Fish: exploring the sea as a taskscape

Author(s):  
Robert Van de Noort

Food and social identities are closely connected. The idea that ‘to be Mesolithic is to be a fisher’, with all the connotations that differentiate the Mesolithic fisher from the Neolithic farmer, characterizes some of the debates that are ongoing (e.g. Thomas 2003). Food and social identities are connected, especially in the case of societies of fishermen, for example in the wearing of distinctive national dress by the female relatives of fishermen in the Netherlands in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries (see chapter 2). However, we should not forget that fishing as a full-time occupation appears in the North Sea only around the 15th century AD, and that before that date fishing was only ever a part of people’s occupation and social identity (Kirby and Hinkkanen 2000; Fox 2001). Nevertheless, to be a successful fisher required skill, tools and knowledge of the tides and the movement of fish. All these created distinctive taskscapes where people’s daily engagement with the sea followed the rhythm of the tides, rather than that of the sun. This chapter considers the North Sea as a taskscape, focusing on the long history of fishing and fish consumption, and the current debates on the importance of fishing in our prehistoric and historic past. It presents a short overview of the role of fishing in the North Sea from the Mesolithic through to the 15th century AD, and the tools and craft used for this. Using anthropology and oral history research, the distinctive identities formed by fishing communities will be considered, and the chapter will ask whether this distinctiveness has a long heritage, or is of more recent date. The earliest indirect evidence for the use of marine resources in the North Sea basin goes, possibly, back to the tenth millennium cal BC. The zoo-archaeological evidence from the Galta peninsula in present-day south-west Norway, where flint points of the Ahrensburg complex have been discovered in redeposited beach sediments, has already been introduced (chapter 3; Prøsch-Danielsen and Høgestøl 1995). This evidence has been invoked to argue that south-west Norway was suited to reindeer hunting at the end of the Younger Dryas stadial, or very early Holocene.

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Arthur Bourassa ◽  
Tove Husby ◽  
Rick Deuane Watts ◽  
Dale Oveson ◽  
Tommy M. Warren ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 743-754
Author(s):  
Matthias van Rossum

Since direct shipping routes between Europe and Asia opened up at the end of the 15th century, the growing intercontinental and regional shipping connections resulted in increasing entanglements between European and Asian maritime labour markets. This article analyses the long term development of the connections between European and Asian maritime labour markets and its impact on socio-cultural (and labour) relations through three elements: first, the changing connections between European and Asian maritime labour markets; second, the changing nature of European and Asian maritime labour markets and its influence on the positions of sailors; and third, the changing relations between European and Asian sailors and its effects on the reactions and interactions in a globalising maritime labour market. It explores how these changing global connections shaped encounters between European and Asian sailors on (intercontinental) shipping in and from the North Sea region, and how it affected the positions and reactions of its workers.


Author(s):  
P. E. P. Norton

SynopsisThis is a brief review intended to supply bases for prediction of future changes in the North Sea Benthos. It surveys long-term changes which are affecting the benthos. Any prediction must take into account change in temperature, depth, bottom type, tidal patterns, current patterns and zoogeography of the sea and the history of these is briefly touched on from late Tertiary times up to the present. From a prediction of changes in the benthos, certain information concerning the pelagic and planktonic biota could also be derived.


Clay Minerals ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Pearson

AbstractClay mineral abundances in Mesozoic and Tertiary argillaceous strata from 15 exploration wells in the Inner and Outer Moray Firth, Viking Graben and East Shetland Basins of the northern North Sea have been determined in <0·2 µm fractions of cuttings samples. The clay assemblages of more deeply-buried samples cannot be unambiguously related to sedimentary input because of the diagenetic overprint which may account for much of the chlorite and related interstratified minerals. Other sediments, discussed on a regional basis and related to the geological history of the basins, are interpreted in terms of clay mineral provenance and control by climate, tectonic and volcanic activity. The distribution of illite-smectite can often be related to volcanic activity both in the Forties area during the M. Jurassic, and on the NE Atlantic continental margin during the U. Cretaceous-Early Tertiary which affected the North Sea more widely and left a prominent record in the Viking Graben and East Shetland Basin. Kaolinite associated with lignite-bearing sediments in the Outer Moray Firth Basin was probably derived by alteration of volcanic material in lagoonal or deltaic environments. Some U. Jurassic and L. Cretaceous sediments of the Inner Moray Basin are rich in illite-smectite, the origin of which is not clear.


1991 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Hampson ◽  
Terje Hansen ◽  
H. Jakubowicz ◽  
John V. Kingston

2008 ◽  
Vol 65 (8) ◽  
pp. 1392-1397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Heslenfeld ◽  
E. Lisette Enserink

Abstract Heslenfeld, P., and Enserink, E. L. 2008. OSPAR Ecological Quality Objectives: the utility of health indicators for the North Sea. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 65: 1392–1397. Committed to the ecosystem approach to management, OSPAR has accumulated 15 years of experience in developing a conceptual framework for ecological indicators and objectives, and in applying the framework to the North Sea as a test case. These Ecological Quality Objectives (EcoQOs) have become a model for the implementation of the new European Marine Strategy Framework Directive. We describe the history of EcoQO development, its current status, and future needs. We also present our positive and negative experiences in developing the approach, and conclude that regional sea conventions and marine research institutes in Europe should join forces to accelerate the development of ecosystem indicators and objectives, using existing concepts.


2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-219
Author(s):  
Eike-Christian Heine

The Kiel Canal (built between 1886 and 1895) connects the North Sea and the Baltic for seagoing vessels, yet, being 100 km long, about 10 m deep and 100 m wide, it also divides a landscape. This finding is the starting point for analysing the effects of infrastructure that facilitates communication and exchange but also produces obstructions and rivalries. This article explores the ambiguous effects this piece of infrastructure had on politics, technology, labour, trade and military strategy. The ‘deep ditch’ also had severe environmental consequences that were palpable until well into the twentieth century. By considering both the ‘positive’ and the ‘negative’ of the waterway, the narrative of ‘connect-and-divide’ avoids the still-too-often told affirmative story of transport infrastructure. Instead, it and opens the outlook to a multi-faceted history of transport infrastructures.


1982 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 9-26
Author(s):  
Claus Andersen ◽  
Jens Christian Olsen ◽  
Olaf Michelsen ◽  
Erik Nygaard

The Central Graben is a broad, complex trough with a long history of differential subsidence. It was probably initiated in the Permian and was controlled by major rifting during the Mesozoic. To the south in the Dutch sector the trough is divided into two parts. From here it passes northwards and divides the southern North Sea Basin into the Anglo-Dutch Basin and the Northwest German Basin. It also separates the Mid North Sea High from the Ringkøbing-Fyn High. These highs form broad, east-west trending, relative stable ridges. The further continuation of the Central Graben is to the northwest, towards the centre of the North Sea, where it passes into the Viking Graben and the Moray Firth Basin at about 58° N. Where the Central Graben divides the two major highs, there is an elongate central narrow horst, the Dogger High, which is the southernmost of a row of mid-Graben highs. Both sides of the Graben are clearly defined by normal rotational faults that were intermittently active from Triassic to Early Cretaceous times.


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