Did Antarctica remain entirely unvisited by humans until the early 19th century?
score:25
We can be fairly certain that humans did not live on Antarctica, the continent, before the 20th century.
Since about 15 Ma, the continent has been mostly covered with ice.
Ref: Trewby, Mary, ed. Antarctica: An Encyclopedia from Abbott Ice Shelf to Zooplankton. Firefly Books. ISBN 1-55297-590-8.
Intermittent warm periods allowed Nothof*gus shrubs to cling to the Sirius group in the Dominion Range as late as 3-4 Ma. After that the Pleistocene ice-age covered the whole continent and destroyed all major plant life on it.
Ref: Stefi Weisburd, "A forest grows in Antarctica". Science News.
Since the earliest member of the Genus Homo is younger than that (c:a 2.3Ma) Humans can not have been living there at that point. So earlier hotter periods are not a possibility for human settlements.
Humans also got the technology for reliable oceanic travel at the earliest around two thousand years ago, so a prehistoric settlement would not have been possible, and a settlement in the last thousand or so years would likely have been accompanied by legends, like the Norse settlements in Greenland.
Also, the cultures that colonized Greenland had a much less extreme climate to deal with than the antarctic climate, and perhaps more importantly, they could develop the technology for that gradually, while moving further north. A culture that settled Antarctica would have to go from at worst a climate where winters average around freezing, to a climate where winters average -10C to -30C. This a gradual development of tools to survive in that climate would not have been possible, which means settlements would not have been possible.
It is possible that it would have been reached by sailors in prehistory, but making a viable settlement in Antarctica is highly unlikely because of the forbidding climate.
As such we can be fairly certain that the first human to set foot on Antarctica did this in the 19th century, although exactly who it was is disputed.
Upvote:-1
If Antarctica had no ice 1.5 million years ago or 500,000 years ago, perhaps there were humans on Antarctica then. NASA Imaging over Antarctica has a story to tell. Read it dudes. Maybe humans migrated north to South America and later into N America, from Antarctica before they froze to death at onset of Antarctic glaciation. There was also migrations going on over Beringia, as enough evidence for that these days. Oh, a fossil swimming reptile has been found recently in of all places ,,Antarctica. Was there some evolution going on down at South Pole before Ice Ages set in there
Upvote:2
Patagonians reached the Falklands and Maoris settled Sub-Antartic Islands thus in one sense humans did reach the periphery of Antartica.
Upvote:3
In addition to the other answers I would add that Antarctica is well protected by the Westerlies, a zone of westerly winds surrounding it from 30-60° S. These bands are named "Roaring Forties", "Howling Fifties" and "Screaming Sixties", try to guess why. Apart from mostly bad weather with regular storms of hurricane force and freak waves you must cross the oceans with continously decreasing temperatures and fields of pack ice. The only land near this regions is Patagonia in South America which is also quite inhospitable.
Under these circumstances it may be not so surprising that Antarctica was untouched until the l9th century.
Upvote:14
For reference, here is the official classification from Wikipedia of the conditions necessary for a "pleasant" Antarctic day:
Condition 3
Windspeed below 48 knots (55 miles per hour)
Visibility greater than 1/4 of a mile (402 meters)
Wind chill above −75 °F (−60 °C)
Description: Pleasant conditions; all outside travel is permitted.
Condition 3 is apparently the best forecast they give for most Antarctic stations, partly because of the great speed in which conditions can change. Note particularly the temperature requirement. Northern Quebec and Alberta never approached those temperatures in the 6 years I lived there.
Even with all our modern technology, it is difficult to maintain an Antarctic station through the long winter.
The notion that a pre0historic settlement could have somehow transported sufficient fuel from (not Patagonia as it doesn't have trees; The Falklands maybe, or the Cape, or Tasmania) in order to survive even one winter I find absurd. Only our technology provides us with the luxury, and means, for such research.
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