Native Antarctic population

Could there have been natives of Antartica, probably on the northern tip of that peninsula? Or is this ASB?
 
Its a harsher environment than even the inuit faced, and there aren't really any borderlands to survive in and colonize it from.

I suppose you could have a population subsisting on seals and penguin, working with driftwood and pebbles, and maybe finding enough seaweed to keep from dying of scurvy. It it would be tough.

The population would be tiny and always on the margins of extinction.
 
Could there have been natives of Antartica, probably on the northern tip of that peninsula? Or is this ASB?

I'm sure that there are others on the board who have better knowledge of matters such as these than I do, but here are my thoughts.

I first thought of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. Their diet is primarily whales, walrus, caribou and seal. The Antarctic (particularly the Antarctic Peninsula) would provide a source of these: the Antarctic fur seal, leopard seal, Weddell seal, southern elephant seal, crabeater seal, blue whales and orcas are all found in and around Antarctica, as well as fish in the seas. Presumably penguin eggs, if not their meat, could also provide another food source (Polar explorers did eat penguin - it was presumably not delicious, but in a scarce environment, it is food. Some of the natives of Tierra del Fuego ate penguins from time to time). Inuit also eat algae, which is found around the Antarctic Peninsula, as well as grasses, tubers, roots, stems and berries. The Antarctic has very few vascular plants, though the majority of these are found in the Peninsula. Presumably there are ways to eat mosses and Antarctic hair grass and Antarctic pearlwort...but it's not going to do much for you. Luckily plant matter is almost insignificant to the Inuit diet. So as far as food is concerned, I think a small population could survive.

Next, where would people come from? Presumably they would spread south from Tierra del Fuego. I don't know if this would have been possible. While the indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego had boats, they were small craft incapable of covering the 1000+ miles from Tierra del Fuego to the Antarctic Peninsula. I don't think that Antarctica was connected to South America during the last ice age, so humans couldn't have walked across. Perhaps Polynesians could have reached Antarctica - but why would they have stayed? The furthest south they went was the Auckland Islands, and they didn't bother staying there long - and the Auckland Islands are positively inviting, compared to Antarctica.
 

mowque

Banned
It is the only place on Earth that you can't live off the land. Even the Arctic gets warm-ish in summer. The Antarctic is much colder, and much more constant. Also, I think it is drier?
 
It is the only place on Earth that you can't live off the land. Even the Arctic gets warm-ish in summer. The Antarctic is much colder, and much more constant. Also, I think it is drier?

I don't think the difference between the coastal Antarctic Peninsula and the Arctic would be too marked. The western coast of the Antarctic Peninsula gets 450-800mm precipitation a year - actually more than Baffin Island. The temperature is a bit more of a downer, but the Winter mean at Rothera Research Station is -10.1°C, Summer mean is 0.7°C, again comparable to Baffin Island, where Frobisher Bay has a Winter mean of -14.1°C and a Summer mean of 5.9°C. But I still don't know how humans would get there.

EDIT: And as I demonstrated, a hunter-fisher style lifestyle would be plausible in Antarctica. Do the Inuit 'live off the land'? I believe their lifestyle and diet could be replicated on the Antarctic Peninsula.
 
Well, they've found the remains of aboriginal boats on Falkland Islands, and its likely that's how the Falklands wolf got there.

Theoretically, you could get Fuegans blown there by the fierce winds. But you'd have to be incredibly lucky to get enough males and females blown at the same time to have even a chance at a starter population. Particularly since I believe that Fuegan women didn't put out to open water fishing.

And of course the learning curve to survive in Antarctica is going to be incredibly steep. Its like another planet from Fuego.
 
Pretty much ASB I think. The seas of the Southern Ocean are just so rough and there isn't nearly enough plant life in concentrations that would allow for things like fire. It's telling that people live even in some of the most extreme areas of the Arctic, but there is no record of settlement in the Antarctic.
 
Pretty much ASB I think. The seas of the Southern Ocean are just so rough and there isn't nearly enough plant life in concentrations that would allow for things like fire. It's telling that people live even in some of the most extreme areas of the Arctic, but there is no record of settlement in the Antarctic.

Inuit mainly eat raw food. For fire they either use driftwood, animal fat (especially blubber) animal dung, and moss. Animal dung will be a little sparser than in the Arctic (only seal dung really), moss is actually reasonably abundant on the Antarctic peninsula, and I suppose driftwood happens. People live in the Arctic because they were able to walk there. I don't believe it would ever have been possible for humans to walk to the Antarctic.
 
The learning curve to living in the Antarctic peninsula would be so steep you'd have to be Inuit already and the Inuit survival strategies probably developed incrementally over a very long time in far more friendly circumstances. The Fuegans could not make such a transformation in the short window of survival they'd have if a number had the misfortune to make it there.
 
Their lifestyle might be very similar to the lifestyle of the Yaghan people.

But I think it is difficult for people to actually reach Antarctica. The sea between Antartica and South America is rough, and it is a long distance.
 
Highly unlikely but it could happen if everything came together just right, it would be a good T.L idea, if large groups from Terra De Fungo all ended up Antarctica at the same time, there is a chance Polynesians might get stuck there if they get shipwrecked,
 
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