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Historic Fish Wiers - Episode 18039
141 Plays6 years ago
Of the many methods of exploiting fish, weirs are one of the most important to archaeologists as they leave the longest lasting evidence on the landscape.
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Transcript
Introduction to Fish Weirs
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Of the many methods of exploiting fish, weirs are one of the most important to archaeologists as they leave the longest-lasting evidence on the landscape.
Podcast Overview and Host Introduction
00:00:15
Speaker
This is episode 39 for February 8, 2018.
Introduction to Arc 365 Series
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm Chris Webster, and welcome to the Arc 365 podcast, 2018 edition.
Promotion of Podcast Merchandise
00:00:24
Speaker
Arc 365 is a podcast today, every day, in 2018.
00:00:28
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network has partnered with Tea Public to bring you some awesome gear that looks good, promotes archaeology, and puts a few pennies in our pockets so you can get free podcasts.
Episode's Writer Credits
00:00:37
Speaker
Check out our designs at arkpodnet.com slash shop. That's arkpodnet.com slash shop. This episode is written by Jared Panditary.
Fish Weirs: Construction & Significance
00:00:44
Speaker
A fishing weir, also known as a fish garth or kittle, is a construction used to capture fish in large quantities. They are usually a V-shaped structure with a point facing out to sea or downstream in the case of rivers. They tend to be constructed out of stone or wood,
00:00:58
Speaker
Quite often in the case of the wood ones, they are made of woven branches. There are some examples of weirs made of built-up earth, but these are uncommon.
00:01:06
Speaker
They are no longer used in most parts of the world as they are so effective and thus can be very damaging to fish stocks. It is not unusual for countries to make the use of fish weirs illegal. However, it is rare to encounter human activity near water that did not include the use of fish weirs at some time in the past.
Historical Usage of Fish Weirs
00:01:21
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Part of the reason for this is how efficient they are long-term, despite the initial build cost and time and labor. As a result, historical examples of fish weirs can still be found across the globe, despite recent bans.
00:01:31
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Ireland, for example, has a lot of evidence for fish weirs in both fresh and saltwater contexts and some examples dating back over 8,000 years and more recent finds dating to the medieval period. In North America, there are several examples of fish weirs dating back to the period before contact with Europe. For example, one of the oldest known fish weirs in the world was discovered at Haida Gwaii, British Columbia.
Global Examples of Fish Weirs
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It most likely dates back to around 14,000 years ago and currently lies in 120 feet of water.
00:01:57
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Another more recent example can be found in the Black Bay area of Boston, Massachusetts. In Black Bay, there are the wooden stake remains of the Boylston Street fish weir, which date to between 3,700 and 5,200 years ago. There are also many examples from the post-contact period, including an account from Virginia, dating to 1705 by Robert Beverly Jr., which tells of the native peoples using stone weirs on the Potomac. And he says,
00:02:21
Speaker
At the falls of the rivers, where the water is shallow and the current strong, the Indians use another kind of weir thus made. They make a dam of loose stone where there is plenty on hand, quite across the river, leaving one, two, or more spaces or tunnels for the water to pass through. At the mouth of which they set a pot of reeds, wove in form of a cone, whose base is about three foot, and in perpendicular ten, into which the swiftness of the current carries the fish, and wedges them in fast, that they cannot possibly return."
00:02:50
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One of the few known examples of earth-built weirs can be found in the Balerius region of Bolivia. These weirs are incorporated into a network of canals and artificial islands that covers an area of 500 square kilometers and dates back to around 3000 BCE.
Legal Aspects of Fish Weirs
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Returning to the Old World, England has had a long history of fish weirs in the law. In the Magna Carta, 1215, there is a demand from the barons for the removal of fish weirs, even some belonging to the king.
00:03:16
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Several other times in the following century, statutes were passed or reaffirmed to get rid of many fish weirs. Even Henry VIII, famous for many things, lost out on a substantial income of 500 marks, a value between 200,000 and 4,500,000 pounds in modern terms, depending on how you calculate it, when the following commission came into effect. Quote, all weirs, noisome to the passage of ships or boats, to the herd of passages or ways and causeways, i.e. dams,
00:03:42
Speaker
shall be pulled down and those that be occasion of drowning of any lands or pastures by stopping of waters and also those that are the destruction of the increase of fish by the discretion of the commissioners, so that if any of the before mentioned depend or may grow by reason of the same weir,
00:03:59
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then there is no redemption but to pull them down, although the same weirs have stood since 500 years before the conquest." As recently as 1861, when the Salmon Fisheries Act was first passed, bands were passed on weirs that could not date their continuous uses to before the Magna Carta. This time span of more than 640 years shows how important historic information can be.
Conclusion and Contact Information
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Speaker
For more information on fish weirs in archaeology, please see the show notes. Thank you.
00:04:30
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Arc 365. If you want to hear more Arc 365, check out www.arcpodnet.com slash Arc 365 for the 2017 and 2018 episodes. Check out arcpodnet.com slash Arc 365 dash G30 for the last 30 episodes. Please subscribe and rate on your service of choice. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play, among others. Support the APN at arcpodnet.com slash members. Thanks for listening and thanks for being awesome.
00:05:00
Speaker
This show is produced and recorded by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle, in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.