Kon-Tiki was the raft

Raft

A raft is any flat structure for support or transportation over water. It is the most basic of boat design, characterized by the absence of a hull...

 used by Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer with a background in zoology and geography. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition, in which he sailed by raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands...

 in his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 from South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 to the Polynesian islands

Polynesia

Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...

. It was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha

Viracocha

Viracocha is the great creator god in the pre-Inca and Inca mythology in the Andes region of South America. Full name and some spelling alternatives are Apu Qun Tiqsi Wiraqutra and Con-Tici Viracocha...

, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name. Kon-Tiki is also the name of Heyerdahl's book and the Academy Award-winning documentary film

Kon-Tiki (film)

Kon-Tiki is a Norwegian documentary about the Kon-Tiki expedition led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in 1947, released in 1950. The movie, which was directed by Thor Heyerdahl and edited by Olle Nordemar, received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 24th Academy...

 chronicling his adventures.

Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian

Pre-Columbian

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...

 times, although most anthropologists now believe they did not.