Could Fuegians become a Polynesian-equivalent for the Southern Ocean?

Is it possible that a culture similar to the Polynesians, in that they regularly make long distance sea voyages and settle every speck of land in the sea, might emerge a bit further south, specifically along the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the islands in and around it? The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is the strongest ocean current on Earth, and is accompanied by powerful westerlies, the West Wind Drift. Like European sailors discovered, it makes a natural transport from east to west.

Which culture might develop to become a Polynesian-equivalent and settle all the sub-Antarctic islands? The OTL Polynesians were too late, and never well-adapted to polar conditions, given the furthest south they got were the Auckland Islands around the time they settled New Zealand. So instead, the best candidate might be the Fuegians of Tierra del Fuego, specifically the Yaghan, who already had a boat-building tradition and harvested much of their diet from the sea.

These cultures would be akin to the Fuegians, but even more maritime--their main food would be fish, seabirds, seals, and whales, along with kelp (especially Durvillaea antarctica aka cochayuyo). The Yaghan dog (domesticated form of the culpeo, which is neither a dog or a fox, but a different sort of canid) would also be a food source at times, although also a companion animal. I don't know if the warrah/Falkland fox could be domesticated or otherwise spread too, although it's distantly related to the Yaghan dog (though closer to the maned wolf than the culpeo or Yaghan dog).

What we need is the Yaghan to end up deriving more of their food from deeper out in the ocean (basically better whaling), requiring better boats. Maybe it wouldn't be the Yaghan who develop this, but instead a derived branch of the Yaghan on the Falklands. These indigenous Falklanders might end up somehow importing trees from the mainland where they'd become established. I think these Falklanders, if they develop early enough, would be the nucleus for a "Circumpolar Polynesian" culture.

Within a few centuries, they'd settle South Georgia, where they'd need to innovate windbreaks to protect the trees given the South Georgian climate is much more extreme, although it might be possible to grow the trees there. Further south, they might settle the South Sandwich Islands, and get as far south as the South Orkney Islands, South Shetland Islands, and Antarctica proper (just the Antarctic Peninsula, since the rest is far too harsh), migrating along the ice sheet and using boats akin to the Inuit umiak. This culture would not use the more advanced boats for open seas, since even on the South Sandwich Islands, I don't think you could grow trees there no matter how hard you tried, and definitely not on the islands closer to Antarctica. These cultures would be much more marginal.

Where would they go next? Bouvet Island might be settled, since it's in the West Wind Drift, but that's another marginal culture clinging to the edge. But Gough Island (following the Benguela Current north) would be their next stop, since their trees might grow there, plus it has plentiful seals and whales to hunt. Just north, Tristan da Cunha and associated islands might be settled. The islanders here would likely land at the Cape at some point, and maybe blend a bit with the Khoi people, although not displace them.

If they can get to the Prince Edward Islands south of the Cape, then they'll likely settle the Crozet and Kerguelen Islands--all three islands can have trees grown on them with proper protection. The Prince Edward Islands would see the introduction of the Kerguelen cabbage into the food sources used. Îles Amsterdam and Saint Paul would likely be settled as well, as well as a splinter culture on the Heard and MacDonald Islands. Some might move north and settle the Mascarenes (Reunion, Mauritius, etc.), where they'd play a role in the Indian Ocean trade.

Some might land in Australia and blend with the Aboriginals, and I could see "Fuegian" cultures thriving in parts, maybe Kangaroo Island or parts of Tasmania. If they got to New Zealand before the Maori, then they would become the dominant culture there, and even post Maori, the Maori are unlikely to extirpate them entirely from some parts of the South Island. Auckland and Campbell Islands would be prime territory for them, and Macquarie Island would have its own culture. This likely where they'd stop, since looping around to South America would be too difficult and to the north where all the islands are, the Polynesians would check their expansion.

They would likely never number more than a few thousand on the bigger islands (Kerguelen and the Falklands) and a few hundred on the smaller islands, and the arrival of Europeans sealers and whalers would decimate them. Still, they'd be a very fascinating culture ethnographically and their languages would form a well-distributed family derived from the Yaghan language. Their existence would be interesting from the point of view of who might own all these islands. In terms of success, the ones with the biggest potential would be the New Zealanders, who would be an alt-Maori (and absorb the proto-Maori if they arrived first) and of course the groups on the Mascarenes, but the Kerguelen and Falklander groups might be successful as well.

