Eastern East Antarctica (2637 – 910 BCE): The Polar Plateau’s Eastern Expanse

Geographic and Environmental Context

Eastern East Antarctica—stretching from the Ross Sea sector eastward past the Amery Ice Shelf toward the Australian Antarctic Territory—is dominated by the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, the largest ice mass on Earth. Its interior stands over 3,000 meters above sea level, buried beneath up to four kilometers of ice. Vast ice domes and ridges slope toward sheer coastal ice cliffs, floating ice shelves, and occasional rocky nunataks protruding above the ice. The region’s climate is hyper-polar, with annual mean temperatures well below freezing and some of the lowest precipitation levels on Earth, classifying it as a polar desert.

Climate and Seasonal Rhythms

Winter: Continuous darkness, extreme cold below –60°C, and katabatic winds draining off the ice sheet toward the coast.
Summer: Constant daylight along the coast, but interior temperatures remain far below freezing. Seasonal melting occurs only on the most exposed coastal rock and ice-free oases.
Precipitation: Minimal, falling almost entirely as snow, with accumulation rates in the interior measured in millimeters of water equivalent per year.

Biological Productivity

Life was almost entirely restricted to coastal and offshore zones in summer:

Adélie penguins and early forms of Emperor penguins bred on rocky beaches and stable sea ice.
Seals—including Weddell and leopard seals—hauled out on ice edges to rest and breed.
Seasonal phytoplankton blooms in ice-edge waters supported krill swarms, which in turn fed penguins, seabirds, and whales.
The ice-free Vestfold Hills and other rare coastal oases hosted microbial mats, lichens, mosses, and invertebrates like springtails and mites.

Human Presence

In 2637 – 910 BCE, Eastern East Antarctica was entirely beyond the reach of human settlement or exploration. The vast distances from inhabited lands, constant ice cover, and extreme climatic conditions made survival impossible with contemporary technology. Even indirect contact—via drift voyages—was effectively ruled out by surrounding pack ice and the absence of navigational knowledge of such latitudes.

Environmental Dynamics

Ice movement: Massive glaciers flowed toward the coast, feeding floating ice shelves such as the Amery and Shackleton.
Volcanism: Dormant and active subglacial volcanoes influenced local ice melting patterns.
Wind systems: Persistent katabatic winds shaped snow dunes and redistributed surface snow across the plateau.

Symbolic and Conceptual Role

For ancient peoples, this region was unimagined space—a blank zone south of the Southern Ocean, unseen and outside the realm of cultural geography. No myths or traditions from this period suggest knowledge of land far to the south.

Transition to the Early First Millennium BCE

By 910 BCE, Eastern East Antarctica remained one of the most isolated and least hospitable environments on Earth—an untouched realm of ice, wind, and sea life concentrated along its seasonal coastal edge. It would remain unseen by humans for many thousands of years.