P Polar Expeditions (South) in Archaeology Maria Ximena Senatore CONICET- INAPL and Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral, Buenos Aires, Argentina Introduction The extreme isolation, hostile environment, and the lack of human native population were factors that contributed to the understanding of Antarc- tica as a distant, inaccessible space empty of peo- ple and things. However, since its discovery in the early nineteenth century, expeditions were sent from different continents aimed at geographical exploration as well as commercial exploitation of its maritime resources. Archaeological sites on the continent and its surrounding islands are rela- tively recent and widely scattered and often relate to a single purpose use at a single point in time. They represent the remains of the limited range of human activities developed in Antarctica such as exploration, sealing, whaling, and scientific research. The conservation of historic sites, such as building, shipwrecks, and artifacts of the polar expeditions were a matter of concern since the signature of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959. Archae- ology began in the late 1970s with a focus on the conservation of huts left by the expeditions asso- ciated to the Heroic Era of Antarctic Exploration. Since the 1980s, the South Shetland Islands region has shown a diversification of topics of interest including the study of the nineteenth- century sealing and whaling expeditions. Those research projects framed in academic research designs, and not driven by the needs of practical conservation, have moved archaeology into theory-driven research questions and multi- disciplinary approaches. Archaeological research has been part of the complex heritage making process in Antarctica. Definition Antarctica is a vast continent managed and pro- tected by the Antarctic Treaty. The Antarctic Treaty, signed in 1959 and entered into force in 1961, regulates international relations with respect to land and ice shelves located south of 60  S. Measures, decisions, and resolutions, which are adopted at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meet- ings (ATCMs) by consensus of the signatory states, give effect to the principles of the Antarctic Treaty and provide regulations and guidelines for the man- agement of the Antarctic Treaty area. Antarctica is the earth’s only continent without native population, and human presence in Antarc- tica has been limited to the last 200 years. Because of this, human activities there have been centered around “expeditions,” generally understood as journeys undertaken by a group of people with a particular purpose. Since the discovery of Antarc- tica in the early nineteenth century, expeditions # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 C. Smith (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_2873-1