Is this particularly plausible? Could a sub-Antarctic culture arise to colonise all these islands? Or would they be doomed to be halted at South Georgia, where the nearest islands are too far away? I considered the other possibility being some alternate proto-Malagasy settling the Kerguelen Islands and spreading around the Southern Ocean from there, but the Pacific is a huge barrier.
 
Didn't the Yaghan and other Fuegian peoples not have any seaworthy boats at all?

They had canoes which were good enough to sail between islands along Tierra del Fuego, as did the neighbouring Kaweskar people. The key thing is somehow getting them more reliant on the open ocean for their food, which might spur the development for better boats and thus being able to sail further.
 
Is this particularly plausible? Could a sub-Antarctic culture arise to colonise all these islands? Or would they be doomed to be halted at South Georgia, where the nearest islands are too far away? I considered the other possibility being some alternate proto-Malagasy settling the Kerguelen Islands and spreading around the Southern Ocean from there, but the Pacific is a huge barrier.

This is a fascinating idea, but I think the investment of time and labor needed to introduce and grow groves of trees in environments which will rapidly see food depletion as native wildlife is destroyed by Fuegans and their 'dogs' is quite likely to limit their spread.

I could see more adventurous Fuegans being a butterfly of an earlier Manteño civilization. A balsa raft and cotton-sail civilization sailing up and won South America's Pacific coast could inspire the development of a civilization making boats from tougher wood south of the Atacama, which spreads along the coast of Patagonia in turn and inspires the Fuegans.

While technically ASB, I do recall that someone had a timeline where a species of salmon becomes established on the Patagonian coast. The resulting changes to the environment (salmon runs fertilize the soil, and so allow for larger trees) and human economy (salmon=LOTS OF FOOD) could result in Fuegans becoming more adventurous and oceangoing.
 
This is a fascinating idea, but I think the investment of time and labor needed to introduce and grow groves of trees in environments which will rapidly see food depletion as native wildlife is destroyed by Fuegans and their 'dogs' is quite likely to limit their spread.

Would these groves of Fuegian trees transplated to new environments really hurt the harvest of seals or sea birds? Tierra del Fuego still had tons of seals and other seabirds/marine mammals. Some humans and their "dogs" won't put too big of a dent in the population. The warrah will probably die, though, either through overhunting or interbreeding with the Yaghan dog (assuming it can interbreed with the Yaghan dog to begin with). But it might survive as an animal only a few high status individuals are allowed to kill or wear its pelts.

While technically ASB, I do recall that someone had a timeline where a species of salmon becomes established on the Patagonian coast. The resulting changes to the environment (salmon runs fertilize the soil, and so allow for larger trees) and human economy (salmon=LOTS OF FOOD) could result in Fuegans becoming more adventurous and oceangoing.

I saw that TL too, but it unfortunately ended after only a few pages and had a POD several million years before humans evolved. I'm more interested in a POD any time after modern humans first arrived in South America.
 
Would these groves of Fuegian trees transplated to new environments really hurt the harvest of seals or sea birds? Tierra del Fuego still had tons of seals and other seabirds/marine mammals.

It's not that the groves of trees would hurt the harvest, it's that the harvest of birds and ocean life could become depleted relatively rapidly, resulting in a culture that spends most of its energy on basic survival and managing the environment, rather than exploring.
 
It's not that the groves of trees would hurt the harvest, it's that the harvest of birds and ocean life could become depleted relatively rapidly, resulting in a culture that spends most of its energy on basic survival and managing the environment, rather than exploring.

Bird harvest would deplete pretty quickly.

On the other hand, given the relatively small size of the Islands and the biological productivity of the seaways, I don't think you'd see depletion of sea life. Whales, fish, fishery would probably be pretty sustainable. The most vulnerable population would be seals. But you'd have aboriginal sustenance harvests, with the option of relatively difficult to access secondary haul outs. I think they'd be fine.

