Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in biology with specialisation in zoology, botany and geography. He is known for his adventurous expeditions.
Heyerdahl became world famous in 1947 when he crossed the Pacific Ocean with the Kon-Tiki raft. The raft was made of balsa wood. For over a century, scientists had debated whether balsa rafts were seaworthy. And whether natives of South America could have populated the Pacific Islands. Heyerdahl traveled out with Kon-Tiki to find out more about this. The raft was a copy of the rafts used by the Indians along the coast of Peru and Ecuador at the time when the first Europeans arrived.
Later, Heyerdahl made other voyages to demonstrate the possibility of contact between widely separated ancient peoples, notably the Ra II expedition of 1970, when he sailed from the west coast of Africa to Barbados in a papyrus reed boat. He was appointed a government scholar in 1984.
He died on 18 April 2002 in Colla Micheri, Italy, while visiting close family members. The Norwegian government gave him a state funeral in Oslo Cathedral on 26 April 2002.
Source: Posten Norge
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