Archaeological expeditions are supposed to gather their data first and then try to arrive at theories to explain their discoveries. Thor Heyerdahl, however, first developed his theory of Peruvian and Northwest Coast Indian penetration into Polynesia, then attempted to prove its feasability in his famous Kon-Tiki voyage of 1950, and finally set forth the confused proof in his American Indians in the Pacific (1952). Only later did he assemble an international team of archaeologists to excavate in the South Pacific. The reports of this expedition began to appear in 1961, with the first volume concentrating on Easter Island.
In this second volume of the series, reports of the excavations on other islands of the southeastern Pacific occupy the first half. Little remained on Pitcairn (Report 1), but the Austral Group revealed many fortified sites on Rapa Iti (Reports 2-6) and Raivavae (Reports 7-8). A superficial survey of monumental stone sculpture on the Marquesas (Report 10) gives Heyerdahl the occasion to revive his old theories about South American influence in the east Pacific islands. Admittedly the absence of monumental sculpture in the western Pacific indicates that it was not brought with the Polynesians on their migrations eastward. Admittedly Polynesian seamen may have contacted the coast of South America, 2000 miles distant. Yet the two facts are not necessarily related, in spite of Heyerdahl’s claims. For example, his detailed study of the infrequent stone sculpture of Polynesia ignores the intimately related wood sculpture, which does have a continuous distribution from the Asian mainland to Easter Island. And despite his claim to the contrary, stone sculpture is not found in a continuous are from Bolivia to Colombia; the technique appears sporadically and is never an important artistic expression. Proof of short-sighted methodology which invalidates his conclusions about art styles also casts into doubt his theories on other topics.
The second half of this volume offers reports which synthesize special aspects of eastern Polynesia, notably stone artifacts (Reports 11-12, 18) and physical anthropology (Reports 13-15). In Report 16, however, Heyerdahl offers his hypothesis on rongo-rongo, the mysterious form of writing found on wooden tablets on Easter Island, but nowhere else in Oceania. After carefully stating the opinions and contributions of all other investigators, he concludes that the script came from South America. The arguments may be convincing to a nonspecialist, but his conclusions undoubtedly suffer from the same myopia which afflicts his analysis of monumental sculpture. Significantly, none of the four epigraphers who wrote appendices to his report lends support to his conclusion, although like good guests they refrain from mentioning their own theories.
The factual information contained in this volume is reliable, since each contributor wrote his own report. For this reason, though, the book remains too compartmentalized to be of general interest. But this fault is preferable to an editing of each report by Heyerdahl, given his unflagging devotion to the theory of South American influence on Polynesian culture.