I also suspect that there'd be a window of time during the 'depletion phase' when the response to overpopulation might be to colonize new Islands.

The real challenge would be coherent navigation and actually finding the islands.

You'd also need some really sophisticated boat technology in some really horrific seas. Not impossible.

One thought - if you had Fuegans with a sophisticated sailing tradition, I'd see them moving up the coasts of Argentina and Chile. This might actually come first - the sailing package being developed and refined moving up and down the coats, and possibly acquiring the rudiments of a sustenance package.

Which actually may open some options. I'm not sure how far away they'd be from the Chiloe archipelago, but that's where potatoes come from, and where 99% of the genetic diversity of potatoes come from. So, potentially you might see a potato-oid based horticulture. Not sure. Might be a long shot.
 
Bird harvest would deplete pretty quickly.

On the other hand, given the relatively small size of the Islands and the biological productivity of the seaways, I don't think you'd see depletion of sea life. Whales, fish, fishery would probably be pretty sustainable. The most vulnerable population would be seals. But you'd have aboriginal sustenance harvests, with the option of relatively difficult to access secondary haul outs. I think they'd be fine.

I also suspect that there'd be a window of time during the 'depletion phase' when the response to overpopulation might be to colonize new Islands.

The real challenge would be coherent navigation and actually finding the islands.

You'd also need some really sophisticated boat technology in some really horrific seas. Not impossible.

One thought - if you had Fuegans with a sophisticated sailing tradition, I'd see them moving up the coasts of Argentina and Chile. This might actually come first - the sailing package being developed and refined moving up and down the coats, and possibly acquiring the rudiments of a sustenance package.

Which actually may open some options. I'm not sure how far away they'd be from the Chiloe archipelago, but that's where potatoes come from, and where 99% of the genetic diversity of potatoes come from. So, potentially you might see a potato-oid based horticulture. Not sure. Might be a long shot.
If they can sail to Antarctica or Kerguelen, Chiloé is an easy hop.
 
You put a lot of thought into this. Very interesting. And be very interesting if these people figured out something like a seaweed mariculture as discussed in one of the Kerguelen threads.

Is there any component in southern seaweed that could be used for boat building, something comprable to a bamboo or a fiber? These people would really really benefit from being able to make highly seaworthy boats that didn't require trees.
 
You put a lot of thought into this. Very interesting. And be very interesting if these people figured out something like a seaweed mariculture as discussed in one of the Kerguelen threads.

Is there any component in southern seaweed that could be used for boat building, something comprable to a bamboo or a fiber? These people would really really benefit from being able to make highly seaworthy boats that didn't require trees.

I'm skeptical of seaweed mariculture, for reasons discussed in the Kerguelen threads. Basically toxic concentrations of sodium and iodine. There's way too much for a staple.

I think that a better boatbuilding technique might be seal skins and whalebone. But... that's tough to get to.
 
If they can sail to Antarctica or Kerguelen, Chiloé is an easy hop.

The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to think that the fundamentals of this maritime technological package would evolve moving up and down the Chilean and Argentine coasts. So the Fuegan Naval culture would be an offshoot of that.

EDIT:

No, just no. I started looking up the distances on the map calculator and it was too insane.

Maybe it wouldn't be the Yaghan who develop this, but instead a derived branch of the Yaghan on the Falklands. These indigenous Falklanders might end up somehow importing trees from the mainland where they'd become established. I think these Falklanders, if they develop early enough, would be the nucleus for a "Circumpolar Polynesian" culture.

Fuego to Falklands is about 280 miles, give or take.... This is doable.


Within a few centuries, they'd settle South Georgia, where they'd need to innovate windbreaks to protect the trees given the South Georgian climate is much more extreme, although it might be possible to grow the trees there.

About 850 to 1100 miles. That's extremely tough to achieve.


Further south, they might settle the South Sandwich Islands, and get as far south as the

South Orkney Islands, South Shetland Islands, and


South Orkneys are about 550 miles from South Georgia. Barely, barely manageable.


Antarctica proper (just the Antarctic Peninsula, since the rest is far too harsh), migrating along the ice sheet and using boats akin to the Inuit umiak.

