Things in Antarctica. An archaeological perspective

ABSTRACT

The representation of Antarctica as the last wilderness overlooks not only the presence of humans but also of material things, and does not reflect the reality of contemporary Antarctica. Human-thing relationships have existed there, although largely unnoticed, since the nineteenth century. This article contributes to thinking about the genealogy of human-thing relationships in Antarctica by presenting an analysis of how the process of living with things has developed over time. Based on available historical and archaeological information, this study explores human-thing relationships during sealing and whaling activities, inside the huts of the Heroic Era of Antarctic exploration, throughout the period of the settlement of permanent scientific stations, and after the coming into force of the Madrid Protocol. From an archaeological perspective this article emphasises how things are not inert, they change, establish relations and that humans in Antarctica have often become entrapped in their relations with things. It is my hope that this introductory exploration into the topic will stimulate critical thoughts on human-thing relationships in Antarctica.

KEYWORDS:

• Antarctica
• polar history
• archaeology
• human-thing entanglement
• human impact

Disclosure statement

There are no potential conflicts of interest to be reported.

Notes

¹ A preliminary versión of this article was presented as the Keynote lecture at the SCAR SC-HASS Biannual Conference, Ushuaia, Argentina, April 3–5, 2019.

² Including all forms of interactions between humans and things.

³ Howkins, The Polar Regions. An Environmental History; Hemmings et al., “Introduction: The Politics of Antarctica.” For further information about the Antarctic Treaty System see www.ats.aq.

⁴ Madrid Protocol, Article 2. The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (hereafter Madrid Protocol) states: “The Parties commit themselves to the comprehensive protection of Antarctic environment and dependent and associated ecosystems and hereby designate Antarctica as a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science.”

⁵ The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, 4 October 1991, 30 ILM 1461 (entered into force 14 January 1998). https://www.ats.aq/e/protocol.html. In Annexe III, Article 1, the General Obligations include “Past and present waste disposal sites on land and abandoned work sites of Antarctic activities shall be cleaned up by the generator of such wastes and the user of such sites.”

⁶ Thomas, “Insignificance: On the Unobtrusiveness,” 152.

⁷ Ibid., 152.

⁸ See Antczak and Beaudry, “Assemblages of Practice: A Conceptual Framework,” 89 for a discussion on clear definitions and understandings of the terms: “thing”, “artefact”, “material culture”, and “object”, which they consider “all too often interchangeably and uncritically used in the social sciences and humanities, and for that matter in much anthropological and archaeological literature.”

⁹ Hodder, “Human-Thing Entanglement, Towards and Integrated Archaeological Perspective,” 154. “The defining aspect of human entanglement with made things is that humans get caught in a double-bind, depending on things that depend on humans.”

¹⁰ See, for example, Latour, Reassembling the social: an introduction to Actor-Network-Theory; Harman, Object-Oriented Ontology. A New Theory of Everything, Bryant, The Democracy of Objects. For Archaeological perspectives, see, for example, Thomas, Time, Culture and Identity. An Interpretive Archaeology; Ingold, “Materials against Materiality”; Ingold, “Toward an Ecology of Materials”; and Alberti et al., Archaeology After Interpretation.

¹¹ Hodder, Studies in Human-Thing Entanglement, 2.

¹² Hodder, “Human-Thing Entanglement, Towards and Integrated Archaeological Perspective,” 154.

¹³ Olsen, In Defense  of Things. An Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects, 147.

¹⁴ Hodder, Studies in Human-Thing Entanglement, 15.

¹⁵ Ibid., 2.

¹⁶ Ibid., 106.

¹⁷ Ibid., 65.

¹⁸ Ibid., 23.

¹⁹ Pearson et al., “Conserving the oldest”; Stehberg et al., “Protection and Preservation”; Senatore and Zarankin, “Widening the Scope”; and Senatore and Zarankin, “Tourism and the Invisible Historic Sites.”

²⁰ Pearson and Stehberg, “Nineteenth Century Sealing Sites”; Zarankin and Senatore, “Archaeology in Antarctica”; and Zarankin et al., “Paisagens em branco.”

²¹ Senatore, “Antarctic historical sealing industry.”

²² Zarankin and Senatore, “Archaeology in Antarctica.”

²³ Zarankin et al., “Tierra de nadie”; and Senatore and Zarankin, “Hasta el fin del mundo.”

²⁴ Zarankin and Senatore, “Arqueología en Antártida, estrategias, tácticas y los paisajes del capitalismo”; and Zarankin and Senatore, Historias de un pasado en blanco. Arqueología Histórica Antártica.

²⁵ An updated open database was built by LEACH-UFMG that compiled all of the data collected throughout the South Shetland Islands since the 1980s (see http://www.leach.ufmg.br/).

²⁶ Pearson and Stehberg, “Nineteenth Century Sealing Sites”; and Zarankin and Senatore, Historias de un pasado en blanco. Arqueología Histórica Antártica.

²⁷ Pearson, “Living under their boats.”

²⁸ Pearson and Stehberg, “Nineteenth Century Sealing Sites”; Senatore et al., “Historias bajo cero”; and Senatore and Zarankin, “Hasta el fin del mundo.”

²⁹ Senatore, “Antarctic Historical Sealing Industry”; Cartajena and Labarca, “Patrones históricos de cuereo en lobos marinos”; Muñoz, “Arqueofaunas de la isla Livingston”; and Cruz, “Food and Feeding of Sealers.”

³⁰ Basberg and Headland, “The Economic Significance of the 19th Century Antarctic Sealing Industry.”

³¹ Tønnessen and Johnsen, The History of Modern Whaling; Basberg, The Shore Whaling Stations at South Georgia. A Study in Antarctic Industrial Archaeology; and Basberg, “Whalers, Explorers and Scientists.”

³² Basberg, “The Floating Factory.”

³³ Avango, “Acting Artifacts,” 164.

³⁴ Hart, Pesca. A History of the Pioneer Modern Whaling Company in the Antarctic; and Hart, Whaling in The Falkland Islands Dependencies 1904–1931.

³⁵ Headland, Chronological List of Antarctic Expeditions, 232–289. The official data offer impressive figures on the facilities in Antarctica, including floating factories, shore factories, factory ships and catchers, and the numbers of whales hunted were recorded by the International Whaling Statistics between 1906 and 1930.

³⁶ Hacquebord, “Hektor Station on Deception Island.”

³⁷ Ibid. The Norwegian Hektor Whaling shore factory worked on Deception Island, SSI, during the first decades of the twentieth century, closing in 1931.

³⁸ Nuviala, “El devenir de lo cotidiano en el continente antártico.” For the whaling station settled in 1910 on Signy Island in the Orkney Islands Avango observed “they sought to naturalise hierarchies by giving different categories of employees’ different levels of living quality in terms of housing and dining facilities, and by creating clear divisions between labour and management in the settlement plans.” Avango, “Acting Artifacts,” 168.

³⁹ Nuviala, “Cotidianeidad y extrañamiento.”

⁴⁰ H. M. Kjøniksen MS. (c.1915) A-1991Pa – 850 Hans Martin Kjøniksen – G – Manuskripter, Vestfold Arkivet, Sandefjord. For a description of Kjøniksen’s diary see Nuviala, “El devenir de lo cotidiano en el continente antártico.”

⁴¹ Bennett, Whaling in the Antarctic; and Tønnessen and Johnsen, The History of Modern Whaling.

⁴² Avango, “Remains of Industry in the Polar Regions”; and Vairo et al., Antártida. Asentamientos balleneros históricos.

⁴³ Hacquebord, “Hektor Station on Deception Island.” See also Avango, “Acting Artifacts.”

⁴⁴ Senatore, “Patrimonio industrial ballenero y las rutas del turismo.”

⁴⁵ The “Heroic Era” of Antarctic Exploration was characterised as a period in which the challenges of exploration coalesced with nationalist ambitions. See, for example, Pyne, The Ice; and Jones, The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott’s Antarctic Sacrifice.

⁴⁶ Barr, “Twenty years of protection of historic values.”

⁴⁷ Restoration programmes by The New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust see https://nzaht.org/; The UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, https://www.ukaht.org/; The Mawson’s Hut Foundation, https://www.mawsons-huts.org.au/among other institutions. See Senatore, “Archaeologies in Antarctica.”

⁴⁸ Pearson, “Expedition huts in Antarctica.” He observed that during the Heroic Era nine huts were erected in Antarctica, and all of them were especially designed to house expedition personnel.

