Abstract

To most visitors, Greece and the Aegean evoke images which include the sea, and both sea and indented coastline are ubiquitous in tourist brochures, travel guides, and on postcards. Studies of shipping and seafaring in antiquity abound, and the role of seaborne trade and communication is widely acknowledged. Yet that other occupation intimately connected with the sea - namely, fishing - has received relatively little scholarly attention. To varying degrees this is the case for all periods in antiquity, but it is surprising that prehistorians have been so little interested in this early relationship of man with the sea. Not only is fishing one aspect of the subsistence life of early Aegean people, but a study of fishing may well provide insights into the beginnings of seafaring itself.
  A number of reasons can be suggested for this neglect. Fishing equipment is present in the archaeological record, but always in much smaller quantities that tools associated with other activities such as agriculture. Fish bones do occur in archaeological contexts, but faunal remains in general have tended, until recently, to attract little interest by comparison with more substantial architectural or ceramic or artefactual evidence. This attitude is in part the result of excavation methods that are biased against the recovery of faunal and botanical remains. Payne's experiments at Sitagroi (1975b) show this clearly. Nine species of fish and fourteen of bird were identified only from the water sieved samples. Trench recovery alone will never provide a complete picture and will in fact bias the evidence in favour of animals with larger or more durable skeletal parts. Despite the costs and time involved in intensive sampling and retrieval, without such work our evidence will always be distorted and incomplete.
  This book brings together the available evidence for the first time, and catalogues the archaeological and iconographical evidence for fishing. In so doing, it becomes clear that there is a need to re-think some of our prejudices concerning the occupation of fishing. Fishing equipment comes from numerous sites throughout the Aegean for all periods. Iconographic evidence highlights the extent to which people were familiar with the products of the marine world. It is possible to identify a variety of fishing methods employed and such information bas implications as regards nautical activity in general. Fishing and seafaring are intimately connected.
  Shipping and trade are issues of great importance for Aegean prehistorians. Yet if we are to understand all aspects of man's relationship with the sea - under the sea as well as over it - then a study of fishing is long overdue.