Fishing: How the Sea Fed CivilizationHumanity's last major source of food from the wild, and how it enabled and shaped the growth of civilization In this history of fishing--not as sport but as sustenance--archaeologist and best-selling author Brian Fagan argues that fishing was an indispensable and often overlooked element in the growth of civilization. It sustainably provided enough food to allow cities, nations, and empires to grow, but it did so with a different emphasis. Where agriculture encouraged stability, fishing demanded movement. It frequently required a search for new and better fishing grounds; its technologies, centered on boats, facilitated movement and discovery; and fish themselves, when dried and salted, were the ideal food--lightweight, nutritious, and long-lasting--for traders, travelers, and conquering armies. This history of the long interaction of humans and seafood tours archaeological sites worldwide to show readers how fishing fed human settlement, rising social complexity, the development of cities, and ultimately the modern world. |
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America ancient archaeological Atlantic became boats bones called canoes carp carried catch caught century changes Channel chapter cities close coast coastal collected communities complex cultural depended developed dried earlier early East enormous environments especially Europe exploited farmers farming fish fisheries fishermen grounds groups hand harvest hooks human hundred hunting important inshore islands kilometers known lake land landscape larger late later least lived locations major marine meters mollusks moved nets North northern numbers ocean Pacific perhaps plant ponds populations Press productive remained rising river Roman sailed salmon salted sea levels season settlement shallow shell shellfish ships shore social societies sometimes southern spawning spears stocks subsistence supply thousand years ago took trade traps tuna University villages wide yielded