⁴⁹ Some huts were reused by other expeditions. For example, the Borchgrevink’s hut at Cape Adare (British Antarctic Expedition of 1898–1900) was also used by Scott’s Northern Party in 1910–13. Discovery Hut at Hut Point, from Scott’s National Antarctic Expedition (1901–04), was also used by Shackleton’s 1907–09 expedition, Scott’s return expedition (1910–13) and by the Ross Sea Party of Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914–17).

⁵⁰ See, for example, van der Merwe and Michell, South: The Race to the Pole.

⁵¹ See, for example, Pearson, “Sledges and sledging in Polar Regions” for a good example of careful selection and analysis of equipment before the expeditions.

⁵² See, for example, Kløver, Cold Recall – Reflections of a Polar Explorer.

⁵³ See, for example Rack, “Survival and Science,” 127. She observed that “Seal blubber also provided fuel for heating and lighting. The hide was used for clothes, footwear, bags, and as insulation under sleeping bags when travelling on sledge journeys or as roof of emergency accommodation.”

⁵⁴ Examples of descriptions of these extreme cases could be found in Worsley, Endurance. An Epic Polar Adventure; and Nordenskjöld and Andersson, Antarctica, or, two years amongst the ice of the South Pole.

⁵⁵ Headland, “History of Exotic Terrestrial Mammals.”

⁵⁶ Griffiths, Slicing the Silence; Acosta Hospitaleche et al., “Historical Perspective of Otto Nordenskjöld’s Antarctic Penguin Fossil Collection”; and Rack, “Survival and Science.”

⁵⁷ For examples of sophisticated things visited the online catalogue of the Antarctic Collection of The Polar Museum at the Scott Polar Research Institute, https://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/catalogue/antc/.

⁵⁸ Ritchie, “Frozen solid”; Lazer, “Mawson’s Garbage”; and Bickersteth, “Interpreting the Heroic Era through its artefacts.”

⁵⁹ For examples of explorers’ personal items left inside the huts see https://nzaht.org/conserve/famous-discoveries/. The New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust conserved the notebook “Welcome Photographic Exposure Record and Diary 1910”, which belonged to George Murray Levick, surgeon, zoologist and photographer part of Scott’s 1910–1913 expedition. https://nzaht.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/levicks-notebook5786ad2dd55713.16312417-1.pdf.

⁶⁰ An example is mentioned by Mike Pearson at Mawson’s Hut: a lamp made of an old can used to mark reference point needed for magnetic observation. Pearson, “Artefact or Rubbish,” 39.

⁶¹ Mancilla, “The Moral Limits of Territorial Claims.”

⁶² Howkins, “Appropriating Space.”

⁶³ Ibid.

⁶⁴ The use of things to populate polar inhabited places has been observed by Avango, “To populate places with allies.” In addition, the proliferation of commemorative elements (i.e. memorial plaque, cairn, bust, statue, flag mast) that have been deliberately brought into or built in Antarctica to commemorate a particular historical figure or event, and which have been then nominated by National Parties for the Historic Sites and Monuments List, could be considered another example of the use of things as tools of colonial ideology.

⁶⁵ Barr and Lüdecke, The History of the International Polar Years (IPYs), Series; and Nielsen, “From Shelter to Showpiece.”

⁶⁶ Howkins, The Polar Regions. An Environmental History; and Elzinga, “The Continent for Science.”

⁶⁷ See COMNAP Antarctic Stations Catalogue, https://www.comnap.aq/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/COMNAP_Antarctic_Station_Catalogue.pdf.

⁶⁸ See, for example, Salazar, “Geographies of place-making in Antarctica”; Klein et al., “The Historical Development of McMurdo Station”; and Fontana, “Between the ice of the Orkney Islands.”

⁶⁹ O Reilly and Salazar, “Inhabiting Antarctica,” 12. They informed that currently were over 100 facilities in Antarctica, 82 classified as “stations” and the remainder as “camps” or “refuges” and close to a thousand people were transiently living there year-round and approximately 5000 people in summer.

⁷⁰ See, for example, Llanos, “Housewives at the End of the World.”

⁷¹ Collis and Stevens, “Cold colonies,” 248, 244. They stated: “Living quarters are segregated around McMurdo’s ‘downtown’ core, according to residents’ occupational status.” They affirmed that “The base reproduces familiar class distinctions from the home culture, and establishes new distinctions specific to circumstances.” At Mawson Station they observed Although occupants tend to divide themselves socially into two distinct professional groups – ‘boffins’ or scientists, and ‘tradies’ or those responsible for station and equipment maintenance – the design of the Red Shed reinforces a sense of egalitarian community …”.

