A complete shell fish hook from the Pleistocene levels of a cave site at the east end of Timor (Image: Susan O'Conner)
Incomplete fish hook from Jerimalai shelter dated to around 11,000 years ago (Image: Susan O'Conner)
Posted on 11/27/2011 1:20:29 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Tuna has been on the menu for a lot longer than we thought. Even 42,000 years ago, the deep-sea dweller wasn't safe from fishing tackle according to new finds in southeast Asia.
We know that open water was no barrier to travel in the Pleistocene -- humans must have crossed hundreds of kilometres of ocean to reach Australia by 50,000 years ago. But while humans had already been pulling shellfish out of the shallows for 100,000 years by that point, the first good evidence of fishing with hooks or spears comes much later -- around 12,000 years ago.
The new finds blow that record out of the water. Sue O'Connor at the Australian National University in Canberra and colleagues dug through deposits at the Jerimalai shelter in East Timor. They discovered 38,000 fish bones from 23 different taxa, including tuna and parrotfish that are found only in deep water. Radiocarbon dating revealed the earliest bones were 42,000 years old.
Amidst the fishy debris was a broken fish hook fashioned from shell, which the team dated to between 16,000 and 23,000 years...
East Timor hosts few large land animals, so early occupants would have needed highly developed fishing skills to survive...
Any sites of former human occupation that were located on the Pleistocene shore -- rather than in coastal cliffs like the Jerimalai shelter -- are now submerged.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
A complete shell fish hook from the Pleistocene levels of a cave site at the east end of Timor (Image: Susan O'Conner)
Incomplete fish hook from Jerimalai shelter dated to around 11,000 years ago (Image: Susan O'Conner)
|
|
|
| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
|
|
Thanks Renfield. |
|
|
|
|
I’ve gone tuna fishing several times. I am amazed that this could be done with just a hook. They dive really low and it certainly is a fight to get them to the surface with a sport rod/reel/fighting chair.
I’d like to see anybody catch a tuna with THAT.
and they used exactly what for line???
No hooks needed for that!
very interesting
I think my heaviest was 118 pounds... you are right. I was comparing the tuna that I caught to all tuna. I still wouldn’t want to pull a 50 pounder up by hand. LOL!!!
I think my heaviest was 118 pounds... you are right. I was comparing the tuna that I caught to all tuna. I still wouldn’t want to pull a 50 pounder up by hand. LOL!!!
So....for 42,000 years, men have had to act like they really really enjoy their wives tuna casserole.
ICBW, but I think even tinker mackerel would fall under the tuna taxa. I’m no biologist, but I do know that they are related to tuna. Also, skipjacks, bonito, and false albacore fall under that taxa and are far short of 50#.
I made my living for a few years working on head boats and commercial pin hooking. Tuna season is how we made it through the winter. When conditions were right and we had them boiling on the surface, we would handline fish up to 80-100#, usually yellowfin or big eye. Longfin were in the 40-50# range. Handlining was much faster than rod & reel and ya had to get 'em while the gettin' wuz good!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
