It was a bit more than "could have reached Polynesia." As your Wikipedia link points out: > Heyerdahl's hypothesis was part of early Eurocentric hyperdiffusio

It was a bit more than "could have reached Polynesia." As your Wikipedia link points out: > Heyerdahl's hypothesis was part of early Eurocentric hyperdiffusionism and the westerner disbelief that (non-white) "stone-age" peoples with "no math" could colonize islands separated by vast distances of ocean water, even against prevailing winds and currents. He rejected the highly skilled voyaging and navigating traditions of the Austronesian peoples and instead argued that Polynesia was settled from boats following the wind and currents for navigation from South America. As a sort of mirror image of Kon-Tiki, the 1976 Hōkūleʻa trip from Hawaii to Tahiti - using traditional non-instrument wayfinding methods from one of the last Polynesian master navigators, Mau Piailug - conclusively demonstrated that viewpoint wrong.