The expedition to Easter Island in 1955-56 on a Greenland trawler was really another opportunity for Heyerdahl to test his theory that the first wave of immigrants to Polynesia came via Peru and Easter Island on balsa rafts. The seaworthiness of the latter had already been proven on the Kon-Tiki expedition in 1952.

On the Easter Island expedition Heyerdahl and his 22 companions discovered that the island had once been wooded before the first inhabitants deforested it. Furthermore, according to carbon dating, these earliest settlers had apparently arrived about 380 A.D. which was much earlier than previously assumed by other archaeologists. Interviews with some Easter Islanders suggested that the island's oral tradition contained stories of migration from places to the East. Of course the biggest mystery of Easter Island was the origin of the huge statues of long-eared men.

AKU-AKU was a great adventure story and to me the most inspiring aspect of it was Heyerdahl himself. He has set the standard for sticking by his convictions against all odds from his original expedition to Polynesia with his young bride in 1937 to his death on April 18, 2002. Heyerdahl at the very least has injected much life into a stodgy academic discipline.

The natives of Easter Island by the way are called Rapanui and today a total of about 2000 Rapanui still live on the island while many others have emigrated to mostly Chile , Tahiti and North America.

When you finish this book you will know how the great statues were made, transported, and erected. You will find that the natives of Easter Island still know how to do these and many other ancient things. But the real mystery of Easter Island is not the long eared statues, but the Aku Aku. The book is a humorous chronicle of the unexpected scientific discoveries made by the team. It reads like an adventure novel complete with the most interesting characters. You will love the Mayor who knows everything, his brothers and his pal Lazurus. You will learn how and why the natives bake chicken. You will cringe as Thor descends hundreds of feet down shear rock faces, in the dark, hovers above the crashing waves just below his feet, and enters unlit haunted caves and slithers in to the solution of the mystery of the strange stones of the Aku Aku. None of it is fiction.

I have read this book many times and just introduced my eleven year old son to it. Now I find I must buy all the rest of Heyerdahl's adventures for him. Much more enlightening than Harry Potter.

Thor Heyerdahl was already at his young age certain that there have been more or less extensive contacts between ancient civilizations on both sides of Atlantic ocean and also over Pacific. This is much different view from the conventional one which claims that ancient nations were only sailing along the shores and did not dare to cross the oceans. His first interest was in giant faces (which later proved to be full bodies) on the Easter Island, which is almost isolated from every other land by at least 3,000 miles of Pacific ocean. Yet the tales of the local tell us that great white skinned bearded gods have sailed to their island form East and brought them civilization. In their respect and to their succesors they have built giant statues. So he has gathered some experts and adventurers with him, bought a boat and went to the Easter Island, where the crew stayed for about one year. He came familiarwith life, the rituals and the treasures of the natives, which are clearly divided into two different race types. The villagers have first raised one fallen statue in a very original and imaginative way and then constructed a brand new statue, transported it to the place and raised it up. Several scholars have doubted that this is the way how the statues were made and erected because there was no wood to transport them, the rocks are incredibly hard, there is not enough people etc. I don't know which scholar has claimed that they have tried to chip off the stones and they didn't succeed due to their hardness. I believe Heyerdahl more in this aspect because if you are told how to do something and if you are skilled, you'll manage to do it in a reasonable time, while someone with no knowledge or skill will work a small eternity to produce almost nothing. A blacksmith will make you a horseshoe in few minutes. Take one hammer, piece of iron, heat it and try to make your own horseshoe :)). Thor's book is an amazing report on people's achievements. If you are given knowledge about a thing and if you see a purpose to do it, then you will find resources, time and everything else. Gods have visited Easter Island. We may never know who they were, but we know how they came to the island. But that is subject of tke next book: Kon Tiki. Read that one too.

This is a wonderful book that I recieved as a gift from my grandfather. I will always treasure it. It not only tells of Thor Heyerdahl's adventure, but also describes the culture he visits. The book encourages me to follow my own dreams no matter how unusual they may be.

This book is more than just an adventure. It is a young man's awakening to his own ideas, his inspriations and would greatly influence his later travels. It is highly illustrated and higly reccomended. I first read it when I first arrived in my own sailboat many years ago at Hanavae Bay. We read aloud from the book as our boat arrived in Fatu Hiva and we visited all the sites that he mentioned in the book. Yes, they really do exist!

But when I reread the story I am also captivated by the love and devotion of his wife Liv. Imagine she married Thor and for their honeymoon they travel to Fatu Hiva to live in the jungle. Such devotion! This is a great adventure novel for both men and women. I cannot believe that it is out of print for now. His words are as exhilirating now as they were when I first read them years ago. On this island Thor saw the remarkable resemblence to the massive stone carvings on Fatu Hiva and to the stone carvings on Easter Island. This adventure would be the one that helped him form his theory of native peoples from South Amercia travelling to the Marquesas not from Polynesia.

I'd just like to second the comments from "a reader from USA" above. This book is so much more than is stated in the synopsis. While it begins as a very enjoyable adventure and exploration story, it takes the reader beyond the adventure to truths about the present and future that are insightful, important and stated in a way that is compelling to say the least.

Simply one of the most heart-wrenching and haunting true adventure stories ever written. I was so moved after reading this wonderful book that I could hardly think of anything else for weeks. Nearing the end of this book, I was choking back tears, as Mr. Heyerdahl touches upon truths so profound that they are mind-boggling. He shows us the things that our society has tried so hard to forget. He powerfully reminds us why we should not ignore the trouble our planet is in. Thor Heyerdahl has to be one of the best people who has ever lived. Only a very, very, great man could write a book like this.

