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Deep sea fish such as tuna are often found schooling in surface waters (just google tuna surfacing and you find some good videos) in deep water areas. With two
by electromagnetic 15y ago
Deep sea fish such as tuna are often found schooling in surface waters (just google tuna surfacing and you find some good videos) in deep water areas.
With two boats, a strong net and a good knowledge of your local winds, it would probably be rather easy to net a tuna and use a land-bound wind to haul a good sized tuna to shallow waters where it could be hauled ashore by manpower.
Given that arrow heads pre-date this 'fishing date' then tools would have been available. It isn't hard to assume that people who can make arrow heads could make a harpoon head (essentially a big arrow head that can have a line tied through it and was often unattached to the spear portion - as you wouldn't want the wooden pole pulling the harpoon out).
My guess would be that if they were using wooden harpoons or stone/bone, they wouldn't likely be left unused. A harpoon would be kept with the fishing equipment, not with the cooking utensils, and with a line attached you'd make sure they were out and ready for the next day rather than leave them in.
I often don't get the logic of the researchers here in that they always seem surprised no tools were found. I'm sorry, but I work in construction and you don't find me leaving my hammer and drill laying around in my kitchen and making new ones instead of using my perfectly good ones.
- Steko 15y agoFishing harpoons are dated from as early as 80k years ago from what is now in Zaire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semliki_harpoon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semliki_harpoon "With two boats, a strong net and a good knowledge of your local winds, it would probably be rather easy to net a tuna and use a land-bound wind to haul a good sized tuna to shallow waters where it could be hauled ashore by manpower." That seems unlikely. More likely they speared the sorts of fish they could carry in whatever sized craft they had (if any). From what I gather the bones are from smaller tuna.
- electromagnetic 15y agoSo essentially all the new evidence this has given us is that they sailed into deeper waters, which isn't especially a talented skill. If you can canoe in shallow water, you're going to be able to canoe in deep water on a calm day.
- prawn 15y agoYeah, aware of most of that, just querying the headline more than anything. Isn't this just fishing as much as it is deep-sea fishing? I mean, it's likely to have been a hook or harpoon more than long lines or anything like that.