Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T02:00:15.905Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The antiquity of sustained offshore fishing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Atholl Anderson
Atholl Anderson*
Affiliation:
*Department of Archaeology and Natural History, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The first settlement of Australia over 40 000 years ago provides evidence of the maritime capabilities of early modern humans. Did they also take to the sea to fish? Recent analysis of fish remains from sites in Timor-Leste and on islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea have been held to include deep sea species that must have been obtained through pelagic fishing. Here Atholl Anderson takes issue with the evidence, arguing that inshore fishing is a more likely scenario, and that deep sea fishing was beyond the scope of Pleistocene communities. Despite the early settlement of Australia, advanced boat technology was developed only during the Holocene. His reassessment is followed by responses from Sue O'Connor and Rintaro Ono, Geoff Bailey and Jon Erlandson, and finally by Atholl Anderson's reply to those comments.

Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 87 , Issue 337 , September 2013 , pp. 879 - 885
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amesbury, J.R. & Hunter-Anderson, R.L.. 2008. An analysis of archaeological and historical data on fisheries for pelagic species in Guam and the northern Marianas islands. Report for the University of Hawai'i, Guam.Google Scholar
Anderson, A. 2000. Slow boats from China: issues in the prehistory of Indo-Pacific seafaring, in O'Connor, S. & Veth, P. (ed.) East of Wallace's Line: studies ofpast and present maritime cultures of the Indo-Pacific region: 13—50. Rotterdam: Balkema.Google Scholar
Anderson, A. 2010. The origins and development of seafaring: towards a global approach, in Anderson, A., Barrett, J.H. & Boyle, K. (ed.) The global origins and development of seafaring (McDonald Institute Monographs): 3—16. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archeological Research.Google Scholar
Barham, A.J.. 2000. Late Holocene maritime societies in the Torres Strait Islands, northern Australia — cultural arrival or cultural emergence?, in O'Connor, S. & Veth, P. (ed.) East of Wallace's Line: studies of past and present maritime cultures of the Indo-Pacific region: 223—314. Rotterdam: Balkema.Google Scholar
Béarez, P. 2000. Archaic fishing at Quebrada de los Burros, southern coast of Peru. Reconstruction of fish size by using otoliths. Archaeofauna 9: 29—34.Google Scholar
Beech, M. 2002. Fishing in the 'Ubaid: a review of fish-bone assemblages from early prehistoric coastal settlements in the Arabian Gulf. Journal of Oman Studies 12: 25—40.Google Scholar
Collette, B.B. & Nauen, C.E.. 1983. Scombrids of the world (FAO species catalogue, volume 2). Rome: FAO.Google Scholar
Crockford, S.J. 1997. Archaeological evidence of large northern bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus, in coastal waters of British Columbia and northern Washington. Fishery Bulletin 95: 11—24.Google Scholar
Fonteneau, A. 2009. Atlantic bluefin tuna: 100 centuries of fluctuating fisheries. Collected volumes of the Scientific Papers of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas 63: 51—68.Google Scholar
Gillett, R. 2011. By-catch in small scale tuna fisheries, a global study. Rome: FAO.Google Scholar
Habu, J. 2010. Seafaring and the development of cultural complexity in northeast Asia: evidence from the Japanese archipelago, in Anderson, A., Barrett, J.H. & Boyle, K. (ed.) The global origins and development of seafaring (McDonald Institute Monographs): 159—170. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Hays, R. 2000. Fishing overseas (part 2) — from the shore. Available at: http://www.fishing.co.uk/article.php3?id=279 (accessed 19 February 2013).Google Scholar
