Cod skulls reveal fishing patterns in the Middle Ages

Scholars from the University of Cambridge have concluded that sea fishing in northwest Europe was more locally-based than previously believed. By using skulls of cod fish, the Medieval Origins of Commercial Sea Fishing Project was able to determine that the majority of fish catches in the 10th and 11th centuries in England were from waters relatively nearby, such as the North Sea.

It was only by the 13th and 14th centuries, when local fish stocks were depleted that fisherman sailed to further seas to net the cod and other fishes that would wind up as dinner for people in urban communities such as London.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

Scholar to work medieval whales in Wales

Dr Vicki Szabo associate professor of history at Western Carolina University was recently awarded a Fulbright Fellowship based at the School of History and Archeology, Cardiff University. Vicki will be in Cardiff for four months working with Jacqui Mulville to continue creating a database for the identification of whale species from artifacts and examine historical whale-hunting patterns. Brill publishing house recently released Szabo’s book Monstrous Fishes and the Mead-Dark Sea: Whaling in the Medieval North Atlantic, which explores the perception, use and significance of whales during the Middle Ages.

Szabo will pursue her research interests at Cardiff University in Wales this autumn among faculty and students interested in ancient history, archaeology and conservation, and Welsh history. She has worked on medieval whaling and related archaeology of medieval whaling since 1995, and her current research began in 2000. “I’m studying modern whale skeletons, creating an analytical database using photographs, measurements and DNA, and hopefully producing a tool to identify which whales were hunted in the Middle Ages,” said Szabo.

Currently, no easy method of matching whale bone artifacts to whale species exists, said Szabo. “My research colleague – Jacqui Mulville, senior lecturer in bioarchaeology at Cardiff University – and I will work with biologists, geneticists and whale specialists and collect data to create a database that will allow us to identify whale species from whale bone artifacts,” she said. “Once we can do that, we can study artifacts from sites and figure out which types of whales they were using, whether there were patterns in the whales being hunted, and maybe even begin to reconstruct premodern whale populations, something zoologists cannot yet effectively do.”

Although Szabo has traveled to Britain, Wales will be a new experience, she said. “I teach early British history at WCU, so being in Wales will add a new dimension to that. I’ll get to visit sites that I teach about, learn new sources and come to understand Welsh culture, at least a little,” said Szabo. “I’m most excited that I’ll learn new research methods for both environmental history and medieval archaeology, which will be a great aid in the classes, and for graduate instruction. Hopefully, I’ll also come back with new contacts, so I can help students research and study abroad more effectively.”

Last year, Medievalists.net interview Vicki Szabo about her book Monstrous Fishes and the Mead-Dark Sea: Whaling in the Medieval North Atlantic. Click here to read that interview.

Over-Fishing in the Middle Ages lead to Marine Declines

Marine historians will be presenting a wide range of findings about overfishing over the centuries, including from the Middle Ages, at a conference beginning today. One of their key findings is that size of freshwater fish caught in medieval times began to decrease, leading fishermen to venture out to further seas.

The Oceans Past II Conference takes place May 26-28 at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. It is being organised by the Census for Marine Life. Started in the year 2000, the Census of Marine Life is an international science research program uniting thousands of researchers worldwide with the goal of assessing and explaining the diveristy, distribution and abundance of marine life.



Using such diverse sources as old ship logs, literary texts, tax accounts, newly translated legal documents and even mounted trophies, Census researchers are piecing together images of fish of such sizes, abundance and distribution in ages past that they stagger modern imagination.

They are also documenting the timelines over which those giant marine life populations declined. For example, Census scientists say the size of freshwater fish caught by Europeans started shrinking in medieval times.

Researchers James Barrett and Jen Harland (Cambridge University), Cluny Johnstone (York University) and Mike Richards (Max Planck Institute) say a shift from eating locally-caught freshwater to marine fish species occured around 1000 AD.

That's consistent with analyses of scientifically-dated fish remains and historical data from England and northwestern Europe showing smaller freshwater fish and fewer species availability in early medieval times, likely caused by increased exploitation and pollution.

Jesse Ausuel, Program Director of the Census at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, noted that a text written in Sicily in 1153 described the seas of the North Atlantic as having "animals of such great size that the inhabitants of the islands use their bones and vertebrae in place of wood to build houses. They make hammers, arrows, spears, knives, seats, steps, and in general every sort of thing elsewhere made of wood."

Marina Lucia De Nicolo of the University of Bologna, meanwhile, has established that new fishing boats and equipment invented in the 1500s made it possible to venture from coastal to deep sea fishing. The real revolution in marine fishing, she says, happened in the mid-1600s when pairs of boats began dragging a net.



Ian Poiner, Chair of the Census Scientific Steering Committee, explains "the insights emerging from this research of the past provide a new context fro contemporary ocean management. Understanding the magnitude and drivers of change long ago is essential to accurately interpret today's trends and to make future projections."

For more information about the Oceans Past II Conference and the Census of Marine Life, please visit their website at http://www.hmapcoml.org/



Images
1. One of the earliest depictions of trawling. Mosaic from the 5th century, Bizerte, Tunisia
2. Monastic records, Russia
3. Night fishing with a lamp and a net. Byzantine image from the 11th century