In 1947 the Norwegian ethnologist and author Thor Heyerdahl confirmed that ancient Indians could have sailed from Peru to Polynesia, and in 1970, he confirmed that ancient Egyptians could have settled the West Indies. What were the names of the two boats

Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl was a firm believer that ancient peoples were capable of incredible long-distance sea voyages, a theory that many experts dismissed. To prove his ideas, he organized ambitious expeditions, building and sailing vessels using only the materials and technologies that would have been available to these ancient cultures. His work was a pioneering example of experimental archaeology, demonstrating that what seemed impossible was, in fact, achievable.

His first and most famous expedition was in 1947 on the Kon-Tiki. This balsa wood raft, modeled on ancient South American designs, successfully sailed from Peru to Polynesia, proving that early peoples from the Americas could have settled the Pacific islands. More than twenty years later, in 1970, he undertook a similar challenge. He sailed the Ra II, a boat made of papyrus reeds based on ancient Egyptian models, from Morocco to Barbados. This journey supported his controversial theory that ancient Egyptians could have crossed the Atlantic and influenced cultures in the Americas long before Columbus.