Kennett, D.J., Voorhies, B., Wake, T.A. &Martinez, N.. 2008. Long-term effects of human predation on marine ecosystems in Guerrero, Mexico, in Rick, T.C. & Erlandson, J.M. (ed.) Human impacts on ancient marine ecosystems: 103—124. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kuang-Ti, L. 2001. Prehistoric marine fishing adaptation in southern Taiwan. Journal of East Asian Archaeology 3: 47—74.Google Scholar
Lloyd, J., Errity, C., Howard, K., Dysart, K., Damaso, J., Carvalho, N. De, Jesus, C., Monfeiro, J., Barreto, C. Da Cunha, Santos, G. Do & Goncalves, R.P.. 2008. The Timor-Leste coastal/marine habitat mapping for tourism and fisheries development project. Project no. 5: fisheries development in the Com-Tutuala-Jaco Island area. Darwin: Charles Darwin University.Google Scholar
Morales-Muniz, A. & Roselló-Izquierdo, E.. 2008. Twenty thousand years of fishing in the Strait: archaeological fish and shellfish assemblages from southern Iberia, in Rick, T.C. & Erlandson, J.M. (ed.) Human impacts on ancient marine ecosystems: 243—277. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, G.R. & Staples, D.J.. 2006. The history of industrial marine fisheries in Southeast Asia. Bangkok: FAO.Google Scholar
O'Connell, J.F., Allen, J. & Hawkes, K.. 2010. Pleistocene Sahul and the origins of seafaring, in Anderson, A., Barrett, J.H. & Boyle, K.V (ed.) The global origins and development of seafaring (McDonald Institute Monographs): 57—80. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
O'Connor, S. 2007. New evidence from East Timor contributes to our understanding of earliest modern human colonisation of the Sunda shelf. Antiquity 81: 523—535.Google Scholar
O'Connor, S. 2010. Pleistocene migration and colonization in the Indo-Pacific region, in Anderson, A., Barrett, J.H. & Boyle, K. (ed.) The global origins and development of seafaring (McDonald Institute Monographs): 41—55. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
O'Connor, S., Ono, R. & Clarkson, C.. 2011. Pelagic fishing at 42,000 years before the present and the maritime skills of modern humans. Science 334: 1117—1121.Google Scholar
Ono, R. & Clark, G.. 2010. A 2500-year record of marine resource use on Ulong Island, Republic of Palau. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 22: 637—654. doi: 10.1002/oa.1226Google Scholar
Ono, R. & Intoh, M.. 2011. Island of pelagic fishermen: temporal changes in prehistoric fishing on Fais, Micronesia. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 6: 255—286.Google Scholar
Pernetta, J.C. & Hill, L.. 1981. A review of marine resource use in coastal Papua. Journal de la Société des Océanistes 37: 175—191.Google Scholar
Pickard, C. & Bonsall, C.. 2004. Deep-sea fishing in the European Mesolithic: fact or fantasy? European Journal of Archaeology 7: 273—290.Google Scholar
Popov, S.V., Morales-Muniz, A. & Roselló-Izquierdo, E.. 2005. A late Stone Age fishing station in the coast of Yemen. Paleorient 31: 116—125.Google Scholar
Rick, T.C., Erlandson, J.M. & Vellanoweth, R.L.. 2001. Paleocoastal marine fishing on the Pacific coast of the Americas: perspectives from Daisy Cave, California. American Antiquity 66: 595—613.Google Scholar
Rick, T.J., Erlandson, J.M., Braje, T.J.Estes, J.M.Graham, M.H. & Vellanoweth, R.L.. 2008. Historical ecology and human impacts on coastal ecosystems of the Santa Barbara channel region, California, in Rick, T.C. & Erlandson, J.M. (ed.) Human impacts on ancient marine ecosystems: 77—101. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Steadman, D.W & Jones, S.. 2006. Long-term trends in prehistoric fishing and hunting on Tobago, West Indies. Latin American Antiquity 17: 316—334.Google Scholar
Stiner, M.C. & Munro, N.D.. 2011. On the evolution of diet and landscape during the Upper Palaeolithic through Mesolithic at Franchthi Cave (Peloponnese, Greece). Journal of Human Evolution 60: 618—636.Google Scholar
Tietze, U., Lee, R., Siar, S., Moth-Poulsen, T. & Bage, H.E.. 2011. Fishing with beach seines (FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper 562). Rome: FAO.Google Scholar
Wing, S.R.& Wing, E.S.. 2001. Prehistoric fisheries in the Caribbean. Coral Reefs 20: 1—8.Google Scholar