‘Impossible, Why?’: Kon-Tiki, Las Balsas, and Other Experimental Voyages That Traversed the Pacific

The 1950s marked a turning point in the popularisation of trans-Pacific contact theories following Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition. Both his earlier publications prior to this voyage and those afterwards posited that two pre-Columbian migration waves from the Americas, one from North America and one from South America, had resulted in the initial settlement of Polynesia, contributing important elements to its culture.