MIGRATION TO POLYNESIA

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27856, 3 January 1956, Page 12

MIGRATION TO POLYNESIA

Heyerdahl Seeks More Support For Theories

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) VALPARAISO (Chile), Dec. 29. Mr Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian explorer, was reported today to have found additional evidence in support of his theory that primitive South American man migrated to the islands of Polynesia. For the last two months, Mr Heyerdahl and a scientific expedition , v e been excavating in various parts of Chile’s Easter Island. The first report of the progress of the expedition -was made public by the Chilean Navy today. A Chilean archaeologist, Mr Gonzalo rigueroa. a member of the expedition, described in the report the discovery of a columnar sculpture said to be strikingly similar to the funeral monuments erected by the Incas in and totally different from the bUO traditional stone figures for which Easter Island is noted. Another sculptured piece was reported to bear remarkable likeness to those m Tiahuanaco, Bolivia. He said the two sculptures would tend to prove that pre-Columbian civilisations in . South America migrated across the South Pacific. Mr Heyerdahl’s crossing of the Pacific on a primitive balsa wood raft a few years ago proved that South American natives could have crossed the big ocean in similar craft.