Thor and the Kon Tiki
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In this video:
Thor Heyerdahl was born in Larvik, Norway on October 6, 1914. His father worked as a brewer while Heyerdahl’s mother held a leadership position at a local museum. Heyerdahl spent his childhood trekking through the forest at the edge of town and then climbing mountains with his pet husky. Despite those adventures, he only learned to swim in his twenties- nearly drowning twice when he was young led to an understandable fear of water until then.
Horatio
• Horatio
Ladies and Gentlemen.... The Beatles!
• Ladies and Gentlemen.....
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The Kon Tiki Expedition is one of my all time favourite books, I've read it three times and recommend it. He died excavating the pyramids on Tenerife where they created a museum in his name and of his life's works. I found this on holiday there by accident and nearly creamed my pants. What a guy, what an adventure!
I loved reading that book too
What a story, what a life. KON TIKI has always been in a class by itself for me. I wanted to be a writer from an early age; I succeeded partly because Heyerdahl taught me that before you can write about life, you have to live it.
I was just trying to get my wife to remember the Kon-Tiki last week.
Christopher Heyerdahl, the actor, is Thor's nephew.
Beat me to it.
Thank you for pronouncing my cousin's name correctly. (Grandfather's second cousin to be precise).
I asked him if he were going to do any more of these trips in the late 80s when I was old enough to go but he said he was getting too old for adventures.
You honor his legacy well MashMonster69
Hey we're cousins.
Are you related to Thor Heyrdahl? I only ask because I have much more trouble pronouncing "Torstein"!
I have no idea who's on the title but by the time this video is over I'll have something to share with my children, valuable knowledge!!!!
His movie was a high school staple when I attended way back when. Good job Simon, thanks.
i met the crew when they were in mooloolaba in the 60's. a very nice bunch of people.
I had a 6x6 inch piece of wood from the Kon Tiki from Mr. Thor when I was around 10 years that was one of my top 20 interesting items I had as a youth. Take me back to Ol Virginity!
We'll you're a busy man Simon. A digestive savant. But quite entertaining and informative. Learning a lot and enjoying sharing with the sons.
Finally reaching into the deep corners of Simon Whistler's Channel collection & found out I'd never heard of Highlight History.
Decided to check it out & what is the first video on the channel about? Thor Heyrdahl & Kon Tiki! You absolute legend!
I grew up reading Thor Heyrdahl's book Kon-Tiki with my father. It was like a cross between the most interesting anthropology TedTalk you could ever imagine combined with an adventure story the likes of Robinson Crusoe. The book came with copies of the many black-and-white photos taken on the trip, including the pet parrot, the tiny living cabin, & the multitude of sharks they caught.
Truly an amazing story & I can't wait to watch the video about it! (Yes I commented before I watched it. I am terrible.)
I learn a new thing every day thanks to your channel. Awesome video, keep it up!
I saw The Ra Expedition in the theater, yikes, almost 50 years ago. I remember it to this day, not because it was terribly interesting to a 10 year old, but because I thought the name Thor was the coolest thing since sliced bread.
Read the book 3 times--excellent! How they survived is a miracle.
That was one BRAVE Swede, to sail across the Pacific with five Norwegians!
😄
lol
LMFAO
I finished the book reading of kon tiki today after that I am here !! Great journey..
Growing up in the Southern Pacific in the late 1940's and 1950''s it seemed as though every home had a copy of Kon-Tiki there. Comi g out of the Pacific War against the forces of Imperial Japan I think that the story of the Kon-Tiki expedition showed the dawning of a new age of hope and a future without the terrible violence that had characterized the twentieth centuary at that time. The same can also be said for the conquering of Mt Everest by Tenzing and Hillary in 1953.
There is a theory that explains that an expedition commanded by the Inca Tupac Yupanqui could have reached Polynesia, specifically to Easter island and Mangareva, around 1465. If this turned out to be true then it would explain why the inhabitants of Easter Island have some native american dna, unlike other polynesian groups.
Have you ever looked into any of Tim Severin's exercises in experimental archeology? The Brendan Voyage, the Sindbad Voyage, et cetera? If not, then I think you'd find his work quite interesting and perhaps TH-cam-worthy.
Also check out "the epic voyage of the seven little sisters" by William Willis , he crossed like Heyerdahl on a balsa raft but went solo (apart from a cat and a parrot!).
I really enjoyed this! Thank you Simon!
Love that movie. Watched again pls the documentary last month
I remember watching the film ‘the Ra Expedition’ in its theater release.
I was unaware of the the Kon Tiki expedition.
Smash that like button.
Like most critics before and since, Dr Heyerdahl never said Polynesians were "from South America"... his theory stated Polynesians were of mixed heritage, included an older one from South America's Ecuadoran/Peruvian coast, and a later contingent originating from Southeast Asia via the Pacific Northwest coast... The Southeast Asian Pacific ancestors he argued took a route followed along to the Pacific Northwest Coast then via the Hawaiian Islands. He came to accept the "Lapita" people's drive into the area later on also...
For the South American contribution he noted cultural similarities, like stone carvings, stone walls, a limited written script, ear elongation etc, but also botanical evidence, like sweet potatoes, bottle gourds, totora reeds, cotton, and coconuts to name a few.
