A few questions.
Have they ever found evidence of humans ever living there. Like old bones etc…
Is any part of it habitable to humans. I mean like the Antarctic Peninsula which extends up toward Argentina. I reckon since people live at the tip of Argentina and Chilie how come none ever tried to settle it.
Is the main reason the Antarctic is so cold due to the ice cap that covers it…I’m sure it would be cold anyhow but would it be more or less hospitable if it was just land and no ice cap
Not that I’m aware of.
There are people living there now, but only for scientific reasons. Basically there is no reason for your average folk to settle there. It’s not like it’s farming land or anything. Also, it’s a long way from anywhere useful, it might be interesting to compare the temperatures to those found in Eskimo villages.
It’s got an ice cap because it’s cold, not the other way around. Bit like asking whether your freezer would be warmer if you didn’t have the ice in it.
It’s also got no liquid water, IIRC. Anybody living there might have been able to keep warm using clothing made from skins etc, but every last drop of water would be melted ice using heat from fire, and there isn’t the fuel there for such intensive use of flame.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the place would be ever so slightly colder without the ice.
There is some evidence that the Falkland Islands wereinhabited in prehistoric time. Whether the Antarctic Peninsula was ever inhabited I don’t know…it probably was alwys too cold.
IIRC Argentina has a small colonie on Antartica and sort of maintains it to keep a semi-legal hold on it. It is not a scientific station and has schools and is a real community.
Or maybe I dreampt this.
I thought you did too, but no, it’s real:
There’s no way to glean a living off Antarctica without modern technology. You can’t grow vegetable food (although you can fish off the coast), there’s no forests for a fuel supply, and there are only two seasons : light and dark.
Well there is Lake Vostok. At 250 kilometers long by 40 km wide by 400 meters deep, that’s a lot of liquid water. Settlers would have a tough time exploiting the lake though, as it’s buried under 4 kilometers of ice.
Men from the Endurance expedition did manage a bare-bones survival on Elephant Island during part of their - well “adventure” doesn’t quite capture the ordeal, let’s just say the fact their sailing ship was named Endurance was both approrpriate and ironic. The lived on an all-meat diet, used fat from seals and penguins to provide heat to melt ice for water and did a bang up job of staying alive in one of the harshest environments on Earth. But that was during the summer. And it was bare existance, nothing more. I don’t think they would have survived the winter.
In short, I think it’s just too harsh to survive without modern transportation to provide materials for long-term survival. Any attempt to survive long-term would be heavily dependent on the sea, and the supplies for ships would have to come from a different continent, there being no trees, etc. in Antartica.
The men of the Endurance sat locked in a ice flow aboard their ship for 10 months. After the ship was eventually crushed they travelled over ice and water to Elephant Island where they sat for another 5 months. They certainly did endure Antarctic winter; all without any modern technology!
Yes, but I think they survived the winter while the ship was still intact, just locked in ice. It was laden with supplies and gave shelter to them at that time, no? I think the ship was crushed in spring, and they were forced to salvage what they could and drag it to Elephant island, where they lived for the summer and fall. I doubt they could have survived a winter on Elephant Island with the few supplies remaining to them.
I think I have my timeline correct.
There is no evidence that any native communities have ever existed in Antarctica, but most of your points would apply equally to NW Greenland or Ellesmere Island, which have been inhabited for centuries by Inuit - no forests and no viable agriculture. Further, much of the Antarctic peninsula is further from the Pole as Reykjavik, for example, so the “light and dark” comment is not correct - the sun rises 365 times a year, although the days are short in winter.
The seas off Antarctica are positively teeming with life, so I don’t see any reason in principle why humans could not adapt to life there if they have done so in NW Greenland.
About the Esperanza base, here’s a story about a boy who was born there:
According to The Endurance by Caroline Alexander, the timeline is as follows:
5 Dec 1914: Departed Grytviken whaling station
7 Dec 1914: Entered pack ice
18 Jan 1915: Endurance beset in the ice
27 Oct 1915: Endurance crushed, crew abandoned ship
21 Nov 1915 Endurance sank
9 Apr 1916: Boats launched to Elephant Island (whole crew)
24 Apr to 10 May 1916: Boat journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia (A few crew, including Shakleton)
20 May 1916: Arrived Stromness whaling station
30 Aug 1916: Remaining crew rescued from Elephant Island.
That trip, IMHO, is the most amazing story ever.
Well, with that timeline it seems that after they wintered trapped in ice, they spent a good chunk of a second winter sitting on Elephant Island.
For stone-age people, the voyage from S. America to Antarctica would have been formidable. It isn’t exactly a walk in the park today.
By human remains, are you couting the various explorers who died on the continent? If so, then you’ll find the remains of the Scott Expedition, as well as many member of the infamous Miskatonic Expedition :D.
The Falklands are a good five or six hundred miles from the nearest point in Antarctica - but not nearly as far from South America. It’s not hard to see why humans never made that last jump.
(Tasmania is like 1400 miles away, in case anyone was wondering about making the trip from there.)
I’ve always been fascinated by Antartica, sadly, due to monetary restraints, I will probably only visit there via National Geographic and websites.
I watched the Shackleton miniseries when it was on last year and for some reason, thought the entire drama took place up in trying to find the pass in Canada. Color me embarrassed.
Anyone have any interesting links for Antartica?
Dinosaur bones look to have been found in Antartica.
Way cool.
It has it’s own online radio station which you can listen to: