DISCOVERY: Humans Used Nets 30,000 Years Ago

SEGOU, MALI .Fishermen on the Niger River at Segou.Photo: Heiko Junge / SCANPIX

South Korean archaeologists have discovered the remains of 30,000 year fishing nets buried deep within a cave. The remains were discovered in Jeongseon, South Korea and the ancient nets “moves the history of fishing back 20,000 years”, says Director Han Chang Gyun of Seoul’s Yonsei University.

 

“This finding suggests that humans used yarn nets to catch fish in late paleolithic times.People were using nets & catching fish for their diet, and these fishnets were probably used to catch small fish within slow-moving rivers,” said Gyun.

CAVE EXPLORATION
Excavating a cave in South Korea, archaeologists found evidence suggesting that humans were using advanced techniques to catch fish as long as 30,000 years ago,much earlier than assumed by researchers.

Previously, South Korean researchers had unearthed fishing sinkers (stones used to weigh down nets when catching fish), but the sinkers dated only as far back as the Neolithic Era: the sinkers being about 10,000 years old.

ANCIENT FISHING
Previous to this discovery, the oldest fishing nets found to date have been carbon dated to being about 10,000 years old; but fishing hooks made from sea snail shells were found upon a Japanese island and are believed by archaeologists to be about 25,000 years old.

The fishing reel was first invented in China, where the earliest known illustration of a
fishing reel is from Chinese paintings dated about 1195 AD.

The fishing reel first appeared in Europe about 1650 AD.

 

© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today