Other scientists doubt his theories

British Columbia, Victoria, Bella-Coola (1939-1940)

In British Columbia Thor Heyerdahl for the first time launches a controversial theory, upsetting colleagues and for this he receives a lot of resistance. It won’t be the last time.

In 1939 he started to study at the Museum of British Columbia, Victoria. He changed his studies from plants and animals to learn about primitive seafarers. In Victoria Thor Heyerdahl learned about the coastal Indians and their culture. He lived with the Indians and found out that there had been two different migration waves to the islands in the Pacific. This wasn’t new, but opposed to others he meant that the first migration wave came on balsa rafts from South-America, not on canoes from Asia. The entire world of anthropologists meant that no kind of American ”ship” could have brought people alive to Polynesia. In Bella-Coola Thor Heyerdal also found language like engravings on some cliffs. The language was called petroglyfs, similar to what could be found on Margqueras, and of course Thor Heyerdahl started to think about the connection. Equivalent engravings were also found in New Zealand.

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