Posted on 04/14/2008 4:46:43 PM PDT by blam
Trading across medieval Europe revealed in cod bones
Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent
The catastrophic decline of North Sea cod as the result of over fishing has had an impact on all our menus, from the poshest restaurants to the corner chippie: the fish left are few and small, compared with those of less than a century ago. Cod more than a metre in length are rare these days, whereas archaeological remains show that fish several times that size were common.
A new study shows that cod were exploited in the Middle Ages from many, often distant, fishing grounds, with an international trade in dried stockfish. Some fish eaten in a Yorkshire village may have been some from off the coast of Sweden, while merchants in what is now northern Germany ate cod from Arctic Norway.
Co-operation by archaeologists and scientists from Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic states has allowed medieval cod bones recovered from sites as far apart as Poland and Orkney to be analysed for their stable-isotope content. Variation in the isotopes of carbon and nitrogen is regional, “making it possible to identify bones from cod caught in distant waters”, James Barrett and colleagues report in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Their work suggests that this long-distance fish trade had already begun by late Anglo-Saxon times, at the end of the first millennium AD.
Consumption of marine fish such as cod went up sharply about AD1000 in parts of Northern and Western Europe, but until now it was not clear how much this was relatively local fishing, and how much the result of organised long-distance trade. The distinction is important, the team say, because “the emergence of commercial fishing represents a watershed in the intensity of human use of the sea. It is central to an understanding of economic history”.
The study selected skull bones from archaeological sites that were probably fisheries, because traded dried fish are usually decapitated as well as gutted. These were used as control samples. “Target samples” were bones bearing butchery marks, often vertebrae or the paired cleithra behind the skull which often remain on dried or smoked fish such as kippers.
The control samples from northern Norwegian sites came from Arctic fisheries, unsurprisingly, while those from Orkney were from the northern North Sea and those from eastern England and Belgium came from farther south. Danish samples were from the Kattegat between Denmark and Sweden, and Polish ones from the eastern Baltic. In every case the nearest significant fishing zone was the one exploited.
Some of the target samples showed a similar pattern, but one of two from Wharram Percy, a deserted medieval village on the Yorkshire Wolds, seem to have come from the Kattegat and not the North Sea, while most of those from the western Baltic trading community of Haithabu or Hedeby, near the eastern end of the Kiel Canal across the base of the Jutland peninsula, seem to have come from Arctic Norway and not the Baltic fisheries.
Stable-isotope analysis of fish remains “has the potential to revolutionise our understanding of the origins and growth of commercial fishing in northern Europe, freeing it from the limits of an incomplete historical record”, the team says. Although fisheries farther afield, such as the later Basque exploitation of those off Labrador in northeastern Canada, are not included in the present project, it may help to rewrite the history of North Atlantic as well as North Sea commerce in the second millennium.
— Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 850-861
GGG Ping.
Not another cod piece!
A nineties book about the history of salt mentioned the cod trade. It implied strongly that the Basques were exploiting the Labrador/Newfoundland fishery for over a full century before Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. That cod was mysteriously being eaten in large quantities across Europe long, long after the North Sea had been fished out.
The book mentioned a letter preserved from a merchant guild to Columbus, telling him they knew damned well he had stolen his route from the Basques, so why wouldn’t he come out and admit it?
I wonder if cod bones could be unearthed and dated from the 1300’s - 1400’s and conclusively traced to the New World?
Is that book “salt”
Fisherman could have been fishing near Iceland and Greenland, which were known 1000 years ago.
-ccm
When hunters in California wanted more ducks to hunt, they created Ducks Unlimited. Soon they were up to their eyebrows in ducks.
If fishermen want fish to fish, they should make fish. This is not unrealistic.
Already, relatively low tech offshore fish farms show great potential to produce huge numbers of fish, not just for the table, but to increase the wild stocks.
Little more than a ring of pontoons descending a net into the water, with a tug-like boat controlling the lot. Fish are introduced from a hatchery, then fed at intervals, letting the ocean keep the area clean and oxygenated.
If done in a very large scale, such aqua-farms could feed countries. But they are so relatively inexpensive to run, that some could be run just to “raise and release” fish once they had reached a good size. Not just food fish, but exotic fish as well.
Granted, any predators in the area would feast, and fishermen would be encouraged to leave such artificial schools alone for a while. But done intelligently, it could radically increase the natural bounty of fish.
A profusion of fish would negate the need for destructive fishing habits, such as drift nets. It would encourage fishermen to be more like farmers. A more reliable harvest is a big selling point.
Atoll islands, even artificial islands, could be used to make fish farms over dozens of square miles, producing thousands of tons of fish. And placing such aquaculture far away from major coastlines prevents a lot of pollution and other harmful effects.
Japan alone consumes 10 million metric tons of fish a year. If much of their need was met with aquaculture, just about everyone would benefit.
1st problem...no one owns the sea.
Yes. Mark Kurlansky wrote another called “Cod”. Both are good short reads, although I liked “Salt” better.
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Thanks Blam. |
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The Little Ice Age:
How Climate Made History 1300-1850
by Brian M. Fagan
Paperback
I’m reading it now. The next chapter coming up is “Cod”.
It’s a pretty interesting book.
somewhere!
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