Bibliograph

Fishing, how the sea fed civilization, Brian Fagan

Type

Label

Fishing, how the sea fed civilization, Brian Fagan

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-331) and index

Illustrations

mapsillustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Fishing

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

978291325

Responsibility statement

Brian Fagan

Sub title

how the sea fed civilization

Summary

"Before prehistoric humans began to cultivate grain, they had three main methods of acquiring food: hunting, gathering, and fishing. Hunting and gathering are no longer economically important, having been replaced by their domesticated equivalents, ranching and farming. But fishing, humanity's last major source of food from the wild, has grown into a worldwide industry on which we have never been more dependent. In this history of fishing--not as sport hut as sustenance--archaeologist and writer Brian Fagan argues that fishing rivaled agriculture in its importance to 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 travel, trade, and movement. It required a constant search for new and better fishing grounds; its technologies, centered on boats, facilitated journeys of discovery; and fish themselves, when dried and salted, were the ideal food--lightweight, nutritious, and long-lasting--for traders, travelers, and conquering armies. In Fishing, Fagan tours archaeological sites worldwide to show readers how fishing fed the development of cities, empires, and ultimately the modern world."--Dust jacket

Table Of Contents

Bountiful waters -- Part I. Opportunistic fishers. Beginnings ; Neanderthals and moderns ; Shellfish eaters ; Baltic and Danube after the ice ; Rope-patterned fisherfolk ; The great journey revisited ; Fishers on the Pacific Northwest Coast ; The myth of a Garden of Eden ; The Calusa : shallows and sea grass ; The great fish have come in -- Part II. Fishers in the shadows. Rations for Pharaohs ; Fishing the Middle Sea ; Scaly flocks ; The fish eaters ; The Erythraean Sea ; Carp and Khmer ; Anchovies and civilization -- Part III. The end of plenty. Ants of the ocean ; The beef of the sea ; "Inexhaustible manna" ; Depletion ; More in the sea? -- Glossary of fishing terms

Classification

Creator