Paper short abstract:

The proposal aims to present questions about the preservation of the sealers archaeological remains of the South Shetland Islands (Antarctica), the first occupants of this part of Antarctica since the eighteenth century.

Paper long abstract:

The collection of sealers artifacts from Antarctica is usually composed of dense objects and with few aesthetic details, made to be cheap and sturdy. It also contains fragments and artifacts made provisionally, in response to the needs of step Antarctica and the daily workload they would endure. However, the classical conservation methods are focused on theoretical principles that evidence artistic and historical narratives aspects of culture, coming from intellectual and economic elites, in example of the principles of "aesthetic and historical originality". It was only in the last three decades that the dialogue created by theorists in conservation with interpretive paradigms in Human Sciences, became possible a contemporary conservation theory able to value the collections relating to whalers and sealers popular groups in the recent modern and contemporary history. Recently the traces have also been protected by the Antarctic Committee, fortifying the interest for the conservation of antarctic environment, and recognizing the important history of the arrival of the first human groups in the coastal regions for animal extractivism.