⁷² Collis and Stevens, “Cold Colonies,” 249. They stated Antarctican colonialism articulates several competing geopolitical spatialities to the ice of the Polar South.

⁷³ O’Reilly and Salazar, “Inhabiting the Antarctic,” 12. They showed how stations “are critical examples of a different mode of top-down, regulated place-making, layered over informal, creative, transgressive and improvisational bottom-up living practices of everyday Antarctic life.”

⁷⁴ Nielsen, “From Shelter to Showpiece,” 47.

⁷⁵ Elzinga, “The Continent for Science”; O’Reilly and Salazar, “Inhabiting the Antarctic,” 23. They observed “Many of those who might be regarded as `true Antarcticans´ are probably not the scientists or military personnel stationed there for a few years: they are the logistics support personnel (almost exclusively male), some of whom go back year after year”. In the documentary film Nightfall on Gaia, Salazar interviewed a man who has been returning to Antarctica for 6 months each year for 33 consecutive years, available at https://vimeo.com/117241386.

⁷⁶ Antonello, The Greening of Antarctica. Assembling an International Environment.

⁷⁷ A contrasting example of increasing reliance on the transformation of local things might be the construction of rock runways for aircraft. The maintenance of most of them requires continuous action by the National Parties.

⁷⁸ Headland, “History of Exotic Terrestrial Mammals”; Leane and Nielsen, “American cows in Antarctica.”

⁷⁹ Madrid Protocol, Annexe III https://documents.ats.aq/cep/handbook/Annexe_III_e.pdf.

⁸⁰ Ibid., Article 1, General Obligations 3.

⁸¹ Ibid., Article 1, General Obligations 4.

⁸² Ibid., Article 1, General Obligations 5.

⁸³ Pearson, “Artefact or Rubbish”; Evans, “Icy heritage”; Barr, “Twenty years of protection of historic values.”

⁸⁴ Pearson, “Artefact or Rubbish,” 42.

⁸⁵ Senatore, “Ruins in Antarctica.”

⁸⁶ See Senatore, “Ruins in Antarctica,” for a broader discussion on how the application of heritage principles has led to human-thing entrapments.

⁸⁷ A new sense of environmentalism in Antarctica requires more sustainable heritage models, that accept both change and the action of time passing. See Senatore, “Questioning Museumification of Antarctica.”

⁸⁸ Bastmeijer, “Introduction: The Madrid Protocol.”

⁸⁹ See, for example, Waller et al., “Microplastics in the Antarctic.”

⁹⁰ See, for example, Chwedorzewska et al. “Is Antarctica under Threat of Alien Species Invasion?”

⁹¹ See, for example, Brooks et al., “What is ‘Footprint’ in Antarctica.”

⁹² Pertierra et al., “Environmental management of a scientific field camp,” 308, 309.

⁹³ Ibid., 311.

⁹⁴ Ibid., 314.

⁹⁵ Hodder, Studies in Human-Thing Entanglement, 1.

⁹⁶ Ibid., 14.

⁹⁷ Olsen, In Defense of Things. An Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects.

⁹⁸ Ibid, 129.

⁹⁹ In Antarctica, the contributions of archaeologists and other social scientists to question naturalised attitudes towards “things” have been focused mainly on the understanding of the political uses of historic sites in the Antarctic geopolitical arena of the Antarctic Treaty System. See, for example, Avango, “Remains of Industry in the Polar Regions”; Senatore, “Ruins in Antarctica”; Senatore and Zarankin, “Widening the Scope”; Leane et al., “Caught between Nationalism and Internationalism”; Pearson, “Artefact or Rubbish”; Roura, “Antarctic Cultural Heritage”; Evans “Icy heritage”; Elzinga, “Punta Arenas and Ushuaia”; Lindström, “From Historical Sites and Monuments to Regionalization”; Lintott, “Antarctic Heritage Values”; and van der Watt and Lindström, “Historic Sites and Monuments.”

¹⁰⁰ Hodder, Studies in Human-Thing Entanglement, 25.

¹⁰¹ Bastmeijer, “Introduction: The Madrid Protocol.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ANCYPT FONCYT under Grant [PICT 2016-0237]; Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral under Grant [PI 29/D087].