In 1532 a map was produced that apparently shows Antarctica with no ice. The last time Antarctica had no ice was at least six thousand years ago. It was produced by a French mathematician and cartographer named Oronce Finé (sometimes called Oronteus Finaeus), allegedly using complex mathematics that were not believed to be known to people of the day. The only sources of information I can find on this map are from sources that set off my pseudoscience alarms, such as this one:
http://www.ancientdestructions.com/oronteus-finaeus-map-antarctica-fineus/
My question is:
Is this map genuine, does it depict Antarctica without ice and if so, how was it made?
The map may be genuine, but it does not depict Antarctica without ice. Kind of the opposite.
In fact it's highly distorted, showing Antarctica as way too large, extending to the tip of South America and north to the same latitude as Madagascar. The Peninsula is missing entirely.
Early map makers often felt the need to 'balance out' the world with a Southern continent since most of the land masses were in the Northern hemisphere, even though they may have had no evidence of any land there.
At best, it's possible that they received reports of sea ice extending around the continent and interpreted that as a land mass (Antarctic sea ice can have an equal area to the continent itself, and most wooden ships wouldn't be able to penetrate it).
Here's a bigger view of the map
