Of Sea And Sun: The Nations of the South Pole (Patreon)

Welp, wish me luck (or not).

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An Introduction I Suppose

Circa 15,000 years BCE, humans made landfall on Kerguelen.

These people were related to the South African indigenous complex sometimes called "KhoiSan".  These seperated from the rest of humanity relatively early on, around 260-150 thousand years ago, and enjoyed once dominion over the birthlands of mankind until the much latter Bantu expansions. One of the now gone cultures within this complex foraged along the coastlines of South Africa, initially picking on seal and penguin colonies and eventually beginning to construct dugout boats to hunt whales. Compared to the balmy Mediterranean or the welcoming Indo-Pacific, the waters of South Africa are cold, deep and turbulent, and so were relatively hostile to early boat makers. This explains why navigation remains relatively rare there, but in the last glaciation the sea levels were low enough to provide for "buffer zones" that allowed local cultures to experiment at sea going.

Most of the sea foragers died off catastrophically at the end of the Pleistocene, when rising sea levels sank their coastoal communities. But one lucky population (+- 450 individuals) was blown off course, to green islands far south. They would endure many hardships, but the sea would be crossed by great vessels praising the sun.

Kerguelen Woes

Antarctica and its neighbouring lands witnessed a mass exticntion of all land life when temperatures dropped and the Circumpolar Current cut off all heat coming from the north. Still, life did hang on: as recently as five million years ago, Antarctica's mountains still had forests, and the islands further north fared off a little better. Perhaps the best off of these was the Kerguelen Archipelago, which retained a fairly diverse tundra flora and perhaps even trees in the Pleistocene is pollen reccords are accurate.

As far as places hospitable to humanity go, Kerguelen is semi-decent. It bears an oceanic climate with a lot of moisture, and it is warm by its latitude standards, with summer time temperatures at 10ºC and winter time drops that rarely go much beyond subzero. People have gone with worse.

The navigators to land here were already somewhat experienced with colder temperatures in South Africa's coast. The main challenge was thewind,  humidity and lack of fuel for fire. The first shelters were made with discarded dugouts and piles of vegetation made on the most sheltered coves and valleys, before gradually shifting to earth works. Stone foundations, similar to those found at Budj Bim in Australia, initially helped make shelters stable; not long after, the shelters were now made of earth and rock, little outcrops covered by grass, inconspicuous in the tundra. The effort and dedication to make these meant a mostly sedentary lifestyle, but the locals weren't going anywhere anyways.

Fire was solved by the abundance of grasses like tussock. Within five hundred years after landfall, we see the appearence of the K!àna lamps, dug rocks or bones filled with whale or seal oil and a tussock thread, allowing the fire to burn slowly. The various grasses also found use as the source of new textiles, making life slightly more comfortable in this damp, cold world.

For a while, the remaining dugouts allowed exploration and maintained contact among the islands, but they were eventually too wet and rotten be be anything more than fuel for fire or part of construction. This made the island populations isolated and temporarily deprived from the ocean, but this wasn't a problem for a while. When the sea combers arrived, Kerguelen was full of colonies of seabirds and seals, plump animals not used at all to terrestrial predators. It was a veritable feast, and great garbage piles of seabird and mammal bones can still be found in the oldest sites.

This was an illusory surplus. Within 60 years if we're being generous, all bird and seal colonies in Kerguelen were wiped from existence. But by the time the las king penguin chick was bashed with a rock and cooked, the local peoples had discovered a new, more reliable food source: the Kerguelen Cabbage (Pringlea antiscorbica).

Similar to the cabbages that would later influence Old World civilizations, these plants were slightly more picky and slower to grow, but extremely well suited to the wet environment of the Kerguelen islands, and with human assistance able to grow more successfully than ever before. The exact process of domestication is not fully understood, but sites dating to around 170 years after initial landfall present drainage systems that were allowing the people to successfully provide these plants with their high water needs, planting them fuller and healthier than normal. At some point, manual pollination was learned by putting pollen on other plants, thus replacing the self-pollination the cabbages were forced to resort to in the absence of nectivorous insects. This lead a to a burst of genetic diversity in these early crops, and thus making them less vulnerable to disease than before.

