Tuna has been on the menu for a lot longer than we thought. Even 42,000 years ago, the deep-sea dweller wasn鈥檛 safe from fishing tackle according to new finds in southeast Asia.
We know that open water was no barrier to travel in the Pleistocene 鈥� humans must have crossed hundreds of kilometres of ocean to reach Australia by 50,000 years ago. But while humans had already been pulling shellfish out of the shallows for 100,000 years by that point, the first good evidence of fishing with hooks or spears comes much later 鈥� around 12,000 years ago.
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The new finds blow that record out of the water. at the Australian National University in Canberra and colleagues dug through deposits at the Jerimalai shelter in East Timor. They discovered 38,000 fish bones from 23 different taxa, including tuna and parrotfish that are found only in deep water. Radiocarbon dating revealed the earliest bones were 42,000 years old.
Amidst the fishy debris was a broken fish hook fashioned from shell, which the team dated to between 16,000 and 23,000 years. 鈥淭his is the earliest known example of a fish hook,鈥� says O鈥機onnor. Another hook, made around 11,000 years ago, was also found.
at the University of Western Australia in Perth, who was not involved in the study, is convinced that those colonising East Timor 42,000 years ago had 鈥渇ully formed鈥� fishing skills. 鈥淏y this time, modern humans are assumed to have the same mental capacities as today,鈥� she says.
鈥淭here is nothing like this anywhere else in the world,鈥� says of Monash University in Melbourne, who was not a member of O鈥機onnor鈥檚 team. 鈥淢aybe this is the crucible for fishing.鈥�
East Timor hosts few large land animals, so early occupants would have needed highly developed fishing skills to survive. 鈥淣ecessity is the mother of invention,鈥� says O鈥機onnor. 鈥淎part from bats and rats, there鈥檚 nothing to eat here.鈥�
But that doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean that fishing began in the region. At the time, sea-levels were around 60 to 70 metres lower than today. Any sites of former human occupation that were located on the Pleistocene shore 鈥� rather than in coastal cliffs like the Jerimalai shelter 鈥� are now submerged.
Broader patterns of human migration suggest that more evidence of fishing would be found through examining those submerged sites. After leaving Africa around 70,000 years ago, it took modern humans only 20,000 years to skirt around Asia and reach Australia. The journey over land into Europe, although much shorter, took 30,000 years. 鈥淗umans appeared to move quite quickly along the coasts,鈥� says McNiven. 鈥淒eveloped fishing skills could have kept them moving.鈥�
Journal Reference: DOI: 10.1126/science.1207703
