The first humans to discover Antarctica weren't seafaring Westerners but rather Polynesians, who found the coldest continent 1,300 years ago, a new study suggests.
Researchers in New Zealand assessed oral histories about a Polynesian explorer spying an icy, mountainous continent untouched by the sun. To find the evidence, they sifted through "gray literature," or historical reports that weren't published in peer-reviewed journals, and integrated them with Indigenous oral histories and artwork. This deep dive into Indigenous history revealed that Polynesians likely discovered the southernmost continent more than a millennium before Westerners first spotted it in 1820, according to most historic reports.
"Māori (and Polynesian) connection to Antarctica and its waters have been part of the Antarctic story since circa [the] seventh century," the researchers wrote in the study. After Westerners first reached Antarctica in the 19th century, a handful of Māori joined their voyages as crewmembers and even medical professionals, although prejudice against Indigenous people at that time was prevalent, the researchers said.
