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His father managed a prosperous brewing business. In 1933, Heyerdahl began studying zoology at the University of Oslo. At the end of 1936, he married Liv Coucheron Torp, and the couple briefly lived on the Marquesas Islands in Polynesia. They returned to Norway in the spring of 1938, where their son Thor was born in September, followed later by their second son, Björn. Heyerdahl then focused on studying the Bella Coola Indians in British Columbia, Canada. During World War II, the family initially remained in Canada, and Heyerdahl served as a lieutenant in the Norwegian resistance against the German occupation.
Heyerdahl's anthropological work centered on exploring potential migration and cultural exchanges among early human populations, which he aimed to prove through expeditions using replica historical vessels. He gained worldwide fame for his dramatic three-month voyage from Peru to Eastern Polynesia, detailed in his 1948 book "Kon-Tiki ekspedisjonen," which was quickly translated into multiple languages. He later sailed from Morocco's west coast to the West Indies and journeyed from Iraq through the Persian Gulf to Asia and back to Africa, demonstrating that ancient Sumerians might have had contact with other early cultures through these routes.
In the summer of 1949, after separating from his first wife, Heyerdahl married Yvonne Dedekam-Simonsen, with whom he had three daughters. In 1952, he published "American Indians in the Pacific: The Theory Behind the Kon-Tiki Expedition," documenting ancient migration between the American mainland and Polynesia. In the late 1950s, he uncovered similar migration patterns between the South American Andes and Easter Island. Heyerdahl drew global attention with two expeditions in 1969 and 1970 aboard the modern-style ships "Ra" and "Ra II," crossing the Atlantic from Egypt and Morocco respectively.
In 1977, a larger expedition took Heyerdahl from Iraq along the Tigris River through the Persian Gulf to Oman and Pakistan, then across the Indian Ocean to Djibouti. In 1982 and 1983, he led two expeditions to the Maldives to study prehistoric trade routes. Heyerdahl conducted further expeditions to Easter Island in 1986, 1987, and 1988 and headed an archaeological project in Tucúme, Peru, from 1988 to 1993. From 1990 to 2002, he dedicated himself to researching and preserving the pyramids of Güimar in Tenerife.
Thor Heyerdahl passed away on April 18, 2002, from a brain tumor in Colla Micheri, northern Italy.
