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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.
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