XXVI Congreso Internacional de Americanistas

- 32 3 ­
could have existed there. There can be no doubt but that only a major
clima tic change would satisfy al! the conditions necessary for inhabitation
by a primitive people possessing the material culture of the Australians.
How cold a climate human beings can inhabit \vhen clothed only with
simple skin robes is, of course, a very most qllestion. 1 t is possible that
the Fuegians could withstancl somewhat colder temperatures than those
they experience in their present habitat but there must be a limit and
what this may be we have no means of determining. Certainly everyone
will agree that human beings could not survive in certain parts of
northern North America, Asia and Europe without warm garments,
footwear and well constructed huts and Rivet admits that it would be
impossible for Fuegians Jnd Australians to exist in Antarctica at the
present time.
But what of the climate of Tierra del Fuego notoriously so di sagreea ­
ble and reputedly so inhospitable? The factors which make it so unpleasant,
relatively speaking, are certainly not those of temperature for
we find that the mean annual temperature is about 43°F., only l' less
than that of Paris (50.3°), and approximately the same as that in Vestmanno,
Iceland (42.3°) and Stockholm (42.2°) . In the last two localitie ~
and in al! other parts of the world where the mean annual temperatures
are lower the inhabitants are warmly clothed, equipped with footwear.
and d"vel! in huts constructed to resist the cold winters. The coldest
inhabited part of the world, the area about Verkoiansk, Siberia, with
a mean annual temperature of only 3-4') thus is almost 40° colder lhan
Fuegia. It seems certain lhat Fuegians would perish in this locality 01'
at Point Barrow, Alaska (9.9°) and it is questionable whether they could
survive at Angmagsalik, Greenland (28-4°) or at Archangel (32.5°). In
contrast to these mean annual temperatures it is important to note that
that at Cape Adair, Antarctica, is 7.0° and that that of Little America,
-I2.7°F. or 55° colder than modern Fuegia. ,We thus note that in al!
inhabited regions colder than Fuegia man is clothecl and culturally
adapted to a vigorolls climate and that tbe coldest inhabited region is as
much as IS° warmer than Little Americé\. Although this evidence does
not inform us of the limits of cold in whi ch poorly ciad human beings
could survive we at least can suspect that the climate of Fuegia IS not
far from such a limito
Mean annual temperatures, however, may be misleading, for a region
of great extremes in summer and winter temperatures may have the sp'me
average the same as a locality where there is little range from one extreme
to the other. Let us examine, therefore, the extreme winter tempera tu res
lo which the peoples in the various regions are subjected.