Antarctica is a surprisingly recent addition to scientific knowledge. While there are hints in the oral traditions of South America and New Zealand that some hardy mariners voyaged as far as Antarctica, the continent has no indigenous population, and it is only in the last few centuries that humans have certainly set foot there. Even in the 1770s, Cook circumnavigated Antarctica without ever seeing it, because he was held back by the ice. Instead, a concerted effort to reach the continent had to wait until the 19th century. Competing expeditions set off from Russia, Britain, and the United States, with the Russians encountering what they took to be an icefield on 27 January 1820, and the British sighting land three days later on 30 January. They had spotted the Trinity Peninsula, the northernmost tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts away from the main landmass like an enormous panhandle, pointing in the general direction of South America. All certain human activity on Antarctica post-dates that 19th-century moment of discovery.
What the archaeology of Antarctica lacks in longevity, though, it more than makes up for with relics of the ingenious and determined – some might say stubborn – drive to chart and settle this most forbidding of terrestrial environments. When it comes to early exploration of the continent, many people’s minds will turn first to the notorious 1911-1912 race to the South Pole between Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, with the latter’s expedition concluding with the tragic loss of his entire team. While remarkable remnants of these endeavours can still be seen, both teams wisely chose to begin their journeys on the Ross Sea, much closer to the Pole than the Antarctic Peninsula would allow. It was on that peninsula, though, that the story of a permanent human presence on the continent began. Today, the region is subject to claims by Argentina, Britain, and Chile, although all three recognise the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. This pivotal agreement established the freedom of scientific research on the continent, and set it aside as a place of peace and research.
The UK Antarctic Heritage Trust currently manages seven historic sites on the peninsula, which collectively tell the story of British science in the region. Alongside these, the Trust has recently added an eighth, rather different monument, to their tally of protected sites. This one lies east of the peninsula, in the depths of the Weddell Sea, and was only located in 2022. It is the wreck of the Endurance: the ship crushed by ice in October 1915, at the outset of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s attempt to make the first land crossing of the continent. This loss initiated an extraordinary story of survival against both the elements and the odds, with Shackleton and a small crew ultimately summoning rescue after sailing to South Georgia in one of Endurance’s lifeboats. This extraordinary feat is often regarded as the last major episode in what has become known as the ‘Heroic Age’ of Antarctic exploration. The very earliest human activity in Antarctica, though, was not inspired by the lofty aspirations of either exploration or science. Instead, it was geared towards rewards of the financial kind.
