Hi Rick,
Thats a spot on and eloquent observation. I was also going to call attention to the facr that whatever Heyerdahls archaic views on race, he did build the kon tiki and put his hypothesis to the test in the real world.
He continued the laudible tradition of experiential archaeology in the tradition of Speke, Byrd, Burton and Matthew Stirling, etc. So what if Hiram Bingham believed in phrenology,... sign of the times.
As naive and plain wrong some of these pioneers theories may be in light of modern tools and discoveries,there is something romantic and heroic about those who put their lives on the line
for an idea.
Duncan