Talk:Kon-Tiki expedition: Difference between revisions

This article is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Norway C‑class This article is within the scope of WikiProject Norway, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Norway on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.NorwayWikipedia:WikiProject NorwayTemplate:WikiProject NorwayNorway articles C This article has been rated as C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Sailing C‑class Kon-Tiki expedition is within the scope of the WikiProject Sailing, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Sailing. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.SailingWikipedia:WikiProject SailingTemplate:WikiProject SailingSailing articles C This article has been rated as C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. Archaeology C‑class This article is within the scope of WikiProject Archaeology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Archaeology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchaeologyWikipedia:WikiProject ArchaeologyTemplate:WikiProject ArchaeologyArchaeology articles C This article has been rated as C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. Anthropology C‑class This article is within the scope of WikiProject Anthropology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Anthropology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AnthropologyWikipedia:WikiProject AnthropologyTemplate:WikiProject AnthropologyAnthropology articles C This article has been rated as C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale. South America C‑class This article is within the scope of WikiProject South America, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to South America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.South AmericaWikipedia:WikiProject South AmericaTemplate:WikiProject South AmericaSouth America articles C This article has been rated as C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. Polynesia C‑class This article is within the scope of WikiProject Polynesia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Polynesia on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PolynesiaWikipedia:WikiProject PolynesiaTemplate:WikiProject PolynesiaPolynesia articles C This article has been rated as C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on August 7, 2004, August 7, 2008, August 7, 2009, and August 7, 2010.

It would be nice if there was a map of the voyage included in the article, just to make the distance covered clearer. 94.217.15.89 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:41, 7 August 2010 (UTC).[reply]

The article mentions that a radio was the only modern equipment carried onboard Kon-Tiki. However on www.eterna.ch (navigate to Eterna -> Milestones -> 1958) it is mentioned that an Eterna sports watch was worn by Thor Heyerdahl. Isn't this considered modern equipment?

Ferengi 12:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They had lots of modern equipment, including preserved food and maps. You could argue that the radio wasn't relevant, provided that they didn't use it to obtain weather reports or otherwise to help with navigation. You could argue that the watch wasn't relevant, provided that they didn't use it to help determine their longitude (which is the only obvious reason for taking one). But, overall, it's difficult to argue that they really set out only as well-prepared as those who (according to Heyerdahl) made the original journeys.

Mike Shepherd 21:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This needs rewording. As you say, they took lots of modern equipment: radio, charts, sextant, watches, tinned food, metal tools and fish-hooks (no metal implements would have been available to the people who were supposed to have made the journey), drugs and medicines, even an inflatable dinghy. I suppose the point is that none of these were essential to the validity of the experiment: they could have made the journey without them. That point isn't actually stated in the text though. Matt 14:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.114.156 (talk)

I've tried to reword; please make any further changes you feel are necessary. Matt 14:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.114.156 (talk)

This page indicates that kontiki is the sun god. However, the spanish page for INCA indicates that kontiki is the water god, and it also indicates that it was even more important than the sun god named INTI. I believe that there's something here to be check. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.232.9.4 (talk) 00:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but the very idea of him having a sextant AND charts more than disqualifies this as anything scientific. These things are anything BUT incidental on such a voyage. If they were "incidental" why did he need them at all? Radios and knives, sure, I understand for safety reasons. But a sextant? Navigational charts?!? You've got to be kidding me. The implication that primitive people without these things could travel, in large groups no less (wonder where they carried their fresh water) on canoes, thousands of kilometers and find tiny islands in millions of square miles of ocean by simple canoes is profoundly ridiculous when based only on this single example. I'm not saying it didn't happen - I'm saying this expedition proves nothing.

Obviously - Anything that floated *could* have survived the journey, an empty can of pepsi for instance. That doesn't make the navigation probable in the least given the "incidental" items he used.

