April 2nd 1982: Argentina invades the Falkland Islands
On this day in 1982, Argentine forces landed on the Falkland Islands and occupied the area, which marked the beginning of the Falklands War. The war was the product of long tensions over who possessed the islands, with Argentina claiming ownership and Britain seeing the islands as British territory. Argentine forces landed on the islands and fought the British Royal Marines at Government House, leading to British surrender and thus Argentina seizing control of the Falklands. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher responded by sending a naval task force to attack the Argentinians. The conflict killed 649 Argentinians, 255 Britons and three Falkland Islanders, even though it only lasted 74 days. The war ended with Argentine surrender on 14th June, thus returning the islands to Britain.
Since its first recorded sighting by European explorers in the 1600s, scientists and historians have believed that Europeans were the first people to ever set foot on the Falkland Islands. Findings from a new University of Maine-led study, however, suggests otherwise; that human activity on the islands predates European arrival by centuries.
Kit Hamley, National Science Foundation graduate research fellow with the UMaine Climate Change Institute, spearheaded the first-ever scientific investigation into prehistoric human presence on the Southern Atlantic archipelago. She and her team collected animal bones, charcoal records and other evidence from across the islands over multiple expeditions and examined them for indications of human activity using radiocarbon dating and other laboratory techniques. Read more.
There’s an interesting ecological tangent to these discoveries too:
Hamley’s most recent study builds on her research into the warrah (Dusicyon australis), an extinct species of fox. The warrah was the only native and terrestrial mammal to reside on the Falkland Islands at the time of European arrival. Subsequent hunting wiped the species out in 1856, making it the first extinct canid in the historic record, Hamley says.
For years, various scholars, including Charles Darwin, have debated the warrah’s origins and how it came to the islands. Hamley hypothesizes that humans may have introduced the species to the archipelago prior to European settlement. Many previously rejected the theory based on a prior lack of scientific evidence, but the latest findings from Hamley’s team reopens that possibility, she says. Indigenous South Americans may have domesticated warrah as they have with other foxes and canids, and brought them to the islands during their voyages and short-term stays. (…)
“This study has the potential to change the trajectory of future ecological research in The Falklands,” says Hamley. “The introduction of a top predator, like the warrah, could have had profound implications for the biodiversity of the islands, which are home to ground nesting seabirds such as penguins, albatross and cormorants. It also changes the ever-captivating story of past human-canine relationships. We know that Indigenous South Americans domesticated foxes, but this study helps show how potentially important these animals were to those communities extending back thousands of years.”
(No relation to the skull in the picture, which is a sea lion’s.)
