Various indigenous groups lived in the southern tip of South America, including the Yámana or Yahgan, who traveled by canoe through the Beagle Channel and nearby archipelagos, and the land-based peoples of the Big Island, such as the Selk'nam and the Haush. The Yámana lived in small nomadic groups, lighting fires to protect themselves from the cold and cooking their food, which consisted primarily of shellfish, fish, sea lions, and birds; they also gathered coastal plants. These ways of life developed for millennia until the arrival of the first Europeans.
With the arrival of navigators such as Ferdinand Magellan's expeditionaries in 1520, the region was named Tierra del Fuego. During the 18th and 19th centuries, scientific exploration and whaling increased encounters with indigenous peoples, causing disease and changes in traditional subsistence routes.