Early Human Expansion

Early human expansion in Antarctica was consistent with patterns established elsewhere, most recently in New Zealand and Polynesia of expansion, overpopulation, resource depletion and collapse, leading to an impoverished subsistence.

The difference in Antarctica was that the biome was particularly sensitive, thus resource depletion occurred earlier, the collapses were more thorough. Indeed, it appears that Antarctica went through a series of uneven regional collapses at different points in time. It is arguable that for at least the first 10,000 years or more, the human experiment in Antarctica was perpetually in danger of failure and extinction.

Yet, this was also the factor that guaranteed survival. New Zealand, for instance, was comparatively a more tolerant place and offered more bounty year round, its ecosystem less prone to rapid depletion. Yet, this only enabled greater population and proliferation, and when depletion came, it was final. When the last Moa was killed in New Zealand, that was it, there were no more Moa.

In contrast, areas of depletion and population collapse in Antarctica were often bordered, directly or indirectly, by other regions, where flora and fauna could return to recolonize depleted areas with relatively minimal pressure from a collapsed human population.

There were other effects. Starvation is the mother of experimentation. The earliest archological sites for Antarctica show a relatively narrow range of prey animals, limited obviously by what the technology of the population could manage to kill or capture, and plants which seemed most similar to their Australian cousins and which stomachs and processing could endure.

However, over time, there is a steady though uneven progression of hunting tools and techniques, preservation and processing methods, as the Tsalal menu expanded. Despite this, malnutrition was the constant companion of the Tsalal for much of his history. This seems quixotic, since the modern Tsalal have preserved much of the immense larder which was potentially available.

But the unevenness of the Antarctic seasons has to be remembered. During the summer, there is plenty, and the temptation is to eat only the palatable or easily gathered, leaving many available foodsources unexploited.

And there are other obstacles - a bull Shaghut may feed a village with its meat, but when that bull walks twenty foot tall on its hind legs, can decapitate a cow with one swing of its claws, and chase down a racehorse, when that bull rouses easily to rage when provoked and wounds only enrage it further... well, hunting becomes a daunting proposition.

Still, resource depletion triggered experiments. The Tsalal ate anything and everything. Archeological middens show gnawed wood, mollusk shells, birds gizzard stones and just about everything imaginable. The starving Tsalal ate anything and everything, and by slow progress, the survivors over time developed an extremely thorough knowledge of everything which was edible or could be made edible.

Still, no matter how inventive and exploratory Tsalal diets became, the reality was that during the long periods of winter night, there was very little food to be had, and it was to be gotten only with immense difficulty.

Tsalal populations therefore, over time tended to one extent or another, to emulate their primate cousins and become hoarders. Increasingly sophisticated knowledge of available edible plant species and techniques for processing them allowed Tsalal cultures to define biological surpluses, and to plan how to best harvest them, use them, hoard and preserve them.

A shamanic folklore emerged, prohibiting the consumption of specific plants or animals at specific times, mandating harvesting at other times. Certain roots could only be harvested, for instance, in the beginning stages of early winter, but could only be eaten in late winter. Among the aboriginal Tsalal still persisting in the hill country, each plant and animal was exhaustively catalogued, and had elaborate rules as to when the spirits would allow it to be harvested or killed or when it could be eaten, or even how much or what parts could be eaten. These rules often encompassed allowances or requirements for plant or animal reproduction.

Despite their being endlessly and ceaselessly violated, these rules represented an accumulated cultural storehouse of biological information. Over time, driven by the simple necessities of survival, and endless episodes of starvation, the Tsalal became extremely knowledgable not just as to the available resources of their environment, but of the life cycles and inter-relationships of that environment.

And they'd still push it past its limits, to depletion, starvation and collapse.

Yet, this biological sophistication continued to accumulate. Leading, perhaps inevitably to the Tsalal development of agriculture, roughly 18,000 years ago.

M. Pandanchee, Comparative Theories of the Evolution of Human Agriculture, Bunyip Press, 1988.