A Frozen Graveyard: The Sad Tales of Antarctica's Deaths

BBC ^ | September 14, 2018 | Martha Henriques

[SunkenCiv]

1800s: Mystery of the Chilean bones

At Livingston Island, among the South Shetlands off the Antarctic Peninsula, a human skull and femur have been lying near the shore for 175 years. They are the oldest human remains ever found in Antarctica. The bones were discovered on the beach in the 1980s. Chilean researchers found that they belonged to a woman who died when she was about 21 years old. She was an indigenous person from southern Chile, 1,000km (620 miles) away. Analysis of the bones suggested that she died between 1819 and 1825. The earlier end of that range would put her among the very first people to have been in Antarctica... The traditional canoes of the indigenous Chileans couldn't have supported her on such a long voyage through what can be incredibly rough seas... "There's no evidence for an independent Amerindian presence in the South Shetlands," says Michael Pearson, an Antarctic heritage consultant and independent researcher. "It's not a journey you'd make in a bark canoe." The original interpretation by the Chilean researchers was that she was an indigenous guide to the sealers travelling from the northern hemisphere to the Antarctic islands that had been newly discovered by William Smith in 1819... Sealers did have a close relationship with the indigenous people of southern Chile, says Melisa Salerno, an archaeologist of the Argentinean Scientific and Technical Research Council (Conicet). Sometimes they would exchange seal skins with each other. It's not out of the question that they traded expertise and knowledge, too. But the two cultures' interactions weren't always friendly. "Sometimes it was a violent situation," says Salerno. "The sealers could just take a woman from one beach and later leave her far away on another." ...

[Behind the Blue Wall]

Yeah, it’s a little cold down there (good weather for server farms!), but human cold-weather tech is ever-advancing. I suspect that a fair number of people would put up with it were the economic prospects worthwhile.

[SunkenCiv]

In Antarctica, there are no graverobbers, or for that matter, scavenging animals. So, for people who worry about such things before they die, they might think of making arrangements....

[Big Red Badger]

Bugs,,,
Thanks
4ltr

[SunkenCiv]

It varies, sometimes it's very chilly, other times it's holy ****. A now-deceased college buddy (went into the Air Force after his fifth change of major) used to fly VIPs down to Antarctica, I guess Hell was closed those days.

[minnesota_bound]

Global warming would be a good thing.