Hello Britalian
Some 200 M years ago the Pangaea land mass around the equator broke apart, and from the southern part (Gwondanaland) resulted South America, Africa, India, Australia, and Antartica.
Around 1 G years ago the first multicellular life evolved worldwide, and around 500 M years the first animals occurred. The Cambrian explosion was the start of a wealth of all kinds of animals, and mammals appeared around the time of the break up of Pangaea.
When the predecessor of humanity appeared only around a couple of million years ago, Gwondwanaland had already been broken up a long time ago and was covered by ice, so humans never lived permanently on Antartica.
As to ice coverage : at places the depth of the ice sheet is around 3 Km, while at the borders it thins to several hundred meters.