On Expeditions and Polynesian Colonisation...... Kon Tiki and Easter Island

“Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.” – Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl is one of history’s most famous explorers.  The Kon-Tiki expedition was a 1947 journey by balsawood raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Heyerdahl. The raft was named Kon-Tiki after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name.

Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. Although the expedition carried some modern equipment, such as a radio, watches, charts, sextant, and metal knives, Heyerdahl argued they were incidental to the purpose of proving that the raft itself could make the journey.

Kon-Tiki is also the name of Heyerdahl's book; upon which an award-winning documentary film chronicling his adventures was based, as well as the 2012 dramatised feature film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.  He later completed similar achievements with the reed boats Ra, Ra II and Tigris, through which he championed his deep involvement for both the environment and world peace.

Walking round the Kon Tiki Museum in Oslo recently, I was captivated by the story of the expedition, how it came into being, the sometimes unlikely chain of events. I had a copy of Heyerdahl's book for a good while before I eventually sent it, along with a number of other books which I selected whilst pruning my collections at Winterborne K, to a charity shop.  My trip to Oslo and the museum re-kindled that instinct that caused me to buy the book originally.  There are numerous editions with a variety of dust jacket designs.   I easily found a second-hand copy and read it. 

What I thought:
I thoroughly enjoyed Heyerdahl's account.  It was so very readable.  I was amazed at the courage and resourcefulness of the six men...….. and the parrot!  Of course they would neither have seen themselves as courageous, or particularly resourceful although it was fascinating the way they managed to source everything they needed and the support of foreign politicians, dignitaries and naval services.   There was almost a Swallows and Amazons feel to an adult escapade!  They survived the crossing with some tales to tell, and the account of their landing on the other side of their 4000 mile sailing was heart in the mouth but humorous too.  For something different, a read out of your normal boxes, try this book.


Also in the Museum there is a section given over to Easter Island.  The connection between Heyerdahl and Easter Island centres around his investigations into the mystery of the Easter Island giant statues, or moai, (created by the early Rapa Nui people)  how they made, how they were oved and what was the origin of the native legend that the statues walked.  Easter Island is one of the most remote places in the world and Heyerdahl wanted to determine whether the island had been originally colonised by people who sailed from South America across 2,000 miles of ocean. 

Returning to the island over thirty years later Heyerdahl investigated the ruins of the island’s unique statues: monolithic human figures carved from rock, and experimented with techniques that could have allowed a pre-industrial culture to create and move such enormous figures. Heyerdahl wrote a unique history of Easter Island, based on his own research, and an interpretation of the mystery of the island’s statues that presents an individual view of world history. 

I have wanted to visit Easter Island ever since I saw a fascinating TV documentary by David Attenborough, entitled The Lost Gods of Easter Island  .  Attenborough’s documentary starts with a small wooden carving which he buys at auction and which he identifies as being one of a pair, that are figured in a publication that links the carving he acquired to another, and which he tracks down to a Museum in Russia (from memory), both being associated with Captain Cook.  Now is the time to revisit this documentary……
  

In the course of scrolling around the internet I found a novel called Easter Island by Jennifer Vanderbes.  Checked it out.  Here is the Amazon blurb:  

Set on the cusp of World War One, and in the 1970s, EASTER ISLAND tells the passionate, heart-breaking and ultimately redemptive story of two remarkable women.

Elsa, an Edwardian Englishwoman, is forced by circumstance to leave the man she loves and agree to a marriage of convenience. The marriage enables her to fulfil her great dream: to visit Easter Island and to study its mysterious history. But as Elsa becomes bewitched by the island and engrossed in her work, she fails to notice that her beloved sister Alice is becoming caught up in desires of her own, that will threaten not only their work, but also their lives. 

Sixty years later, Dr Greer Faraday, recently widowed, makes her own journey to the island. Born into a different time and country, Greer nevertheless shares Else's passion for this strange and haunting place. Troubled by unhappy secrets, Greer takes solace in her work, making an island of herself. But as the two women's stories begin to entwine and passions are played out, both Greer and Else must struggle against what society expects of them, and what fate has planned...

This title was a lucky find.  It has archaeology, biology, anthropology ………….. themes that interest me very much.  It is also a book that keeps you turning the page, and a rather clever ending I did not see coming.

Homo Deus

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

I read the forerunner to his volume, Sapiens, a couple of years ago.  This sequel examines what might happen to the world when old myths are coupled with new god-like technologies, such as artificial intelligence and genetic engineering.

