Defining himself as an experimental philosopher and a cautious scientist the world renowned anthropologist and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl reviews his amazing life's work in this captivating memoir. In the Footsteps of Adam captures the excitement that surrounded Heyerdahl's bold experiments and the conclusions they pointed to. Choosing on numerous occasions to put his life on the line for the sake of proving his theories, Heyerdahl most famously cross the Pacific from Peru to Polynesia in a hand-built raft made of balsa wood (the Kon-Tiki) and crossed the Atlantic from Morroco to Barbados in a ship built from papyrus reeds (the RA) -- proving empirically in each case that ancient civilizations were capable of a much wider range of travel and exploration. In between these voyages (in 1947 and 1970 respectively) and in addition to them, Heyerdahl also journeyed to the Galapagos to prove that these islands which scientists from Darwin onward had assumed uncontacted by humans had indeed been inhabited by pre-Inca peoples from Peru; to Easter Island where he uncovered an ancient layer of civilizations with strong links to South American prelnca peoples; to the Maldives to confirm his theory that these islands had been discovered not by Vasco da Gama, or earlier by Arabic explorers, but by an ancient people with strong thematic links to the peoples of of the Easter Islands -- and in the process, revealing the startling restlessness and reach of ancient peoples. This life -- filled with exploration and daring adventure -- is captured in Heyerdahl's own words and thoughts, with a constant backdrop of the power and intelligence of ancient man. Moving in the foot-steps of Adam, Heyerdahlbrings to our myopic and frequently destructive modern world an understanding of this richness and vibrancy of ancient man.