Within a century after landfall, the first wave of Antarctic peoples had shifted from sea foragers to agriculturalist societies making earth houses and growing gardens on the hilly lands.  Eaton's Pintail (Anas eatoni) was the sole vertebrate still common and thus an important source of protein; birds were eventually collected and allowed to nest in cabbage gardens, leading to their domestication. Still, the sea didn't leave their minds: to supplement their cabbage/duck diet there were still shoreline and freshwater harvests of molluscs, crustaceans, beached whales and kelp, sometimes still a bigger part of the local diet in coastline settlements. It was also becoming clear that well managed agriculture was a fragile endeavour in instances of cold spells, and the long winter nights forced extensive hoarding.

Thus, a return to the sea was inevitable. And it was only possible thanks to the technology of the land.

After the loss of the dugouts, the boat was reinvented on the tail end of this Formative Era, at around 14,560 BCE. These new boats were derived from experiments on clothing: using pelts from scavenged sea mammal carcasses, grass textiles were put to use in needle threads, allowing for more rigorous coating. At some point, someone figure out they could construct bouyant objects by weaving these pelts around frames of scavenged bones (and, more rarely, driftwood from lusher shorelines). A brief period of trial and error later, and the first !um'iak boats were made. These at last allowed for easier communication between the islands, and for the first time in a thousand years to hunt marine animals in their domain.

Circumpolar Navigation

Unfortunately, the sea farers were not prepared for the violent polar currents. Many expeditions beyond Kerguelen waters were instantly blown away. Most drowned at sea; some made landfall in other islands, even reaching Campbell Island in 14,236. These made a repeat of the initial Kerguelen landings, but with smaller populations and fewer alternatives to crashing seabird and seal populations they were either forced to keep moving or to perish. A few lucky ones were blown to warmer lands in Tasmania and western Australia, some mingling with the local Aboriginal populations; precolonial populations in these regions owed as much as 0.34% of their genetics to these stragglers.

Eventually, a method to this madness came about. Some hunting parties opted to follow the currents, stopping at islands along the way, until they eventually made it back to Kerguelen. Once a return trip happened, it now became a possibility to map the oceanic realm.  14,000 to 13,333 BCE was marked by many early attempts at understanding the currents and pit stop islands, until eventually most of the Subantarctic Realm was understood. Whaling was still difficult, but now it was possible to casually exploit seabird and seal colonies away from home, with minimal dents to populations now that there were more alternatives. Most importantly, the people learned how to transport cabbage seeds and ducks, and so were able to form brand new colonies.

An unique cultural complex was thus formed. Most of the Subantarctic Islands now had settlements: travel was a one way street following the violent ocean currents, but at least it was now possible. Thus, communication remained, and with cabbage and duck farming most islands became sustainable, at least for a while. It was roughly during this time that contact with Fuegan peoples ocurred, and thus trade ensued, allowing for a more abundant supply of wood for boat crafting as well as cultural exchanges.

By 12,900, the first sailing boats evolved, made from stretched pelts around light wood or whale bone frames. These were the first attempts at counter-current navigation, similar to what would be employed by Polynesians much latter, and while less successful due to the sheer violence of the southern seas it was still enough to allow short distance return trips.

Long distance travel and trade continued, but this Circumpolar Era would end with increased isolation, now that return trips were easier and it was possible to hunt whales and return home in the same day. Thus, cultures began to diversify in splendid isolation.

Everything Changed When The Nations Existed

12,900 BCE onwards see the formation of many unique island cultures across the Subantarctic and even Antarctica itself. They will eventually be fleshed out more throughly, but here are notable examples:

- Little is known about the culture/s that first colonised Kerguelen, but they would be suceeded by the T!ekeli'li nation states. The peoples of the Antarctic vaguely identified themselves with a mythical birth place (much as Polynesians would do centuries later), and for this reason Kerguelen retained a cultural, if not necessarily political hegemony over the South Pole. T!ekeli'li demographics remained most similar to the original genetic bottleneck from South Africa, but would eventually increase in South American and Tasmanian admnixture, even down to cultural aspects and practises; it came to be known as the wealth of knowledge for this part of the world. They remained mostly agriculturalists and traders, relying mostly on external connections for boat maintenance. Earlier small villages gave way to the first large settlements, including large plazas and fortress complexes made possible through mining operations on the islands, making use of the local granite for sturdy construction. In total fifteen city states formed along the archipelago and nearby islands like the Crozet; although conquest attempts were made, most resorted to political influence wars with external allegiances and trading partnerships. The specific political systems varied from nation state to nation state but broadly speaking there was a preference by for theocratic pseudo-democracy, priests holding public ceremonies and discussions. Complex trading guilds gradually began to form and amassing political power, resulting in a layered system of moieties to instill some social constraints while prevent stratification.

