Why the Earliest Alaskans Didn’t Eat Fish for 1,000 Years

Haaretz ^ | June 3, 2023 | Ruth Schuster

[SunkenCiv]

Fish soup. Salmon tartare with mango salsa. Sea bream a la plancha.

The human genus has been eating fish since the dawn of time. Almost 2 million years ago, hominins in Kenya deboned a catfish. Around 800,000 years ago, hominins in Israel grilled a giant carp. Evidence of shellfish consumption also abounds, and it’s even been proposed that coastal Neanderthals dived for clams.

It is therefore unsurprising that freshwater fish were critical resources for inland prehistoric peoples in North America, not to mention modern ones. It is surprising that archaeologists investigating their predecessors – the earliest people in Beringia (the land bridge between Asia and North America) around 15,000 to 14,000 years ago – found no evidence of fish consumption until 13,000 years ago.

For the first thousand years or so, first Beringians confined hunting to bison and elk and other large animals, the reports indicate.

Could the absence of fish be due to differential preservation: big animal bones preserved; frail fishbones not? Maybe it was an artifact of the study method? Did they really not eat fish for a thousand years or more – and if so, why did they then change habit? Maybe they just didn’t like fish?

Fish first appears in eastern Beringian human contexts 12,900 years ago, at a site called Mead, and 11,800 years ago at a site called Upward Sun River, they write.

[SunkenCiv]

The Solutrean keyword, sorted:

• Etched in sands of time: 'We knew they were old' (Human footprints - oldest known humans in America 23,000 years ago) [09/24/2021]
• Fossil footprints show humans in North America more than 21,000 years ago [09/24/2021]
• Ancient Footprints Push Back Date of Human Arrival in the Americas [09/23/2021]
• Rethinking the First Americans [05/19/2019]
• And two became one: ancient American lineages reunited to head south [06/01/2018]
• An Inconvenient Truth About the First Peoples [04/11/2017]
• New clues emerge about the earliest known Americans [11/21/2015]
• The Iceman Cameth [Solutreans, Pre-Clovis] [10/02/2015]
• Iberia's Neolithic Farmers Linked to Modern-Day Basques [09/08/2015]
• Montana Boy: Bones Show Ancestral Links to Europe [02/24/2014]
• When Did Humans Come to the Americas? [01/27/2013]
• Younger Dryas -The Rest of the Story! [06/21/2012]
• New evidence suggests Cabot may have known of New World before voyage [05/07/2012]
• America 'discovered by Stone Age hunters from Europe' [02/28/2012]
• Ancestry of polar bears traced to Ireland [07/07/2011]
• 15,000-year-old campsite in Texas challenges conventional story of American settlement [03/25/2011]
• First Americans arrived as 2 separate migrations, according to new genetic evidence [01/09/2009]
• First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia.... [07/03/2008]
• Americas Settled 15,000 Years Ago, Study Says [03/13/2008]
• Does Skull Prove That The First Americans Came From Europe? [11/24/2007]
• Constructing The Solutrean Solution [08/28/2007]
• Did comet start deadly cold snap? [05/16/2007]
• Experts doubt Clovis people were first in Americas [02/23/2007]
• Penon Woman [12/17/2006]
• NOVA | Mystery of the Megaflood | PBS [05/13/2006]
• Archaeologist says Va. bolsters claim on how people got to America [ Solutrean ] [05/10/2006]
• First Americans May Have Been European [02/19/2006]
• Stone Age Columbus [12/15/2005]
• Catastrophic Flooding From Ancient Lake May Have Triggered Cold Period [12/18/2004]
• The Solutrean Solution--Did Some Ancient Americans Come from Europe? [09/24/2004]
• Sifting for Clues at W.Md. Dig [09/15/2004]
• Stone Age Columbus - Questions And Answers [08/22/2004]
• 'First Americans' May Be Johnnies-Come-Lately (Topper Site) [08/22/2004]
• Myth of the Hunter-Gatherer [08/13/2004]
• Island Hopping To A New World [02/18/2004]
• Iberia, Not Siberia [12/21/2003]
• Rediscovering America. (The New World May Be 20,000 Years Older Than Experts Thought) [12/10/2003]
• Immigrants From The Other Side (Clovis Is Solutrean?) [11/02/2003]
• Skulls Found In Mexico Suggest Early Americans Would Have Said 'G'Day Mate' [09/03/2003]
• European DNA Found In 7-8,000 Year Old Skeleton In Florida (Windover) [08/14/2003]
• Bye, Bye Beringia (8,000 Year Old Site In Florida) [08/11/2003]
• Discovery casts doubt on Bering land bridge theory [08/04/2003]
• Peopling of the Americas: Late Date for Siberian Site Challenges Bering Pathway [07/25/2003]
• Date Limit Set On First Americans [07/22/2003]
• First Americans [07/15/2003]
• Vintage Skulls [02/22/2003]
• First Americans [10/06/2002]
• Kenosha Dig Points to Europe as Origin of First Americans [03/04/2002]
• Calico: A 200,000-year Old Site In The Americas? [12/17/2001]
• The First Americans May Have Come By Water [12/10/2001]

[SunkenCiv]

I had hoped that this would have an interesting hook.

/rimshot

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Lack of fat?

[SunkenCiv]

Lack of material to build boats?

[dangus]

Cold-water fish (salmon, cod, herring, trout) often has lots of fat.

[Sacajaweau]

You mean we’re instinctively meat eaters? Who knew...

[Sacajaweau]

We’re not looking in the right place?

[adorno]

I would not eat fish for a thousand years either. It would get boring after the first few years.

[iontheball]

This is a highly unlikely claim if ever I heard one.

[Kartographer]

They watch ‘Airplane’ one to many times

[Right_Wing_Madman]

Maybe they just didn’t like fish?

The most likely explanation is that the researchers are wrong. These ancient people ate and liked fish.

[frank ballenger]

RE: Alaskans Didn’t Eat Fish for 1,000 Years

Why?

Long John Silver’s hadn’t set up outlets yet.

[TalBlack]

Surrounded by fish and not a bite to eat?

[null and void]

Could the absence of fish be due to differential preservation: big animal bones preserved; frail fishbones not? Maybe it was an artifact of the study method? Did they really not eat fish for a thousand years or more – and if so, why did they then change habit? Maybe they just didn’t like fish?

No frying pans for those 1,000 years.

[Wuli]

One part of the article explains the key reasons - a. what was abundently available and b. how much meat protein can be obtained for X amount of effort, which makes obtaining one multi-hundred pound herbivore more human fuel efficient than the effort to obtain an equalivalent amount of protein from a whole lot of fish.

[Bonemaker]

Took them that long to get over the stench.

[SunkenCiv]

• ---

  Archaeologica June 9th, 2023 Edition (I wish they'd update their list daily instead of weekly)

  ---

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[SunkenCiv]

LOL

[Bonemaker]

“No frying pans for those 1,000 years.”

No tartar sauce or French fries.

[one guy in new jersey]

All their kids threw a hissy fit one day, and nobody managed to put a firm grip on them. A thousand years later, the government made fish consumption mandatory on all flights in and out of Alaska and they relented