The Kon-Tiki Museum Oslo (circa 1963).
The Kon-Tiki Museum (Norwegian: Kon-Tiki Museet) in Oslo Norway houses boats, maps, and books from the Kon-Tiki expedition. The building pictured, was opened in 1957.
The museum first opened in 1949 to house the Kon-Tiki, a raft made of balsa wood. Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl used the raft two years earlier in 1947 to to sail from Peru to the Pacific Islands in order to prove that Polynesians could have originated in South America and sailed to Polynesia navigating thousands of miles of open ocean using stone age technology.
Genetic research has since proven Polynesians originate in Asia and sailed against the prevailing winds which Heyerdahl thought was unlikely. Of course, sailing against prevailing winds seems more likely when you consider that it helped them to safely return home in case they found no land.
