Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
cuttlei sh, and octopus), crustaceans (in mass terms, their catch is dominated by
shrimp and prawns, and it also includes crabs, lobsters, and even krill, tiny marine
crustaceans that are the main food of whalebone whales), and mollusks (including
clams, mussels, oysters, and scallops).
Many of these invertebrates are also captured (or now increasingly cultivated) in
freshwaters, and marine harvests also include the killing of many species of aquatic
mammals, including in the past just about every species of (now largely protected)
whales, dolphins, seals, and manatees. The most recent worldwide statistics show
the total annual landings of more than 4 Mt of cephalopods, more than 5 Mt of
crustaceans, and about 7 Mt of mollusks, adding up to about 20% of the total
marine catch (FAO 2011a). And marine harvests also include harvests of algal phy-
tomass (recently less than 2 Mt of fresh weight) that is dried and sometimes pro-
cessed before eating.
Archaeological i nds belie the claims that effective i shing methods were a rela-
tively late mode of foraging and that marine i shing was a particularly unappealing
choice because of the unpredictability of i sh runs and the high energy cost of search-
ing for rich stocks and capturing them in laboriously made nets (Ryder 1969). Rick,
Erlandson, and Vellanoweth (2001) summarized the post-1980 i nds of i sh remains
(dating to the terminal Pleistocene and the early Holocene, mostly between 12,000
and 7,000 years before the present) in Pacii c coastal communities in Oregon, Cali-
fornia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile that indicate fairly intensive exploitation of up to
26 taxa of i sh living primarily in bays, estuaries, and kelp beds and ranging from
sea bass to tuna and from lingcod to halibut; the i sh were caught by hook and line,
as well as by spears, traps, and nets. For one midden site in California, Daisy Cave
on San Miguel Island, they were able to estimate that i sh provided 50%-65% of
all edible meat during the two millennia between 10,500 and 8,500 years before
the present.
The heavy reliance of early Holocene coastal populations on ocean foods is also
attested by numerous European i nds, particularly in the Baltic. Denmark's soils
contain vast amounts of i sh bone, especially from the Mesolithic Atlantic period,
which lasted from 7000 to 3900 BCE and was marked by higher sea temperatures
than today (Enghoff et al. 2007). In more inhospitable environments it was neces-
sary to target fatty mammals. In Alaska as well as in Patagonia, mussels and limpets
would not have sufi ced, and the costal populations exploited sea lions and fur
seals (Yesner 2004). And marine zoomass provided the energetic basis for some of
the most complex prehistoric societies in the Pacii c Northwest (Sassaman 2004).
Their sedentism, exceptionally high population density, and ensuing social complex-