- The Falkland Islands (Ná!ka) became the second most important region in the Antarctic Realm. They were the largest settled landmass and thus became a hub for agricultural production, facilitated by an unique host of plant domesticates as well as the second animal domesticate, the Warrah (Dusicyon australis). To these ends the islands became more self-sufficient on the global stage, though trade was still the game of the day, especially since Native American nations were just offshore. Significant Amerindian influence shaped the Ná!ka, with significant culture and genetic admixture. Societies here grew more stratified with a clear warrior aristocracy, and multiple wars of conquest were waged for supremacy over the islands. Ultimately, however, the two islands became geopolitically divided: Árasa'eun in West Island and T!catoquá in East Island. The former would continue to receive further influences from the Americas, while the latter kept more open to the Antarctic Realm.

- The "Chatam Complex" covered a variety of islands to the south of New Zealand and Tasmania; at times they made attempts at colonising South Island, but their cold adapted, water demmanding crops made permanent settling difficult, so they mostly just set harvesting operations to make use of New Zealand's timber, avian megafauna and jade. Significant interaction and trade with Aboriginal populations took place, with Tasmanians in particular contributing cultural practises and eventually significant genetic contributions. In terms of overall lifestyle this complex remained relatively conservative, being communal small societies investing almost equally in trade, agriculture and whaling, but philosophically the Aboriginal influences lead to an unique dualistic perception of reality, that would be significant in the religious and philosophical movements of the entire Subantarctic Realm.

- The most radically departing cultures were the "Southern Raiders", mostly known by exonyms by other cultures, usually of the non-flattering variety (i.e. Q'ailya, "murderers", C!jana'ba, "Child Bone Boats"). In truth, these were a social complex of their own likely represented by many cultures, of which we sadly now very little due to their complete extinction due to colonialist diseases and global warming. We do know from written (if biased) sources that they were maritime tribes living in the Antarctic continent itself, more perhaps more accurately its ice belt. Here, agriculture was only possible in a narrow band in the Antarctic Peninsula, and while there is evidence of drainage and duck and warrah bones as recently as 5,000 BCE most of these cultures eschewed farming altogether. Instead, they became full blown whalers, becoming perhaps the most marine of all human cultures to ever exist. During summer months boats were docked, maintained or newly built on protected coves while seaweed, shellfish and seabird chicks and eggs were harvested; during winter, life was spent fully at sea, in some of the largest and most complex ships of the ancient world. Still made from driftwood, bone and pelts, these drastically differed in being enormous and multi-decked, light enough to stay afloat and sail but compact enough to withstand violent polar currents and house populations of up to 180 members. These had unique systems of valves for waste disposal and bathing (usually maintaing bags of freshly melted ice water) and even had small fireplaces, carefully maintained at all times and generally within the vicinity of these valves. These societies are though to have been mostly egalitarian, though some reccords suggest at least some lived in gender-segregated ships, meeting only during summer months. Overall, they filled a similar niche to Central Asian Hordes in the Old World or the Chichimecas of Mesoamerica, routinely raiding their agricultural northern neighbours for supplies. Some staged full blown invasions, these new rulers inevitably fully assimilating as their cultural traditions would have been of limited use to more stable societies.

Despiste all these differences, the Antarctic Cultures retained broad cultural similarities. A language family, Antarctic, remained dominant barring a few unique isolates; this family is mostly related to Khoisan and shares clicking consonants, but also received significant South American and Tasmanian influences. A dualistic perception of reality as two oceans (the water ocean and the sky ocean) remained integral to the spiritual beliefs of the various cultures, and four gods (the Sun Goddess, the Moon, Lord Orca and the God of Flesh and Fire) formed a common pantheon (though the relevance of each varied drastically among each culture).

To be continued (?)