Beatriz Cardoso, anthropology undergraduate student

Literature review - First draft

Title: Fragments of a Forgotten Past: Archaeologycal Analysis of the Sealer

Material Culture

Introduction: The pioneering studies of the ancient populations of Antartica were

performed by American researchers in 2005, paving the way for new research
to be done around the world about the unknown Antartic continent. The antartic
material culture have been studied at UFMG since the foundation of the
Laboratory of Antartic Studies in Human Sciences (LEACH) in 2006. What can
the material culture tell about the lifestyle during the first Antartica occupations?

Discussion: For a long time, the history about Antartica was unknown, but in
1960 a new view in archaeology has stranded, which aimed to the study of the
unofficial history of the citizens, influencing the archaeologycal practices in
Brazil. In the first excavations, eighteenth and nineteenth ancient materials were
excavated (Zarankin & Senatore, 2007). The study of these artifacts concluded
their origin from low-class manual workers who traveled from the United States
to the Antartic continent in search of a job to feed their family. Their occupations
were seasonal, and their source of income was the hunting of marine
animals.(Wylle, 1999).

The objcts found in excavations that have been made since 2009 are
analyzed on the archaeologycal perspectives of repression and the study of
capitalism, telling the history of opressed poor sealers, wolfmans and whalers
groups that have not had their history officially published, because the
historians only cite the captains, shipowners and cientists about the History of
Antartica (Zarankin et al.., 2011). Due to the commercial scene of the time, in
which the trade of fur and oils from marine animals was profitable, these
disadvantaged groups partially composed of afro-descendants and indigenous
people have moved across the seas and lived in the cold, needing to deal with
poor sanitary conditions and extreme physical tiredness. (Zarankin, 2002). In
the beginning, the Archaeology used to have exploratory and repressive
purposes, and the excavations have been done in a context of domination. The
line of archaeology of repression emerged when the Academy started to worry
about safeguarding trace elements from diverse civilizations, abandoning the
ideological heritage of only studying western priviledged civilizations or
prehistoric “primitive” ocupations. As a result, the Archaeology left the
imperialist context in which it was founded, and during the 1980’s it started to
base on the building of forgotten’s people past, starting by the history of the
ditatorial regimes in Latin America. (Funari & Zarankin, 2006). It is important to
mention that the Archaeology of repression criticizes the obscure origins from
the own field of research, pointing the past mistakes in the field related to the
negligence to the present civilizations. The conventional archaeology is
obsessed with the discouvering of the ancient civilizations, but this approach
tends to ignore how the current discoveries could be used to help modern
societies proving their relevance based on their own history.

Through the analysis of the artifacts, the archaeology of repression

explores the way of life and the extingued informations about the opressed
people. In the cause of a dictatorial regime, for example, the search is directed
to the marcs on the prison walls and the torture instruments as artifacts. An
excavation of the nazi ruins inside the concentration camps can reveal lost
judish objects or even architectural customizations characteristic of nazism,
such as bricks with suastikas found in the brazilian countryside. The pattern of
political repression can be noticed directly, as finding buried torture instruments
or, indirectly, as discovering architectural complexes showing the lohierarchical
organization. Through the architectural analysis of the sealer’s occupations, it is
possible to claim that those groups were proletarians due to their standardized
clothing and objects of low commercial value, like their pipes made of lead.

Conclusion: It is possible to conclude that the archaeological antartic

research is important because it is not just about the history of a forgotten
frozen continent, it is also a vital part of the global world’s economic, social and
political past. This project contributes to the world history at some level, if we
considerate that without the past informations of a whole continent, the global
history would stay incomplete.

References: FUNARI & Zarankin. 2006. Archaeology of the Repression and the
resistence in Latin America 1960 – 1980(School of Philosophy and Humanities-
Nacional University of Catamarca), Buenos Aires.
WYLLE, A. 1999. Why should historical archaeologists study capitalism? The
logic of question and answer and challenge of systemic analysis. En LEONE,
M. and POTTER JR. P. (eds). Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism. Kluwer
Academic Plenum Publishers, New York, pp 23-50

ZARANKIN, A. 2002. Whalls that tame: Archaeology of Capitalist School

Architecture; The case of Buenos Aires. Center of the history of the art and
archaeology (IFCH-UNICAMP), Campinas;

ZARANKIN A. e M. X. SENATORE 2005. “Archaeology in Antartica, 19th

century capitalism expansion estrategies”. International Journal of Historical
Archaeology, V.9 (1) : 42-56. Plenum-Kluwer, Nova York.

ZARANKIN, A & SENATORE, M.X. 2007. Past White Stories: Historical Antartic
Archaeology. Argumentum. Belo Horizonte.

ZARANKIN, A; HISSA, Sarah; SALERNO, Melissa Anabella; FRONER, Yaci-

Ara; RADICCHI, Gerusa de Alkmim; RESENDE DE ASSIS, Luís Guilherme;
BATISTA, Anderson. Blank Landscapes: Antartic Archaeology and
Anthropology – Advances and Challenges. VESTIGES – Latin American
Magazine of Historical Archaeology. Vol 5. No , 2011.