Moves To

Kon-Tiki Debate Moves To Easter Island

OUT of the bound-to-happen de partment comes an Oslo report, dated July 15, that Thor (Kon- Tiki Raft) Heyerdahl is planning an expedition to Easter Island.

I His wife and archaeologists will go with him, plus a doctor who, according to the report, will “make blood tests of the natives.”

The report naively adds: “Huge stone statues at Easter Island have mystified visitors. Some believe them to be the key to a lost civil isation.” \ Mr. Heyerdahl told an Oslo press conference that the expedition would be financed with the profits of the Kon-Tiki film and books. It was not reported whether the objective at Easter Island will be to find something that may support the theory of a South American origin for the Polynesian people, but the implication seems to be there.

WITH regard to the blood tests, it may be pointed out that Aus i tralian experts have already clashed briskly with those who maintain that the Polynesian races

are descended from South Ameri can voyagers who crossed the Pacific by raft or canoe.

“All the evidence of blood group ing suggests that this is not so,” said Dr. R. J. Walsh, of the Sydney Red Cross Transfusion Service, in a newspaper interview earlier this year.

Dr. Walsh pointed out that blood characteristics have “grouped” many races, and that research has sup ported many anthropological theories—but not the theory that has been pegged to the Kon-Tiki voyage.

The only people who cannot be grouped with one or other of the few “blood relatives” categories are the Australian Aborigines.

As far as is known, no acknow ledged authority on Polynesian history and culture has ruled out the possibility, or even probability, of contact with the South American mainland in the course of history But that is not to confirm all the

claims that have cropped up since the Kon-Tiki feat.

MEANWHILE the system of radio carbon dating continues to produce interesting results Dr. Alex Spoehr, of the Bishop Museum, Honolulu, has said that material found at an ancient Polynesian-type settlement in Sai pan has given a radio-carbon dat ing of 1375 BC, with a margin of error of 200 years either way This indicates that Polynesian colonists wherever they came from, were in the western Pacific at least 3,000 years ago. t BSIP registration of aliens came into force on July 15, and all per sons aged 16 or over who are not British subjects, British-protected persons or citizens of the Republic of Ireland were required to apply for registration within 28 days Heavy penalties are provided for offences against the Regulation