About 500 miles from South Orkney. Achievable, maybe.


Bouvet Island might be settled, since it's in the West Wind Drift, but that's another marginal culture clinging to the edge.

Bouvet is 1100 miles from the nearest potentially habitable Islands, and 1500 miles from South Georgia. I don't think its doable.


But Gough Island (following the Benguela Current north) would be their next stop, since their trees might grow there, plus it has plentiful seals and whales to hunt.

Gough is 1600 miles from South Georgia. Nope.

Tristan da Cunha and associated islands might be settled. The islanders here would likely land at the

Tristan de Cunha is about 250 miles from Gough. Reachable. And more or less the same distance that Gough is from South Georgia. So they're both too distant. So nope.


Cape at some point, and maybe blend a bit with the Khoi people, although not displace them.

About 1850 miles from Gough or Tristan de Cunha to the Cape. About 3000 miles from South Georgia to the Cape. And about 4000 miles from the Falklands, or Northern Argentina. I think if you're looking at these repeated 1500+ jumps, from one to the other, its just not feasible.

If they can get to the Prince Edward Islands south of the Cape, then they'll likely settle the

About 1100 miles south of the Cape. 3200 miles from the South Georgians. Out of the question.

Crozet and Kerguelen Islands--all three islands can have trees grown on them with proper protection.

Only 660 from the Prince Edwards to the Crozets. And from the Crozets about another 900 to Kerguelen. Directly to Kerguelen from the Prince Edward is 1500 easy.

well, as well as a splinter culture on the Heard and MacDonald Islands.

Only about 350 miles from Kerguelen . Could be done.


Some might land in Australia and blend with the Aboriginals, and I could see "Fuegian" cultures thriving in parts, maybe Kangaroo Island or parts of Tasmania.

Australia is 2000 miles from Iles Amsterdam and St. Paul, 2600 miles from Kerguelen, that’s the nearest bit of Australia.

If they got to New Zealand before the Maori, then they would become the dominant culture there, and even post Maori, the Maori are unlikely to extirpate them entirely from some parts of the South Island.

A 1000 miles from the nearest bit of Australia to New Zealand. Assuming that they skirt and settle along the southern shores of Australia for about 2000 miles.

Auckland and Campbell Islands would be prime territory for them, and Macquarie Island would have its own culture. This likely where they'd stop, since looping around to South America would be too difficult and to the north where all the islands are, the Polynesians would check their expansion.

Macquarie is about 700 miles from New Zealand, about 950 from Tasmania, and 3500 from Kerguelen.

The trouble is that most of these Islands are really extraordinarily tiny in a vast and empty and very volatile ocean. A lot of these distances are just mind boggling. All of these distances are straight line, as the crow flies. In practical terms, for some of them, you'd be looking at twice that or more.

I'm assuming that we're looking at a Falkland Yaghan culture which leapfrogs from one Island group to the other. But you would need an incredibly evolved boating and navigation package to survive voyages of that length and find these islands.

It's not impossible. The longest Polynesian voyages were about 2500 miles maybe. But most of their deep sea jaunts were only a few hundred miles. The Polynesians built up the skill for travelling because many of the Micronesian and western Polynesian islands were relatively close, they could build up going further and further to the incredible voyages into the east.

Here, you'd pretty much have incredible voyages out of the starting gate. That's extremely difficult. And you're leapfrogging through some very marginal territory.

Realistically, I'd be prepared to give the Falklands, and with a bit of a stretch the South Atlantic groups, including South Georgian, South Sandwich, South Orkney, Central, South Shetland and even the Antarctic peninsula. But beyond that, it's just not feasible.
 
Is it possible that a culture similar to the Polynesians, in that they regularly make long distance sea voyages and settle every speck of land in the sea, might emerge a bit further south, specifically along the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the islands in and around it? The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is the strongest ocean current on Earth, and is accompanied by powerful westerlies, the West Wind Drift. Like European sailors discovered, it makes a natural transport from east to west.
...

I just wanted to say, this is a really well thought out post. And I'm really sorry to step on it.
 
I also suspect that there'd be a window of time during the 'depletion phase' when the response to overpopulation might be to colonize new Islands.

