Posted by on December 23, 2004 at 17:55:52:
Overfishing may be an ancient practice according to archeologists from the University of York in England. New studies show that significant marine fishing started in the U.K. during the 9th Century. Researchers studied fish bones deposited between AD 600 and AD 1600, discovering a dramatic increase in the intensity of fishing as well as the type of fish caught during AD 1000. In a NewScientist.com article entitled “Intensive fishing was an ancient practice,” interviewee James Barrett from University of York states, “Before AD 1000, most of the fish had been freshwater, but there was a rapid change to marine fish -- mainly cod and herring -- which was very unexpected. And it was by far the biggest change we saw during the period we looked at.” It is suspected that the increase of marine fishing was due to a decline in the freshwater fish population making freshwater fish a rarity only afforded by the wealthy. For more information go to http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996711