In a small cave at the eastern end of East Timor, north of Australia, archaeologist Sue O'Connor from the Australian National University has unearthed the bones of more than 2,800 fish, some of which were caught as long as 42,000 years ago.
The find shows that the people living in the region had the sophisticated cognitive skills needed to haul in such a difficult catch, O'Connor says.
Her findings appeared in the journal Science.
"What the site has shown us is that early modern humans in island Southeast Asia had amazingly advanced maritime skills," she said.
"They were expert at catching the types of fish that would be challenging even today -- fish like tuna. It's a very exciting find."
It isn't clear exactly what techniques the people living in the area at the time used to catch these fish.
Tuna can be caught using nets or by trolling hooks on long lines through the water, O'Connor said.
"Either way it seems certain that these people were using quite sophisticated technology and watercraft to fish offshore."
The site where the discoveries were made, known as Jerimalai cave, is a small rock overhang hidden behind in foliage, a few hundred meters from the shore.
"When I discovered it in 2005, I didn't think that Jerimalai would tell us about the very early occupation of Timor," O'Connor said. "I was quite surprised when I found all these fish bones and turtle bones."
So far, she and her colleagues have only excavated two small test pits at the cave, which contained a number of stone artifacts, bone points, animal remains, shell beads and fish hooks.
In just one of those pits, 1 meter square and 2 meters deep, they found 39,000 fish bones.
They also unearthed another rare find -- a small piece of fishing hook made from a shell, which dates to between 23,000 and 16,000 years ago.
Read more at Discovery News
what did they do with the fish hooks put them in an museum or somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what they did with the fishing hooks. They might end up at a museum in due time or they might end up in an archive or something like that.
ReplyDelete