Beatriz Cardoso

IFA V
2nd draft
Excavations made by Brazilian
and foreign archaeologists point out that the Antartic continent was firstly inhabited
by animal hunters

The Antartic continent was a mystery for a long time due to its geographical
localization and extreme climatic conditions. According to the official historical sources,
Antartica was firstly explored by ship owners and captains during the XVIII and XIX centuries,
althoughrecent archaeologicalsurveys realized by brazilian and also foreign researchers
indicate that Antartica received a major diversity of people, fact that the official sources do not
treat with relevance. Therefore, archaeological excavations made by the Laboratory of Antartic
Studies in Human Sciences (LEACH) from UFMG and also excativons made by the University
of Buenos Aires, Argentina, resulted in traces that refer to hunters of marine animals, whom did
not had privileged social positions as the captains of their vessels, and otherwise were poor
people from the proletariat.
In the year of 1995, archaeology research groups from the University of Buenos
Aires, Argentina started the research project called “Landscapes in White”, which consisted of
archaeological excavations in Antartica, using as base material the historic
eighteenth-century bibliographies narrating the first circumnavigations in the antarctic
seas. The majority of these official sources exalts the exploration of the continent as an
honorable achievement for the captains and as a historical mark for their countries,
demonstrating the existence of a nationalist race between many European countries treating
about the exploration of Antartica (ZARANKIN & SENATORE 2005). From then, the research
has been focused on the poor hunter peoples identified as sealers, whalers and worlfers in
attempt to build a new alternative view about the history of Antartica. Since then, the research
has been extended to Brazil, and the team from LEACH started to discover artifacts that support
the fact that these Hunter groups were in Antartica during the XVIII and XIX centuries, for
example a munition and club weapons used to shoot down marine animals. As a rule, almost
every artifact prove that these groups were poor, due to the cheap materials used to
manufacture the pieces and the reuse marks (ZARANKIN et all, 2011). In addition to that, we
can consider according to Zarankin (2005) that the capitalist context of the time was the main
and unic reason for these hunters to be there, because the trade in animal skin, oils and waxes
was extremely profitable at the time.
All things considered, it is possible to claim that the original sources about the first
occupation in Antartica hid the presence of the majority of the people in there, focusing only on
the minority of interest, which contributed to the invisibilization of the small proletarian layer that
inhabited Antartica seasonally.
References: 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.