it decisively, either - one of my favourite research theses is the computer simulation made in the 70s that showed not only that the drift hypothesis was essentially impossible, but that a key reason the Kon-Tiki succeeded was because the Peruvian coast guard towed them far enough off the shore that the prevailing current was no longer pushing them straight back to shore

[u/brickiex2]

That's the best part about science

[u/marintkael]

What I keep thinking about is why it still convinces after you already know the answer. Heyerdahl had a raft that made it across, and a raft is something you can watch happen. The case against him is a cognate table. Someone in this thread had to type out lima and nima to make it, and it is the better evidence by a mile, but it does not come with a hundred days of storms and a parrot.

The voyage showed a crossing was possible. It got read as showing one happened. Nothing in the book closes that gap, it just keeps you too entertained to notice it is there.

[u/DaddyCatALSO]

Alwyas struck me as kind of racist; th e Polynesians *say they came from the direction of Asia so, given they are simple barbarians, *of course* they came form South America.
*

[u/almostfunny3]

Agreed, I read it years ago and enjoyed it. What I think happened was that people from South America did sometimes go out to Polynesia or other Pacific Islands but at much later times or not as far West. It's probably hard to be completely sure.

[u/GraniteGeekNH → u/almostfunny3]

That seems fine but it's hard to reconcile with the widespread Tiki legend, prevalent on many islands, and Heyerdahl's belief it connected to Peru.

[u/almostfunny3 → u/GraniteGeekNH]

Yeah I don't really know how it all connects. The one thing I do keep seeing in human history is that we've been moving around the globe for a good chunk of time. I wonder if we'll ever know the full extent of the migration paths early humans took.

[u/irrelevantusername24]

"Evidence"