The real challenge would be coherent navigation and actually finding the islands.

Indeed, and that's the hard part. Even if the Southern Ocean has powerful winds and currents making it easy to get swept places, you'd need to know the signs of nearby land and of course, actually be able to get to said land, and eventually bring a family along to go there.

One thought - if you had Fuegans with a sophisticated sailing tradition, I'd see them moving up the coasts of Argentina and Chile. This might actually come first - the sailing package being developed and refined moving up and down the coats, and possibly acquiring the rudiments of a sustenance package.

Which actually may open some options. I'm not sure how far away they'd be from the Chiloe archipelago, but that's where potatoes come from, and where 99% of the genetic diversity of potatoes come from. So, potentially you might see a potato-oid based horticulture. Not sure. Might be a long shot.

Probably the case, but IIRC the Chono people and Kawésqar to the north were culturally similar to the Yaghan. So it might start in that region and spread south, or the Yaghan might innovate it and spread the development north. It is odd, though, why the potato never spread much further south.

Potatoes (some form of the many Chilote varieties) to supplement the Fuegian diet would be nice to have, although I don't think they could grow much more south than South Georgia.

I'm skeptical of seaweed mariculture, for reasons discussed in the Kerguelen threads. Basically toxic concentrations of sodium and iodine. There's way too much for a staple.

I think that a better boatbuilding technique might be seal skins and whalebone. But... that's tough to get to.

Not a staple, but useful to gather. Is there any way to treat the seaweed to reduce harmful levels of chemicals, at least without using modern technology? I'm not expecting it to be some version of rice (like the energy content in it might imply), but certainly enough to supplement the diet of a few hundred to a few thousand people in a barren waste.

I just wanted to say, this is a really well thought out post. And I'm really sorry to step on it.

It's okay, I was just letting my imagination flow. I believe South Georgia and nearby islands are a bottleneck of sorts for this hypothetical culture.

The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to think that the fundamentals of this maritime technological package would evolve moving up and down the Chilean and Argentine coasts. So the Fuegan Naval culture would be an offshoot of that.

EDIT:

No, just no. I started looking up the distances on the map calculator and it was too insane.

You aren't wrong.

Maybe it wouldn't be the Yaghan who develop this, but instead a derived branch of the Yaghan on the Falklands. These indigenous Falklanders might end up somehow importing trees from the mainland where they'd become established. I think these Falklanders, if they develop early enough, would be the nucleus for a "Circumpolar Polynesian" culture.
Fuego to Falklands is about 280 miles, give or take.... This is doable.

There's evidence it happened OTL, although it likely was only castaways who left very little artifacts for future archaeologists. I think it's amazing the Falklands didn't have a Fuegian-type indigenous culture. Although given that the nearest Fuegians, the Selk'nam and the Haush, had different lifestyles which relied on hunting the guanaco (and thus were less reliant on the sea than the Yaghan), it perhaps isn't too surprising.


Within a few centuries, they'd settle South Georgia, where they'd need to innovate windbreaks to protect the trees given the South Georgian climate is much more extreme, although it might be possible to grow the trees there.
About 850 to 1100 miles. That's extremely tough to achieve.

This is where the bottleneck would be IMO. South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands aren't too far away from the main culture, and what they know would still work there. All other islands are too far away. But at the same time, the South Georgians are likely to be "impoverished" culturally than the Falklanders due to their challenging environment.


Further south, they might settle the South Sandwich Islands, and get as far south as the

South Orkney Islands, South Shetland Islands, and
South Orkneys are about 550 miles from South Georgia. Barely, barely manageable.


Antarctica proper (just the Antarctic Peninsula, since the rest is far too harsh), migrating along the ice sheet and using boats akin to the Inuit umiak.

About 500 miles from South Orkney. Achievable, maybe.

This might be less challenging than it seems, given that the southernmost South Sandwich Islands are locked in the Antarctic sea ice in the winter. But this culture would be totally different. Even the South Sandwich Islands, at over 500 km from South Georgia, would be a challenge, but any culture which can settle it would likely spread out using the Antarctic sea ice.


