History of The Falkland Islands - Pre-European Discovery

Pre-European Discovery

While Amerindians from Patagonia could have visited the Falklands, the islands were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans. Recent discoveries of arrowheads in Lafonia (on the southern half of East Falkland) as well as the remains of a wooden canoe provide evidence that suggests the Yaghan people of Tierra del Fuego may have made the journey to the islands. It is not known if these are evidence of one-way journeys, but there is no known evidence of pre-Columbian buildings or structures. However, it remains ambiguous whether the discovery predates arrival of Europeans because of the presence of a Patagonian Missionary Society mission station on Keppel Island, founded in 1856. Yahgan Indians were at this station from 1856 to 1898 and may be the source of the discovered artifacts.

The presence of the Warrah has often been cited as evidence of pre-European occupation of the islands. However, in 2009, this hypothesis was disproved when DNA analysis identified the Falkland Island wolf's closest living relative as the Maned Wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus)—an unusually long-legged, fox-like South American canid, from which it separated about 6.7 million years ago. It would seem that the lineages of the Maned Wolf and the Falkland Islands Wolf separated in North America; canids did not appear in South America until roughly 3 million years ago in a paleozoogeographical event called the Great American Biotic Interchange, in which the continents of North and South America were newly connected by the formation of the Isthmus of Panama. This means is it likely that the Warrah arrived in the islands long before humans.

The islands had no native trees when discovered but there is some ambiguous evidence of past forestation, that may be due to wood being transported by oceanic currents from Patagonia. All modern trees have been introduced by Europeans.