For the Pacific Northwest Coast route he cited cultural similarities in things like boats and fishing gear, wood carving and physical characteristics...
He did not have DNA technology at the time, but modern DNA researchers have found some small signals that infer some mixing took place. For example a July 2020 Nature article by Andrés Moreno-Estrada, Alexander Ioannidis and Javier Blanco-Portillo, estimating that a small number of people in Marquesas area produced offspring with South Americans between AD 1150 and AD 1230, whereas those of Easter Island mixed closer to AD 1380.
Some current Pacific Northwest Coast Indians seem to have a small "Oceanic" signal in their DNA but there are not enough studies done to draw firm conclusions...
Heyooo, I have just arrived on my fantastic boat!
It makes total sense that at any point in time, no matter what the actual state of technology, science and knowledge was, you would easily find SOMEONE who is either daring and tough or just crazy enough to undertake an exceptional endeavour like crossing an ocean without knowing the first thing about what to expect. Sometimes, those guys actually MUST HAVE made it, that's just statistics...so of course there was someone from Peru in Micronesia. Probably wondering about the other guy from Staffordshire who went there on a drunken bet...
6:35 - Bonus fact
You can tell Thor's kid went with its mother. It obviously heard only one side of the argument while growing up.
Brett Not necessarily. 🤷♀️.
I agree Brett.
Taking her along today vrs then ??
So Heyerdahl lit a fire in Djibouti...
I remember the 9 years old boy I was crying in front of the TV set when I saw Thor Heyerdahl had to burn his boat in Djibouti
Maybe discredited by science, but what courage to test and survive his own untested hypothesis IRL. Archetype explorer and adventurerer.
Thor Heyerdahl is/was a real life Indiana Jones.
Cool cucumber Norwegian.
I'm getting Raske Menn flashbacks
In fact it's Heyerdahl.
Not Heyerdahl -
Heyerdahl.
His views on women aside, he was kind of a badass. The original "hold my beer".
I see nothing wrong with his views on women. To me badass regardless.
He wanted a woman to hold his beer, but she had better things to do...
God forbid! He had an opinion of wamen that doesn’t make them strong and independent
The Ra II was actually construced to specifications, not of Egyptian origin, but to those of the then-current South American cuture
The first one would have worked, had one of the crew not cut the rope from bow to bottom - as it turned out it wasn't to keep the bow curled, it was to lift the bottom of the boat. But since it was cut that part of the boat sagged and accumulated water which over time caused the ship to sink.
Gods, I read that book so often as a kid.
I’m pretty amazed that ANYONE who lives near water at all doesn’t learn to swim. Actually, Simon, it would be be pretty interesting to know why a lot of SAILORS couldn’t swim🤔. It’s not that hard to learn.🤷♀️. A three year old can learn it it two weeks. I’m thinking mostly of British, but I guess Scandinavian sailors couldn’t either. Both of those places relied heavily on the ocean. It seems pretty bizarre to me.
I think it's due to the adversion of washing
I can actually answer that one - it was so they couldn't jump ship at the nearest opportunity. Life on a British Navy ship was absolutely dismal. It was dangerous, food was awful, and you were treated like shit. So sailors were discouraged from learning to swim so they couldn't get away!
The things you learn when doing research for a PotC fanfic.
Eulenkeks really? Wow. Thanks!
Aku-Aku 👍
4:22 Where'd they get that map! lol
A lot of questionable science was done on his part though and it seemed that he was far more eager to prove himself right than to actually just obtain evidence.
That statement could very possibly follow EVERY venture accomplished by man.
It's a bit more nuanced than that. His actual research and the scientific papers he published are very solid by any standard but the way he presented his expeditions to sponsors and the public was very much colored by his big ego and his need to sell to raise money.
The biggest flaw of the Kon-Tiki expedition was one that was totally out of his control: There was no way he could have known about the ancient Polynesians' ocean going canoes. That knowledge was suppressed by the early European colonialists and didn't surface again until very recently, after Heyerdahl's death.
Heyerdahl proved that it was possible to cross the gap between Polynesia and South America with a "primitive" vessel, even more primitive than what it turned out the Polynesians actually used, and biological evidence (much of it provided by Heyerdahl - he was a zoologist after all) all but proved that ancient people actually had crossed over.
Later other evidence showed that the connection had be in the opposite direction so they had to find an explanation that matched everything. If it wasn't for that, it's possible nobody would even have thought of lookign for the Polynesian ocean going canoe.
This is how good science often works. It's Hegel's principle: thesis+anithesis=>synthesis
I'm sorry but nobody with that name has existed fir the last few centuries. People with that kind of name and their special abilities did exist in the middle ages. They were big, strong, and white.
There you go talking about something interesting.g.j.
slow down!
Why are always the smartest people bald?
This is a good question.
+
It's critically important to collect DNA samples from the right people, descendants of the original inhabitants.
It is always easier to "prove" something after the man is dead and can't speak, right? This professor is like all academics, full of himself and a blow=hard. He doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
I can prove by historical evidence that Mr. Heyerdahl was correct, and I can also prove who the original people of Easter Island and New Zealand were and where they came from to get there.
Bruce Howard, MG
Retired Historian and Genealogist