Bouvet Island might be settled, since it's in the West Wind Drift, but that's another marginal culture clinging to the edge.
Bouvet is 1100 miles from the nearest potentially habitable Islands, and 1500 miles from South Georgia. I don't think its doable.

Very difficult, I understand, akin to the greatest Polynesian voyages. But it is one of the few ways to settle the most remote island on Earth, although it probably is about as implausible as a European country deciding to permenantly settle the island during the 19th/20th century.

But Gough Island (following the Benguela Current north) would be their next stop, since their trees might grow there, plus it has plentiful seals and whales to hunt.
Gough is 1600 miles from South Georgia. Nope.

Tristan da Cunha and associated islands might be settled. The islanders here would likely land at the

Tristan de Cunha is about 250 miles from Gough. Reachable. And more or less the same distance that Gough is from South Georgia. So they're both too distant. So nope.

That's the bottleneck. If they can't settle Gough Island, then their voyages stop (in terms of settling new lands). It's a huge jump, but at least they have the current to go with them. It's definitely on the very fringe of probability, and the most likely solution is if such a culture arises, than such a thing never happens.

Cape at some point, and maybe blend a bit with the Khoi people, although not displace them.

About 1850 miles from Gough or Tristan de Cunha to the Cape. About 3000 miles from South Georgia to the Cape. And about 4000 miles from the Falklands, or Northern Argentina. I think if you're looking at these repeated 1500+ jumps, from one to the other, its just not feasible.

If they can get to the Prince Edward Islands south of the Cape, then they'll likely settle the

About 1100 miles south of the Cape. 3200 miles from the South Georgians. Out of the question.

But I would assume that if you could get to Gough to begin with, you'd have the basis for jumping to the next set. Although perhaps not, with the Prince Edward Islands being the second bottleneck alongside the Cape, where the seafaring Fuegian culture will cease.

Crozet and Kerguelen Islands--all three islands can have trees grown on them with proper protection.

Only 660 from the Prince Edwards to the Crozets. And from the Crozets about another 900 to Kerguelen. Directly to Kerguelen from the Prince Edward is 1500 easy.

well, as well as a splinter culture on the Heard and MacDonald Islands.

Only about 350 miles from Kerguelen . Could be done.

This is where a mature seafaring culture would have a relatively easy time given a few centuries to work with.


Some might land in Australia and blend with the Aboriginals, and I could see "Fuegian" cultures thriving in parts, maybe Kangaroo Island or parts of Tasmania.

Australia is 2000 miles from Iles Amsterdam and St. Paul, 2600 miles from Kerguelen, that’s the nearest bit of Australia.

That distance was crossed by the Polynesians, after all, and IMO it isn't entirely out of the question for Polynesian expansion beyond Rapa Nui to some offshore parts of South America (Juan Fernandez/Galapagos).

If they got to New Zealand before the Maori, then they would become the dominant culture there, and even post Maori, the Maori are unlikely to extirpate them entirely from some parts of the South Island.
A 1000 miles from the nearest bit of Australia to New Zealand. Assuming that they skirt and settle along the southern shores of Australia for about 2000 miles.

As I mentioned, Kangaroo Island, plus the islands of the Bass Strait north of Tasmania. I wouldn't be surprised if some marginal part of Tasmania ends up assimilated into Fuegian culture, although it would have some Tasmanian Aboriginal influences. From there you'd make the jump to New Zealand.


Auckland and Campbell Islands would be prime territory for them, and Macquarie Island would have its own culture. This likely where they'd stop, since looping around to South America would be too difficult and to the north where all the islands are, the Polynesians would check their expansion.

Macquarie is about 700 miles from New Zealand, about 950 from Tasmania, and 3500 from Kerguelen.

The trouble is that most of these Islands are really extraordinarily tiny in a vast and empty and very volatile ocean. A lot of these distances are just mind boggling. All of these distances are straight line, as the crow flies. In practical terms, for some of them, you'd be looking at twice that or more.

Indeed, it is seriously challenging and probably implausible.

I'm assuming that we're looking at a Falkland Yaghan culture which leapfrogs from one Island group to the other. But you would need an incredibly evolved boating and navigation package to survive voyages of that length and find these islands.