Humans conquered the world thanks to their unique ability to believe in collective myths about gods, money, equality and freedom – as described in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. In Homo Deus, Prof. Harari looks to the future and explores how global power might shift, as the principal force of evolution – natural selection – is replaced by intelligent design.

What will happen to democracy when Google and Facebook come to know our likes and our political preferences better than we know them ourselves? What will happen to the welfare state when computers push humans out of the job market and create a massive new “useless class”? How might Islam handle genetic engineering? Will Silicon Valley end up producing new religions, rather than just novel gadgets?

As Homo sapiens becomes 'Homo deus', what new destinies will we set for ourselves? As the self-made gods of planet earth, which projects should we undertake, and how will we protect this fragile planet and humankind itself from its own destructive powers? The book Homo Deus gives us a glimpse of the dreams and nightmares that will shape the 21st century.

Summary:  The book sets out to examine possibilities of the future of Homo sapiens. The premise outlines that during the 21st Century, humanity is likely to make a significant attempt to gain happiness, immortality and God-like powers. Throughout the book, Harari openly speculates various ways that this ambition might be realised in the future based on the past and present. 

Homo Sapiens conquers the world 

The first part of the book explores the relationship between humans and other animals, exploring what led to the former's dominance.

Homo Sapiens gives meaning to the world

• Since the verbal/language revolution some 70,000 years ago, humans live within an "intersubjective reality", such as countries, borders, religion, money and companies, all created to enable large-scale, flexible cooperation between different individual human beings. Humanity is separated from animals by humans' ability to believe in these intersubjective constructs that exist only in the human mind and are given force through collective belief.
• Humankind's immense ability to give meaning to its actions and thoughts is what has enabled its many achievements.
• Harari argues that humanism is a form of religion that worships humankind instead of a god. It puts humankind and its desires as a top priority in the world, in which humans themselves are framed as the dominant beings. Humanists believe that ethics and values are derived internally within each individual, rather than from an external source. During the 21st century, Harari believes that humanism may push humans to search for immortality, happiness, and power.

Homo Sapiens loses control

• Technological developments have threatened the continued ability of humans to give meaning to their lives; Harari suggests the possibility of the replacement of humankind with a super-man, or "homo deus" (human god) endowed with abilities such as eternal life.
• The last chapter suggests a possibility that humans are algorithms, and as such homo sapiens may not be dominant in a universe where big data becomes a paradigm.
• The book closes with the following question addressed to the reader:

"What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?

What did I think:
I read this as an audio book on Audible.  It was a good medium through which to try and absorb all the information that Prof. Harari sets out for us.  It will take some re-reading, selected chapters were packed with examples of what the future might hold in relation to the power of computer techonology and AI and how it could impact humans.  Quite scary stuff really.  

Kolymsky Heights

Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson - 

Recommendation of Paul Light

Review from Amazon customer:  This is not my normal fare. It is a spy novel with some very interesting biotech and anthropological themes nicely embedded into a plot that spans about fifty years. It is a tribute to the author's cunning skill at how he succeeds in holding the reader spellbound across three continents in a massive (long) page turning epic. The characters are vivid, unusual and maybe even challenging. The research behind this book is tremendous and I have now learned so much more about Russia, the arctic, and most of all about Siberia. It certainly isn't dull and i was a pleasure to read a novel that had some running jumping and shooting, it wasn't overdone. There was very well written descriptive detail without it being too complex r prosaic. A fabulous read.

Of this novel Philip Pullman wrote that it was the best thriller he had read, four times.  And since Lionel Davidson has since died, Pullman is unlikely to read a better one.  "The best thriller I've ever read, and I've read plenty. A solidly researched and bone-chilling adventure in a savage setting, with a superb hero." 

Blurb:  A frozen Siberian hell lost in endless night. The perfect location for an underground Russian research station. It's a place so secret it doesn't officially exist; once there, the scientists are forbidden to leave. But one scientist is desperate to get a message to the outside world. So desperate, he sends a plea across the wilderness to the West in order to summon the one man alive who can achieve the impossible...

Plot summary:  A coded message is smuggled out of Russia, a plea for help from a super-secret laboratory deep in the frozen wastes of Siberia. The note is addressed to Johnny Porter, a Canadian Indian of the Gitxsan tribe with a genius for languages and disguises, and reluctantly he is forced to slip across the border on a rescue mission, the consequences of which he little imagines. The detailed picture of life in the Kolyma region and of the native peoples of the Russian Far East (such as the Evenks) and British Columbia (such as the Tsimshian) is impressive.

Like the Amazon review says:  "A fabulous read".