After his sailing from South America to Easter Island Thor has decided (after his visit to the pyramids in Egypt, where he saw the papyrus boats and after he saw that there were some Egyptian coins and pottery in South America) to make a papyrus boat and sail over Atlantic. He first employed two workers from Chad, where they were seen to make papyrus boats for lakes. They have sailed from egypt but the boat didn't manage to reach the American coast due to construction failure (as it was seen later, the boat was too heavy and they forgot to include the binding rope). Second attempt was made afterwards, this time the builders were Indians and they have constructed lighter boat. This one lasted till they reached American shore and has proven the theory that if Pharaoh has ordered to sail to America, the task could be achieved thanks to knowledge of ocean streams (and they had that knowledge for sure). We won't deprive Columbus for his "discovery" of America for quite some time. After all, he was the first after many years who sailed there where almost forgotten kings once made trade, allies and foes. we are slightly realizing that our ancestors weren't so barbaric and stupid as we thought of them, they were in some views even some steps ahead of us. Can we accept this fact or not?

Forget the sea crossing! This book is a humdinger just for its descriptions of secluded societies in Africa. Islands that move, secluded monasteries, this book has it all. The account of the crossing is great, but doesn't quite live up to Kon-Tiki. Heyerdahl's style has improved a lot, and this book never slows down. I didn't think this book would be funny, but the boatmakers are a hernia waiting to happen. Great Stuff. Jeremy Swanson

This is a hilarious and brilliantly-done refutation of Erich von Daniken and the whole "gods from other worlds" con. Among other tidbits, Ronald Story reveals that von Daniken's core "ideas" were borrowed from other writers. He also reveals how far von Daniken strays from scientific method when presenting anicent-astronaut theories, how far he strays from scientific fact, and how relentlessly he substitutes assumption and supposition for evidence. We are given the facts behind the construction of the Easter Island statues and Egpyt's pyramids, as well as explanations for cave-paintings of "astronauts," one-eyed Martians, etc. The book's only fault lies in its assertion that ancient-astronautology is some kind of pop religion. To wit, from the chapter "The New Mythology": "The ancient astronaut theory does seem to represent to many people a solution to the uncertainties that now plague the world." It's too bad that something so silly and specious must follow many pages of meticulous and thorough debunking, but the reader can always skip the occasional mundane digression. This is a skeptic's-bookshelf must.

I voraciously read all of von Daeniken's stuff when I was a kid, and thought it was all great stuff. Then, in high school, I got ahold of a slim little number entitled _The Space-Gods Revealed : A Close Look at the Theories of Erich Von Daeniken_, by Ronald Story, and in the span of a couple of hours saw the chariots of the gods tumble into the sea. My first real encounter with the power of rational thought (something not taught in school, in my experience to that point). I have to admit, though, that von Daeniken, on top of all the science fiction I read, did help to solidify my budding atheism, and for that I suppose I owe him some credit.

Early Man and the Ocean is another in Thor Heyerdahl's rewriting of the ancient history of the Americas and Polynesia. Published in 1978, it contains a number of chapters on information not covered in his earlier books, including his proposed timeline for the peopling of Polynesia by not one, but two different peoples. Indeed, what makes this book different is that here the author ties together his findings from many different lands, into a logical whole.

If you liked Kon-Tiki and Aku-Aku, then this book is for you. My only complaint against this book is that I dearly wish that it would be updated and reissued.

This book, published in 1989, is a distillation of Thor Heyerdahl's research on Easter Island. It traces the history of Easter Island's interaction with the outside world, from Roggeveen's visit in 1722 up to the time of the book's writing. Along the way, Mr. Heyerdahl builds his case that two peoples, one from South America and one from Polynesia populated Easter Island.

This book is fantastic! I am not entirely convinced of Mr. Heyerdahl's case, but found his case compelling nonetheless. The book itself has many color pictures and maps, and is visually quite stunning. Now, not all of the book is about Mr. Heyerdahl's proposed history, so if you are merely interested in Easter Island, then you will still enjoy this book. This is a great book, one that you should read!

The Kon Tiki is the best book I've ever read. It is a non-fiction book about an amazing adventure ona raft from Peru to the Marquesas. I woul reccomend this book to anyone who can read. It shows just how wild dreams can be.

As an English teacher of reading-disabled high school tenth-graders, I have, in teaching an excerpt from the Kon-Tiki, spent two to three days on this account and let it go at that. This year, I wanted the story to seem more real to the students; I wanted them to realize that this was a true, exciting account of an incredible experimental voyage, one which I, as a fourteen-year-old, remembered from Life magazine and radio updates. I researched the library and found this book. The exciting aspect of this book is that we had read and studied the excerpt from the perspective of the narrative genre; we chronicled the duties and adventures of the crew and learned their names. But now, in this biography, we could see Herman, Torstein, Heyerdahl, Erik and the rest! They did exist, and my students could see that this strange boat did, too! They were also amazed that Mr. Heyerdahl is still alive and working. This text has added such life and discussion to our brief excerpt that it has taken its place along with our class textbook and vocabulary. It now remains in my curriculum.

This book, by legendary explorer Thor Heyerdahl and two archaeologist colleagues, has something for everyone! Tucume is a large site full of adobe pyramids on the north coast of Peru. The site dates to about 1000-1540 AD and in its later years was conquered by the Chimu and then the Inca before falling to ruins after the Spanish Conquest. In the book, Heyerdahl recounts his adventures in Peru in his usual, inimitable style, while the two archaeologists (one American and one Peruvian) discuss the archaeological finds at this fabulous site. The book is full of drawings and photos, many in color. Some of the artifacts are truly spectavular, but just as interesting are the insights into how archaeologists put together a picture of the past from the dusty bits and pieces left in this desert center. Whether you are a fan of Kon-Tiki or interested in the details of Peru's ancient past, this is the book for you