At the very least find a RS that says these items were "incidental." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.23.42.137 (talk) 02:42, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I made it clearer that the incidental-ness was claimed by Heyerdahl, not some sort of passive voice claim from on high. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 11:34, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The raft was functionally incapable of being steered on a navigational level, and essentially drifted both down-current and downwind on the Humboldt. The charts and sextant allowed them to determine which island they eventually found, but had nothing to do with their successfully finding it. The chief use to which the navigational equipment was put was in making their daily weather reports to the US weather service, which was a condition of funding and aid given to the project. Whatever the validity or otherwise of the Kon-Tiki experiment, the charts and sextant are immaterial.

Ancient peoples following the same route would have been less aware of precisely where they were or where they were going, but they would have wound up in exactly the same place. This is actually the crux of Heyerdahl's theory; not that ancients set out to find Polynesia, but that if they set out at all (or even strayed just a bit too far from shore and got sucked into the current,) it was what they were *going* to find, whether they wanted to or not. The only real question was whether they could survive the trip. The same (minus the question of survival) goes for your hypothetical Pepsi-can.

Three final points. The radio was not carried for safety; the Kon-Tiki spent most of the voyage too far away from shipping lanes for rescue to be remotely feasible. Except for the tug that towed her to see, Kon-Tiki never saw a single vessel until after she'd made land in Polynesia. Kon-Tiki was also simply too small to be rescued; a plane that went to get a last look the day they cast off the tow-rope off Peru gave up and went home without a glimpse of the Kon-Tiki, despite knowing to within a mile where they were. The crew knew a radio would be no help.

Secondly, Kon-Tiki was not a canoe, or anything remotely similar. It was a log raft.

Thirdly, Heyerdahl believed the ancients carried their fresh water in wax-sealed bamboo rods, which was how Kon-Tiki carried much of her own water. The bamboo water in fact survived the journey better than the modern metal cans, which were given to corrosion once removed from the asphalt coating added to protect them.74.101.27.2 (talk) 05:32, 23 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can argue over the effect of modern equipment all you want, but the fact that the boat was towed 50 miles is, IMO, far more significant. Not coincidentally, it took Kon-Tiki past the near-shore currents that would have been impossible for early sailors to get through. Heck, if NASA takes me past Earth's gravity well, I can probably make it to the moon in a homemade spaceship. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrewkantor (talk • contribs) 00:34, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If I remember correctly from reading that book, this experiment was about connections of people from Titicaca with Polynesia. They would actually need to start their journey from some river that flows from there and it would carry them to Ocean, and at that point when they they would be near Lima, they would most probably not 50, but 100 miles away and in current, that would take them further to west. Also Lima is just a capital of modern Peru and it did not exist in ancient times, also it looks like worsest place to start Ocean drifting. I really need to reread that part, but I have some memories that intention to start journey was not exactly from Lima, but apparently sponsors made it possible and it is also easier for tourists to visit...

As for homemade spaceship - there are no currents in space - just gravitational waves and that would not take you to the Moon, unless someone directs and shoot you in direction of moon and that is the main difference, why it is not comparable to this project. Also without any push(if NASA just put your homemade spaceship in space) it would take ages to survive in this spaceship in space(and ship then would need to be huge one), not to mention, that it would prove nothing - there are no extra habitable planets in Solar system, that are or were habitated by peoples and we do not have to question how people arrived there. 2.96.195.56 (talk) 08:19, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The one sentence regarding the 2011 sailing of An-tiki is under the heading "Popular culture references", which is entirely wrong. It's not "popular culture"; not even close. And it's not a reference, it's a parallel event. This needs to be placed into the "See Also" section. SteveO1951 (talk) 02:44, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I changed some of the text that was not precise as to modern views of Heyerdahl's theory. The text correctly stated that he believed that the South Americans could have populated South Sea islands. The article then incorrectly stated that was a position "discredited" by most anthropologists. That's not true. "Most anthropologist" now believe that the population migration did not go West to East, as Heyerdahl said it could; that is not the same thing as saying that is could not have. Heyerdahl's experimental anthroplogy voyage did prove that the migration could have gone East to West and that capability remains true even if modern DNA studies tend to show that it in fact did not go that way.