Definitely. But the Polynesians evolved from cultures less advanced at seafaring after all. And that's why I proposed a way to get those trees (probably Nothofagus or other Fuegian trees) to get better open-sea boats than an umiak equivalent.

It's not impossible. The longest Polynesian voyages were about 2500 miles maybe. But most of their deep sea jaunts were only a few hundred miles. The Polynesians built up the skill for travelling because many of the Micronesian and western Polynesian islands were relatively close, they could build up going further and further to the incredible voyages into the east.

Here, you'd pretty much have incredible voyages out of the starting gate. That's extremely difficult. And you're leapfrogging through some very marginal territory.

Realistically, I'd be prepared to give the Falklands, and with a bit of a stretch the South Atlantic groups, including South Georgian, South Sandwich, South Orkney, Central, South Shetland and even the Antarctic peninsula. But beyond that, it's just not feasible.

Agree, that's the most plausible. But the Polynesians did visit South America, and as I said, I don't think it's totally out of the picture they might have settled Juan Fernandez or Galapagos if they had a few extra centuries. Of course, the fact the Fuegians need to leap over vast amounts of ocean early on (unlike the later Polynesians who had centuries of experience) is a huge challenge.

But climate-wise, I don't think it's necessarily too marginal (outside of offshoots like Bouvet, Heard and MacDonald, etc.). If there's a sort of veneration of trees, and windbreaks for the trees, it might still be possible to grow the trees for the superior open-sea boats on islands like Kerguelen and such. As long as you can keep making good boats to sail in the open sea (and of course harpoons and other whaling tech), then you can keep sailing east along the Antarctic.

I just wanted to say, this is a really well thought out post. And I'm really sorry to step on it.

No worries, it was a sudden flash of creativity I decided to post here.
 
i am just imagining fuegans with summer hunting camps in antarctica, and with shamans and shamans in training spending long periods of time there for meditation and spiritual growth under the aurora

that maritime culture will gove birth to some real tough motherfuckers, sum it with a surviving inca equivalent in the southern andes and baby you got a stew going.
can quinoa grow that south?
 
i am just imagining fuegans with summer hunting camps in antarctica, and with shamans and shamans in training spending long periods of time there for meditation and spiritual growth under the aurora

that maritime culture will gove birth to some real tough motherfuckers, sum it with a surviving inca equivalent in the southern andes and baby you got a stew going.
can quinoa grow that south?

Not in Antarctica, but quinoa could probably grow as far south as Tierra del Fuego if you had the right cultivar. Although there's probably a reason why quinoa never spread as far south as it could.
 
Not in Antarctica, but quinoa could probably grow as far south as Tierra del Fuego if you had the right cultivar. Although there's probably a reason why quinoa never spread as far south as it could.
yeah i didn't mean growing in antarctica ,but in tierra del fuego.
maybe it spreads via trade south? also some coca tea would help a lot in those long sea travels, that would be a killer trade commodity for whatever andean nation that can produce it
 
No worries, it was a sudden flash of creativity I decided to post here.

It was terrific reading.

The trick, it seems to me, is that you need a two-fer. You need an incredibly good, and probably unique, boatbuilding technology, something that can survive the savage waters of the circumpolar currents, and you need to do it with a paucity of key raw materials.

That's tricky. Off the top of my head, I think that the best option might be skin boats - Kayaks and Umiaks, perhaps reinforced with bone rather than wood, or maybe some kind of reinforced flexible laminate. Maybe katamarans or some other linked boat. Possibly stuffed with floatation skins or something similar. Not impossible, but unique and it probably has to evolve to be very mature before going out into the deep waters.

And of course the other thing that you need is an amazingly good or perceptive navigation package to find Islands that are literally flyspecks in an ocean. How do you get that?

It seems to me that these two related techno/cultural packages are linked but not necessarily inevitable together. You could have, for instance, a sophisticated boat technology without the navigation technology. So there have to be independent vectors pushing both of them. And they have to be pretty mature, or close to mature, before the great sea voyages. How do you get that?

Maybe a whaling culture based out of the Falklands?
 
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