The Enduring Mysteries Of How Polynesia Was Settled

If you take planet Earth and draw lines on the surface from Hawaii, to New Zealand, to Easter Island, you'd draw the Polynesian triangle.

This scattering of small islands — in 10 million square miles of water — is home to a closely interconnected culture, separated by the sea.

The question of how people first settled the Pacific exploded into Western pop culture long before Moana ... in the 50's, when the Norwegian navigator Thor Heyerdahl released a documentary about his voyage from Peru to Raroia on his raft, the "Kon-Tiki."

Heyerdahl's ideas about people first settling the Pacific islands from South America have been debunked and discredited.

But the big question of exactly how people traveled to these remote and widespread islands thousands of years ago is still hotly debated.

Christina Thompson, editor of the Harvard Review and author of the new book "Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia." She tweets @cathompsn.

Christina Thompson will speak at the Concord Bookshop on Sunday, April 7, at 3 pm.