Early Man and the Ocean: A Search for the Beginnings of Navigation and Seaborne Civilizations [Hardcover]

Thor Heyerdahl (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 438 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (January 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385127103
• ISBN-13: 978-0385127103
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #323,156 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great book by Thor Heyerdahl, September 14, 1999

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Early man and the ocean: A search for the beginnings of navigation and seaborne civilizations (Paperback)

Early Man and the Ocean is another in Thor Heyerdahl's rewriting of the ancient history of the Americas and Polynesia. Published in 1978, it contains a number of chapters on information not covered in his earlier books, including his proposed timeline for the peopling of Polynesia by not one, but two different peoples. Indeed, what makes this book different is that here the author ties together his findings from many different lands, into a logical whole.

If you liked Kon-Tiki and Aku-Aku, then this book is for you. My only complaint against this book is that I dearly wish that it would be updated and reissued.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Riddles of diffusion, July 21, 2003

By 

John C. Landon "nemonemini" (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Early Man and the Ocean: A Search for the Beginnings of Navigation and Seaborne Civilizations (Hardcover)

Although I do not agree with all of Heyerdahl's perspectives or theories (some of which are being tested in the negative with new DNA tracing techniques) this book is still worth reading in part because of one of the most acute studies of the isolationist-diffusionist controversy, especially with respect to the Atlantic side of the debate, where the riddle of the Olmecs and the New World civilizations get consistently incorrect histories. Hopefully this side of the author's legacy after judicious sifting and updating won't be lost. For various reasons, among them the insistence, due to incorrect Darwinian views, on independent cultural evolution, and the speculations of crank theorists, the fairly simple facts of the case are rarely presented.
There are very few historians willing to consider the issues here, Cyrus Gordon in Before Columbus, being one. This is one of those areas where establshed scholarship is determined to not get it right, and the careful arguments in the book are classic and pretty well ignored.