Thor Heyerdahl, 1914-2002.(The Providence Journal)

The following editorial appeared in the Providence Journal on Tuesday, April 30.

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Thor Heyerdahl, who died at 87 this month, had an idea that the oceans were great avenues for migrations of primitive man, not barriers. When he set out from Callao, Peru, 55 years ago, on a flimsy balsa-log raft for the South Seas, theories of human diffusion took remarkably little account of water-borne travel.

Perhaps this was because stone projectile points were the only remaining tools of the earliest humans. Mr. Heyerdahl was one of the first to appreciate that perhaps early man used other things, such as boats, which have not survived because of their ...