Thor Heyerdahl, one of the most important explorers of the 20th century, led in 1947 a dangerous scientific expedition with the purpose of demonstrating the origin of the first Polynesian settler. The Norwegian argued that the Pacific archipelagos had not only been colonized by navigators from Asia, but also by indigenous people from pre-Columbian South America. Among other clues, Heyerdahl clung to the legend of Kon-Tiki Virakocha, a pre-Inca God-King who, before being venerated by the indigenous people of the Pacific Islands as the founder of their race, had been expelled from Peru after lose a battle on the islands of Lake Titicaca. According to Polynesian oral tradition, the boss-God He had fled the massacre, along with other survivors, aboard large wooden boats heading towards the sunset. If the myth corresponds to reality, the ships were probably pushed by the Humboldt Current and the trade winds until they ran aground on land.
Despite opposition from much of the scientific community, Heyerdahl He managed to finance the adventure through sponsors and the North American army., who gave him experimental material to equip the primitive raft on which the six explorers who were part of the expedition were going to travel. The technicians who inspected the raft built at the Callao Naval Station They saw to their horror how the ropes that tied the nine enormous logs of which the prehistoric vessel was composed could fall apart during the planned journey of more than 4,000 nautical miles (7,400 km).
The Kon-Tiki expedition, one of the most memorable adventures of the last century, proposed an alternative migratory theory to those accepted at its time and, although It was not decisive at a scientific level, it demonstrated that the prehistoric peoples of Peru had the capacity to make long journeys through the open sea. The notes made by Thor during the trip served as the basis for publishing, a year later, a highly successful book that It was translated into more than 70 languages.