There, they made their thatch-covered stilted home in the valley of Uia.ĭevelopment of Heyerdahl's Ideas about the Origins of the Polynesians Finding that civilization, albeit on a vastly reduced scale, was still present there, they decided to cross over the island's mountainous interior to settle in one of the small, nearly abandoned, valleys on the eastern side of the island. On the occasion of their honeymoon, Thor Heyerdahl and his first wife Liv, determined to escape from civilization, and to 'return to nature.' The couple arrived at Fatu Hiva in 1937, in the valley of Omo'a. In proving that non-European cultures had the technology to cross the world before Europeans did, Heyerdahl also challenged ethnocentric notions of cultural and racial superiority.įatu Hiva: Back to Nature is the name of a book, published in 1974, by Thor Heyerdahl, detailing his experiences and reflections during a one-and-a-half-year stay on the Marquesan island of Fatu Hiva in 1937-1938. While his voyages did not conclusively prove that such exchange actually took place, alongside other evidence, such as similarities in the archeological record and in mythology, it makes it highly likely. Heyerdahls's voyages across the Atlantic and across the Pacific proves that pre-Columbian exchange between Africa, Europe and the Americas and between the Americas and the islands of the Pacific is historically probable and that the ancient world was more aware of the global interdependence of human life than has usually been assumed.

Thor heyerdahl museum