Kit Hamley holds an enormous skull of a male sea lion from New Island's bone pile. There were many sea lions present in the bone pile assemblages at New Island. Credit: Kit Hamley
Scientists and historians believe that Europeans were first to set foot on the Falkland islands in 1600s. A new University of Maine study suggests that humans have been active on the islands for centuries before Europeans arrived.
Kit Hamley was a National Science Foundation graduate researcher fellow working with the UMaine Climate Change Institute. She led the first ever scientific investigation into the prehistoric human presence in the Southern Atlantic archipelago. Her team collected evidence such as charcoal records, animal bones and other evidence across the islands. They then used radiocarbon dating and other laboratory methods to examine them for signs of human activity.
A charcoal record dating back to 8,000 years, taken from New Island's peat column at the territory's southwest edge, is one sign of pre-European activity. Researchers found that the record indicated a significant increase in fire activity between 150 and 1410 C.E. and then sudden and significant spikes between 1770 C.E. and 1770 C.E. which corresponds to initial European settlement.
Researchers also collected penguin and sea lion samples from New Island, near the spot where a landowner found a stone projectile tip that was consistent with the technology Indigenous South Americans used over the past 1000 years. The bones were piled in separate piles at one location. Hamley believes that the bones were probably assembled by humans because of their location, volume, and type.
The majority of evidence Hamley and her associates collected suggested that Indigenous South Americans traveled to the Falkland islands between 1275 C.E. 1420 C.E. Researchers say it is impossible to rule out arrival dates before 1275 C.E. but some evidence can be traced back further back. The team discovered a tooth that belonged to an extinct Falkland Islands Fox called the warrah, with a radiocarbon dating of 3450 B.C.E. which is the oldest date for this species. All of the findings by the team indicate that humans landed on the archipelago in 1690 before John Strong, the British navigator, arrived. Strong was the first European to land on the archipelago.
According to UMaine researchers, it is likely that Indigenous people visited the islands for short-term stays rather than long-term occupation. They left little cultural material, but enough to allow Hamley and her collaborators to make a clear anthropogenic and paleoecological footprints and begin their research.
Hamley, a UMaine Ph.D. candidate in ecology and environmental sciences, said that these findings "enhance our understanding of Indigenous movement & activity in the harsh and remote South Atlantic Ocean." This is really exciting as it opens up new avenues for collaboration with descendant Indigenous communities to improve our understanding of the past ecological changes in the region. It has been speculated for years that the Falkland Islands were likely to have been reached by Indigenous South Americans. So it is really satisfying to be able to help bring that part to life.
UMaine researchers participated in the study alongside Hamley's adviser Jacquelyn Gil, an associate professor of paleoecology, plant ecology, and Daniel Sandweiss (a professor, of anthropology), and Brenda Hall (a professor, glacial geoology).
Dulcinea Groff is a former UMaine Ph.D student and a postdoctoral researcher scientist at Wyoming. Kathryn Krasinski is an assistant professor of anthropology, Adelphi University. John Southon, a researcher at the Department of Earth System Science, University of California-Irvine. Paul Brickle, executive Director of South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute. Thomas Lowell is a University of Cincinnati geology professor.
Science Advances published a report on their findings.
Hamley's latest study is based on her research into the warrah, Dusicyon australis, an extinct species fox. At the time of European arrival, the Falkland Islands were home to the only terrestrial and native mammal, the warrah. Hamley states that the species was extincted by subsequent hunting in 1856.
Charles Darwin and many other scholars have been debating the origins of the warrah and how it got to the islands for years. Hamley suggests that the species may have been introduced to the archipelago by humans prior to European settlement. Although many people had rejected this theory due to a lack of scientific evidence, Hamley's latest findings open up the possibility. It is possible that the warrah was domesticated by South Americans, just as they did with canids and foxes. They brought them to the islands on their short-term and long-term voyages.
Hamely and her team discovered three warrah bones at Spring Point Farm, West Falkland, during a 2018 expedition. Researchers discovered that the bones of the warrah were carbon-dated and isotopically analysed. They had a marine-based diet, which included apex marine predators like fur seals and sea lions. This diet was similar to that of seafaring Indigenious South Americans in Prehistoric times. Researchers say that while these findings may reflect coastal scavenging it could also be indicative of the food their human counterparts might have procured and eaten.
Hamley says that "this study has the potential for changing the trajectory of future ecological studies in The Falklands." The introduction of a top predator like the warrah could have profound consequences for the island's biodiversity, which is home to ground nesting seabirds like penguins, albatross, and cormorants. This also alters the captivating story of human-canine relations in the past. This study shows how important these animals could have been to communities that date back thousands of years. We already know that the South American Indigenous people domesticated foxes.
Hamley did her research on three Falkland Island expeditions in 2016, 2016 and 2018. During her 2016 expedition, Hamley participated in UMaine’s Follow a Researcher program. This allows scientists to give K12 students a peek at their work via live expedition updates, tweet chats, and videos.
Hamley's study adds to the growing number of scientific investigations by UMaine researchers into the historical, anthropological, and ecological aspects of the Falklands Islands. A 2020 UMaine-led research found that seabird colonies were established on the islands as a result of a sudden regional cooling period 5,000 year ago. This had a significant impact on its ecosystems.
"As the world heats, we hope that our growing understanding about the pre-colonial history Falkland will help decision-makers balance wildlife and people who rely upon ecotourism and fisheries to support their livelihoods," Gill, a NSF CAREER researcher, said. She was also named a 2020 Friend by the Planet by National Center for Science Education. We are only beginning to understand the role of people in the Falklands prior to European settlement. A lot of oral information about this period has been lost due to centuries of colonialism. We believe that Western science must be updated and we hope to collaborate with the modern-day Indigenous peoples in the region. Their ancestors were the first specialists in this area.
Continue reading Preserving the biodiversity of Falkland Islands
Further information: Kit M. Hamley and colleagues, Evidence of prehistoric human activities in the Falkland islands, Science Advances (2021). www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abh3803 Journal information: Science Advances Kit M. Hamley et al, Evidence of prehistoric human activity in the Falkland Islands,(2021). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abh3803
