Azov is believed by Heyerdahl to have derived its name from as-hof-temple of the Æsir.

Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times, although most anthropologists now believe they did not.

Heyerdahl had studied the ancient people of South America and Polynesia and believed that there was a link between the two.

The crew of six was led by Torgeir Higraff, and included Olav Heyerdahl, grandson of Thor Heyerdahl.

* April 18-Thor Heyerdahl ( b. 1914 ), explorer, led the Kon-Tiki expedition.

The tree is being reintroduced to the island in a scientific project partly led jointly by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Göteborg Botanical Garden, where the only remaining plants of this species with a documented origin were propagated in the 1960s from seeds collected by Thor Heyerdahl.

This was one of the factors that led Thor Heyerdahl to theorize that there was pre-European contact between Polynesia and South America.

Keeping up with his sensationalist style, Heyerdahl argued that ' Redin ' were people coming from somewhere else, whereas an ancient Maldivian poem ( Fua Mulaku Rashoveshi ) says: " Havitta uhe haudahau, Redin taneke hedi ihau ".

Heyerdahl claimed that in Incan legend there was a sun-god named Con-Tici Viracocha who was the supreme head of the mythical fair-skinned people in Peru.

Heyerdahl claimed that these people could count their ancestors who were " white-skinned " right back to the time of Tiki and Hotu Matua, when they first came sailing across the sea " from a mountainous land in the east which was scorched by the sun.

Heyerdahl proposed that Tiki's neolithic people colonized the then-uninhabited Polynesian islands as far north as Hawaii, as far south as New Zealand, as far east as Easter Island, and as far west as Samoa and Tonga around 500 AD.

The oral history of the people of Easter Island, at least as it was documented by Heyerdahl, is completely consistent with this theory, as is the archaeological record he examined ( Heyerdahl 1958 ).

In particular, Heyerdahl obtained a radiocarbon date of 400 for a charcoal fire located in the pit that was held by the people of Easter Island to have been used as an " oven " by the " Long Ears ," which Heyerdahl's Rapa Nui sources, reciting oral tradition, identified as a white race which had ruled the island in the past ( Heyerdahl 1958 ).

According to Heyerdahl, something happened between Admiral Roggeveen's discovery of the island in 1722 and James Cook's visit in 1774 ; while Roggeveen encountered white, Indian, and Polynesian people living in relative harmony and prosperity, Cook encountered a much smaller population consisting mainly of Polynesians and living in privation.

Apart from the primary aspects of the expedition, Heyerdahl deliberately selected a crew representing a great diversity in race, nationality, religion and political viewpoint in order to demonstrate that at least on their own little floating island, people could cooperate and live peacefully.

The adventurer Thor Heyerdahl built two boats from papyrus, Ra and Ra II, in an attempt to demonstrate that ancient African or Mediterranean people could have reached America.

Heyerdahl was particularly interested in Snorre's reference to the land of origin of the Æsir people.

Heyerdahl also claimed that findings and Russian written sources from the Caucasus area verify not only the existence of the Æsir or the Iranian Ossetians ; whom he described as " the Odin people of today "— but also of an ancient tribe living around the area of Lake Van in today's Turkey.

However, the issue of Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl confirmed there was contact between the ancient Peruvians and people from Polynesia.

The observation prompted Heyerdahl to ask Tei Tetua from whence his people had come, to which he replied " the east ":

Thor Heyerdahl erroneously claimed that Redin were people coming from somewhere else, but according to Magieduruge Ibrahim Didi, a learned man from this island, it was the name which the converted Maldivians, ghairu deen ( non-Muslim ), ancestors after the general conversion to Islam.

Heyerdahl built yet another reed boat, Tigris, which was intended to demonstrate that trade and migration could have linked Mesopotamia with the Indus Valley Civilization in what is now modern-day Pakistan.

Ra II, a ship built from papyrus, was successfully sailed across the Atlantic by Thor Heyerdahl proving that it was possible to cross the Atlantic from Africa using such boats in early epochs of history.

* In 1969 and 1970 Thor Heyerdahl launched expeditions to cross the Atlantic in boats built from papyrus.

* 1947 – Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia.

* 1970 – Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II to sail the Atlantic Ocean.

* May 17 – Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II, to sail the Atlantic Ocean.

Heyerdahl blamed their separation on his being away from home and differences in their ideas for bringing up children.

In the Kon-Tiki expedition, Heyerdahl and five fellow adventurers went to Peru, they constructed a pae-pae raft from balsa wood and other native materials, a raft that they called the Kon-Tiki.

Heyerdahl attempted to counter the linguistic argument with the analogy that, guessing the origin of African-Americans, he would prefer to believe that they came from Africa, judging from their skin colour, and not from England, judging from their speech.

Heyerdahl further argued in his book American Indians in the Pacific that the current inhabitants of Polynesia migrated from an Asian source, but via an alternate route.

During the uprising, Heyerdahl claimed, the " Long Ears " ignited their moat and retreated behind it, but the " Short Ears " found a way around it, came up from behind, and pushed all but two of the " Long Ears " into the fire.

In 1969 and 1970, Heyerdahl built two boats from papyrus and attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Morocco in Africa.

This project generated harsh criticism and accusations of pseudo-science from historians, archaeologists and linguists in Norway, who accused Heyerdahl of selective use of sources, and a basic lack of scientific methodology in his work.

* Sea Routes to Polynesia Extracts from lectures by Thor Heyerdahl

Her storyline sees her simultaneously become the object of Lex Luthor's ( Michael Rosenbaum ) obsessions-after she saved him from drowning in the dam's destruction-and Jimmy Olsen's ( Aaron Ashmore ) affections, suffer a bout of amnesia, discover her father's ( Christopher Heyerdahl ) sinister motives and become a target of evil android Brainiac ( James Marsters ).

* The Kon-Tiki ( 1947 ), a balsa raft built by Thor Heyerdahl and sailed from Peru to Polynesia to demonstrate the possibility of cultural exchange between South America and the Polynesian islands.

Heyerdahl claimed that the geographic location of the mythic Aser or Æsir matched the region of contemporary Azerbaijan-" east of the Caucasus mountains and the Black Sea ".

Jens P. Heyerdahl is the largest owner and has effective control through several different companies.

Heyerdahl tried to seek the origins of the Æsir, following the route set out by Snorri Sturluson in the Ynglinga saga, from the Black Sea and the river Tanais ( referred to by Snorri Sturluson by the names Tanaís and Tanakvísl ) via Saxon homelands in northern Germany, Odense on Fyn, Denmark to Old Sigtuna, ancient Sweden.

The main spars were a laminate of wood and reeds and Heyerdahl tested more than twenty different composites before settling on one that proved an effective compromise between bulk and torsional rigidity.