Also, the single citation to this modern view was to Wade Davis who, although certainly "award winning", started his speaking career by asserting that "zombie powder" really works (a position certainly "highly discredited by most scientists") and it is stated by Wikipedia that "Davis commissioned a grave robbery of a recently buried child" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade_Davis So let's not source the entire modern view on the tenuous credibility of Mr. Davis.

Finally the articles I cite go directly to the point of what the modern published science is: that "Most archaeologists agree that Polynesians can trace their origins to the Lapita Culture, a fusion of Melanesian and Austronesian peoples that had spread as far east as Fiji by 1000 B.C.E. But archaeologists are deeply at odds over when Polynesians fanned out across the vast northern, central, and eastern Pacific Ocean." Meaning, in part, that even if the South American DNA has direct links with that of Polynesians, that could well be because the migration was West to East. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SteveO1951 (talk • contribs) 03:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the intro it's said:

Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times, although most anthropologists now believe they did not.[1][2][3] (Btw, source 3 is included in source 2. Should they be kept separate..?)

The Antropology section later on seems to contradict the previous sentence:

In 2011 Professor Erik Thorsby of the University of Oslo presented DNA evidence to the Royal Society which whilst agreeing with the west origin also identified a distinctive but smaller genetic contribution from South America.[12] Source being called: Richard Alleyne (17 Jun 2011). "Kon-Tiki explorer was partly right – Polynesians had South American roots". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 17 Jun 2011.

I am no anthropologist, but it seems they should be put closer to each other, possibly in the same section, and with higher clarity of what "everyone agrees on" if correct... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raggot (talk • contribs) 09:24, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl - what's with all the references to "Brendan Heyerdahl"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.36.110.71 (talk) 13:17, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Been vandalized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.212.113.173 (talk) 23:48, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In the "Communications" section, it says that "A German Mark V transceiver was used as a backup unit.[10]"

I looked up the citation for that assertion ("An LA, as in Norway, Story, By Bob Merriam, W1NTE, March 5, 2003") on the web archive (see https://web.archive.org/web/20030419103759/http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2003/03/05/1/?nc=1) and surprisingly that article does not make any mention of a German transceiver. Unless a reference for this assertion can be found, I suggest deleting it.

After rereading the key article on this topic (Ref. 9, Anonymous (December 1947). "Kon-Tiki Communications – Well Done!". QST (The American Radio Relay League): 69, 143–148.) it is clear that the Kon-Tiki carried two British 3-16 MC Mark II transmitters.

Therefore, I suggest that "A German Mark V transceiver was used as a backup unit.[10]" be replaced by "Two British 3-16 MC Mark II transmitters were also carried on board.[9]" Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A601:134:E801:34F4:EE4C:9930:2976 (talk) 23:02, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Followup: After some more investigation, I still cannot find a reference for the "A German Mark V transceiver was used as a backup unit.[10]" assertion, so I have changed it in the article, along the lines proposed above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JTPaloAlto (talk • contribs) 23:22, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The request to rename this article to Kon-Tiki expedition has been carried out. If the page title has consensus, be sure to close this discussion using {{subst:RM top|'''page moved'''.}} and {{subst:RM bottom}} and remove the {{Requested move/dated|…}} tag, or replace it with the {{subst:Requested move/end|…}} tag.

Kon-Tiki → Kon-Tiki expedition – The article is really about the expedition as a whole, not just the raft. Some minor changes to the opening paragraph would be needed if the name change goes ahead. I am happy to do those. 217.44.208.185 (talk) 03:44, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care about "expedition" one way or the other, but "Kon-Tiki" is a proper name and the dash is part of that proper name. It should not be removed. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 04:22, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that was unintentional and I have now corrected it. 86.150.71.23 (talk) 12:01, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]