Exploring Peru's pyramids with Thor Heyerdahl
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Photo by Alfredo Narváez

In 1987 in Chiclayo, Peru, researcher Dan Sandweiss had a chance encounter with Norwegian explorer and scientist Thor Heyerdahl, one of the most famous figures in modern archaeology.

Heyerdahl pioneered studies of potential interactions among ancient cultures. His book, Kon-Tiki, describes the voyage of a balsa wood raft that he sailed from Peru to Raroia, a Polynesian island, a distance of 4,300 miles, to prove such a journey possible.

With a three-year grant from the Timex Corp., Sandweiss eventually joined the legendary archaeologist at Túcume, a pyramid complex in northern Peru. With them was Sandweiss' longtime friend and colleague Alfredo Narváez. They wrote about their research in Pyramids of Túcume: The Quest for Peru's Forgotten City, published in 1995.

Sandweiss, associate professor of anthropology and Quaternary and climate studies at The University of Maine, continued to work with Heyerdahl through the Foundation for Exploration and Research on Cultural Origins, or FERCO. As president of the FERCO Scientific Committee, Sandweiss helps to select proposals for research that furthers the foundation's mission of understanding the origins and relationships among ancient civilizations.

In 1998, Heyerdahl was named a distinguished research associate with the UMaine Institute for Quaternary and Climate Studies. He died this spring at the age of 87.