The origins of intensive marine fishing in medieval Europe: the English evidence.
The catastrophic impact of fishing pressure on species such as cod and herring is well documented. However, the antiquity of their intensive exploitation has not been established. Systematic catch statistics are only available for ca.100 years, but large-scale fishing industries existed in medieval...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:1691892 2023-05-15T16:50:38+02:00 The origins of intensive marine fishing in medieval Europe: the English evidence. Barrett, James H. Locker, Alison M. Roberts, Callum M. 2004-12-07 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691892 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15590590 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2004.2885 en eng http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691892 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15590590 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2004.2885 Research Article Text 2004 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2004.2885 2013-08-31T12:36:59Z The catastrophic impact of fishing pressure on species such as cod and herring is well documented. However, the antiquity of their intensive exploitation has not been established. Systematic catch statistics are only available for ca.100 years, but large-scale fishing industries existed in medieval Europe and the expansion of cod fishing from the fourteenth century (first in Iceland, then in Newfoundland) played an important role in the European colonization of the Northwest Atlantic. History has demonstrated the scale of these late medieval and post-medieval fisheries, but only archaeology can illuminate earlier practices. Zooarchaeological evidence shows that the clearest changes in marine fishing in England between AD 600 and 1600 occurred rapidly around AD 1000 and involved large increases in catches of herring and cod. Surprisingly, this revolution predated the documented post-medieval expansion of England's sea fisheries and coincided with the Medieval Warm Period--when natural herring and cod productivity was probably low in the North Sea. This counterintuitive discovery can be explained by the concurrent rise of urbanism and human impacts on freshwater ecosystems. The search for 'pristine' baselines regarding marine ecosystems will thus need to employ medieval palaeoecological proxies in addition to recent fisheries data and early modern historical records. Text Iceland Newfoundland Northwest Atlantic PubMed Central (PMC) Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 271 1556 2417 2421 |
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Research Article Barrett, James H. Locker, Alison M. Roberts, Callum M. The origins of intensive marine fishing in medieval Europe: the English evidence. |
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Research Article |
description |
The catastrophic impact of fishing pressure on species such as cod and herring is well documented. However, the antiquity of their intensive exploitation has not been established. Systematic catch statistics are only available for ca.100 years, but large-scale fishing industries existed in medieval Europe and the expansion of cod fishing from the fourteenth century (first in Iceland, then in Newfoundland) played an important role in the European colonization of the Northwest Atlantic. History has demonstrated the scale of these late medieval and post-medieval fisheries, but only archaeology can illuminate earlier practices. Zooarchaeological evidence shows that the clearest changes in marine fishing in England between AD 600 and 1600 occurred rapidly around AD 1000 and involved large increases in catches of herring and cod. Surprisingly, this revolution predated the documented post-medieval expansion of England's sea fisheries and coincided with the Medieval Warm Period--when natural herring and cod productivity was probably low in the North Sea. This counterintuitive discovery can be explained by the concurrent rise of urbanism and human impacts on freshwater ecosystems. The search for 'pristine' baselines regarding marine ecosystems will thus need to employ medieval palaeoecological proxies in addition to recent fisheries data and early modern historical records. |
format |
Text |
author |
Barrett, James H. Locker, Alison M. Roberts, Callum M. |
author_facet |
Barrett, James H. Locker, Alison M. Roberts, Callum M. |
author_sort |
Barrett, James H. |
title |
The origins of intensive marine fishing in medieval Europe: the English evidence. |
title_short |
The origins of intensive marine fishing in medieval Europe: the English evidence. |
title_full |
The origins of intensive marine fishing in medieval Europe: the English evidence. |
title_fullStr |
The origins of intensive marine fishing in medieval Europe: the English evidence. |
title_full_unstemmed |
The origins of intensive marine fishing in medieval Europe: the English evidence. |
title_sort |
origins of intensive marine fishing in medieval europe: the english evidence. |
publishDate |
2004 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691892 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15590590 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2004.2885 |
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Iceland Newfoundland Northwest Atlantic |
genre_facet |
Iceland Newfoundland Northwest Atlantic |
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691892 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15590590 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2004.2885 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2004.2885 |
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Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences |
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271 |
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1556 |
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2417 |
op_container_end_page |
2421 |
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