Tierra del Fuego, its ancient inhabitants, and the collections of skeletal remains in the Museums of Anthropology of Florence and Rome

Tierra del Fuego is the archipelago at the southern tip of South America. When Europeans first reached this region in 1520, it was inhabited by three distinct ethnic groups of indigenous peoples (Selknàm, Alakalùf and Yàmana), together referred to as Fuegians, now completely extinct. The Italian collections of skeletal remains of these people arrived in Italy in 1883 and 1885 following two separate voyages to Tierra del Fuego led by Giacomo Bove. These two collections are in the anthropological museums of Florence (now Section of Anthropology and Ethnology of the Natural History Museum) and Rome (Museum of Anthropology G. Sergi of the Sapienza University) and have attracted the interest of anthropologists ever since they were acquired. Today, thanks to new technologies (geometric morphometry, genetic analysis using ancient DNA, etc.), the physical remains of these people can be studied in a new light.