Thor Heyerdahl

Heyerdahl married his first wife, LivCoucheron-Torp, in 1936. They had two children together. The marriage ended in divorce.

In 1949, he married Yvonne Dedekam-Simonsen and they went on to have three daughters. This marriage also ended in divorce.

His marriage to his third wife, Jacqueline Beer, began in 1991 and continued until his death.

On October 6th, 1914, this pioneering ethnologistwas born in Larvik, Norway. He was born to Thor Heyerdahl, a master brewer, and Alison Lyng, a zoologist and museum chairman.

Interested in zoology from a young age, he created a museum in an outhouse located at his father’s brewery at age seven. The small museum contained specimens of butterflies, seashells, lemmings, bats, and hedgehogs. Pursuing his passion he studied zoology and geography in the University of Oslo.

Alongside, he privately studied Polynesian culture through the use of the largest known private collection of books and papers on Polynesia.

In 1936, Heyerdahl decided to quit college and begin his career in ethnography. He set out on an expedition to the Marquesas Islands in the South Seas. While on his trip, he discovered evidence that Peruvian aboriginals had previously visited the islands.

He spent the years 1939-1940 researching his proposed theory of ‘two waves of migration’ from the Americas from his mountain home in Lillehammer.

In 1947, he assembled a crew and sailed from Peru to the Tuamotus in French Polynesia. To prove his theory of ancient migration patterns, he conducted this voyage on a pae-pae- a raft made from Balsa wood and other native materials. They named the raft the ‘Kon-Tiki’ and the journey was detailed in his book, ‘The Kon-Tiki Experiment’.

On an expedition in 1953 to the Galapagos Islands, he discovered evidence of South American natives paid visit to the islandsmuch before the Incas claimed to set foot on the land.

During 1955, he organized the ‘Norwegian Archaeological Expedition’ to Rapa Nui (Easter Island). During his explorations, he uncovered proof that South Americans had visitedisland as early as the 4th century.

Heyerdahl wrote a large collection of books related to his research and explorations. The books were translated into several different languages.

On April 3rd, 1978, he and his crew burnt the Tigris at sea in protest of the wars raging in Africa. He wrote a highly publicized letter to the UN’s Secretary-General detailing his ‘protest of inhumane elements in the world in 1978’.

Heyerdahl was responsible for a monumental discovery in Tenerife in 1991. He determined that the ‘Pyramids of Guimar’ were in fact actual astronomically designed pyramids and not just stone heaps.