Historically (and currently), the prevailing opinion was that Polynesia’s population originated in South East Asia.

Thirty years later, he wrote a popular book, called Fatu Hiva: Back to Nature, that explored that initial experience.Īlthough his youthful quest for a modern Garden of Eden in the South Seas failed, Heyerdahl returned to civilization with a new theory that contradicted the accepted view of Polynesia’s origins. Because of World War II, it never appeared in English. With barely any provisions, they spent a year on the island before returning to Oslo to write about their research in Heyerdahl’s first book, called Hunt for Paradise in Norwegian (1938). An experiment in Edenįatu Hiva was a sharp learning curve for the newlyweds, who were ill-prepared for the primitive environment they found themselves in. It was his breakthrough, experiencing as an adventurer the environment he was studying as a scholar. He promptly wed his first wife Liv, and the couple traveled to Fatu Hiva in 1937. He took a degree in zoology and geography at the University of Oslo, while simultaneously studying Polynesian culture and history, privately.Īfter university, he earned the opportunity of a lifetime: go to the South Pacific to study local animals and how they had arrived at that far-flung location. As a boy, he charged admission for visitors to view a venomous snake he’d housed in his homemade “museum”. Thor Heyerdahl spent his life trying to prove that South Americans had populated Polynesia, but advances in DNA science eventually proved him wrong.įrom an early age, Heyerdahl had a keen interest in zoology.

Heyerdahl kon tiki