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Medieval Icelanders were likely hunting blue whales before industrial technology
- mc32 2y agoPretty cool story; but I'm pretty amazed by the detail in the Italian map of the area.
- sebmellen 2y agoIt's so cool, made it my new wallpaper.
- shzhdbi09gv8ioi 2y agoIt's a very cool map, but it is actually scandinavian in origin (Swedish). I also noted the "italian map" remark in the article. It is in latin tho, and created in Rome. It is the oldest "complete" map where scandinavia is depicted with any kind of accuracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carta_marina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carta_marina
- pomian 2y agohttps://archive.org/details/map-1539 https://archive.org/details/map-1539 . . The map is truly a historical marvel. Especially at higher resolutions, can see many country details around the Baltics and Scandinavia, down to Poland, and part of Scotland and England. Strange animals and details of different warfare.
- pdevr 2y agoAbout the female whale whose dorsal fin was punctured: "Ólafur appears to have developed a personal kinship with the whale" A macabre kinship that involved spearing her calf. And eventually, killing the female whale herself while trying to kill her calf again.
- ianmcgowan 2y agoThat is a partial quote: "Ólafur appears to have developed a personal kinship with the whale, choosing not to try to kill her again. But he had no problem shooting the whale’s calf. One summer, when he raised his spear and took aim at the calf, his spear went askew, hitting the mother instead. With that, he’d had enough. That was the last time Ólafur speared a whale."
- chefkd 2y agoA mother's love is unconditional like 99% of the time regardless of the species and humans are more or less the same across culture, time and space 99% of the time :( does anyone ever think about a less vicious world? like I know evolution / survival of the fittest all that is a thing but did it have to be like this? Could we have evolved without killing?
- thfuran 2y ago>A mother's love is unconditional like 99% of the time regardless of the species That's just BS. In many species, the mother never has any interaction at all with the young. In some species, it's not particularly uncommon for a mother to eat her young.
- chefkd 2y ago> "mammal mothers eating their young are relatively rare and usually occur under extreme stress or adverse conditions" perhaps i meant to say just mammals? would be cool if neuroscience advanced enough to figure out what makes mammals specifically different but alas like Moses won't live long enough to see that day
- dieselgate 2y agoInteresting timing to see this since today/yesterday saw a headline about a cruise ship coming in to port with a dead whale stuck to the bow. We’ve come from “losing 5 spears in a day and giving up whale hunting” to killing them accidentally. From a purely historical lens whale hunting in a small boat is one of the most extreme things I can imagine. The closest I’ve physically come to whales is sailing and hearing a pod breathing while swimming past - I was scared since the unexpected sound was quite loud and deep. Just spit balling here but interesting to think of whales “hunting humans” as we’ve seen them start taking out more pleasure craft around Europe (and elsewhere?) in the past few years. Would be curious to “hear” their side of history!
- cjk2 2y agoI suspect they are just pissed off with us. I did a whale watching tour from Húsavík last year on a cranky old boat. We found one but the poor thing was asleep apparently, just surfacing every few minutes to breathe. Immediately buzzed by about 5 boats full of people every time it surfaced, two pictured here: https://imgur.com/a/g4em6sc https://imgur.com/a/g4em6sc . I think I'd be in the mood to tip a fishing boat after that every day.
- jajko 2y agoI did the same in Husavik some... 8 years ago in wintery conditions (april iirc, inland was completely inpassable and even ring road had heaps of snow) and they were fine, we saw plenty of them and pretty active (mostly mink whales). Maybe bad luck or they are quite seasonal?
- sandworm101 2y agoThere was an orca (technically not a whale) on the west coast of canada that famously ripped fishfinders off the bottoms of boats. Evidently it didn't like their noise. But it wasn't just the active ones. It found and ripped them off parked boats too.
- CRConrad 2y agoTechnically yes, a whale. Orcas are the biggest dolphins, and dolphins in turn are the smallest whales.
- pvaldes 2y agoThis is another of this latest historical or scientific news that look a lot like created by AI. > Over half of the bones came from blue whales. This claim just does not made a lot of sense. > Spectroscopy, which reveals the chemical makeup of bones by analyzing collagen proteins found in bone fragments, is cheaper and faster than DNA analysis. And much more inaccurate, it seems. Again, we have big claims (that people will repeat for decades) supported by dwarf proofs or subpar methods. I want to play this game also: "Scientists discover that spears make whales autistic".
- Y_Y 2y agoWhat's a "dwarf proof"? It's been an open secret in the industry for a long time that autism in whales is caused by harpoons, but big plankton doesn't want it to become public knowledge. In fact many believe that smaller harpoons can have the same effect in humans as studies have shown (2023, Ishmael et al.)
- pvaldes 2y ago> What's a "dwarf proof"? A proof with a stunted development obviously, so it never grow as tall as the other proofs and can be spotted as dubious from a mile even if it wears high soles to hide it.
- dunekid 2y agoThis is a bogus claim. The Ishmael guy just starts the paper by proclaiming his name. That's no way to start a rigorous dissertation. The publishing year is wrong too.
- andremendes 2y agoWhat's up with this title? At the time of writing this, it's worded as: "Medieval Icelanders were likely hunting blue whales long industrial technology" Seems they were trying to hunt industrial tech from whales. I guess a "before" went missing before "industrial"?
- red_trumpet 2y agoYeah weird. If it was done for length-reasons, maybe better omit the "long" instead of "before"?
- HPsquared 2y agoThe blue whales had been investing their funds in industrial technology, and the Medieval Icelanders did not like that. This unfortunate event delayed the Industrial Revolution by centuries.
- anal_reactor 2y agoWhales were so close to becoming the dominant species, but Icelanders fortunately stole their industrial technology in the last moment.
- xattt 2y agoPer Occam’s Razor, this is the most likely explanation. The title can be fixed with a simple comma, instead of some multi-character, multi-syllable word like “before”.
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- helsinkiandrew 2y agoTheres also cave painting "evidence" that people were hunting Sperm and Humpbacks whales and (to me more impressive) Orcas in Korea 8000 years ago: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3638853.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3638853.stm
- vkou 2y agoI'd assume that cave orcas were much smaller than regular ones.
- ourmandave 2y agoReminds me of the Oregon Trail game where one buffalo was way more than you can bring back. "You shot 290,000 pounds of food, but were only able to carry 100 pounds back."
- option 2y agoI'd say medieval icelanders did everything before industrial technology
- benced 2y agoFolks will probably enjoy Matt Lakeman's series on whaling https://mattlakeman.org/2021/06/01/everything-you-might-want-to-know-about-whaling/ https://mattlakeman.org/2021/06/01/everything-you-might-want...