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The prelude to industrial whaling: identifying the targets of ancient European whaling using zooarchaeology and collagen mass-peptide fingerprinting
Autor
Facultad/Centro
Área de conocimiento
Título de la revista
Royal Society Open Science
Número de la revista
9
Datos de la obra
Van Den Hurk, Y., Sikström, F., Amkreutz, L., Bleasdale, M., Borvon, A., Ephrem, B., Fernández-Rodríguez, C., Gibbs, H. M. B., Jonsson, L., Lehouck, A., Cedeira, J. M., Meng, S., Monge, R., Moreno, M., Nabais, M., Nores, C., Pis-Millán, J. A., Riddler, I., Schmölcke, U., et al. (2023). The prelude to industrial whaling: Identifying the targets of ancient European whaling using zooarchaeology and collagen mass-peptide fingerprinting. Royal Society Open Science, 10(9). https://doi.org/10.1098/RSOS.230741
Editor
Royal Society
Fecha
2023
Abstract
[ES] Taxonomic identification of whale bones found during archaeological excavations is problematic due
to their typically fragmented state. This difficulty limits understanding of both the past spatiotemporal distributions of whale populations and of possible early whaling activities. To overcome
this challenge, we performed zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry on an unprecedented 719
archaeological and palaeontological specimens of probable whale bone from Atlantic European
contexts, predominantly dating from ca 3500 BCE to the eighteenth century CE. The results show
high numbers of Balaenidae (many probably North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis)) and
grey whale (Eschrichtius robustus) specimens, two taxa no longer present in the eastern North
Atlantic. This discovery matches expectations regarding the past utilization of North Atlantic right
whales, but was unanticipated for grey whales, which have hitherto rarely been identified in the
European zooarchaeological record. Many of these specimens derive from contexts associated with
mediaeval cultures frequently linked to whaling: the Basques, northern Spaniards, Normans,
Flemish, Frisians, Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians. This association raises the likelihood that early
whaling impacted these taxa, contributing to their extirpation and extinction. Much lower numbers
of other large cetacean taxa were identified, suggesting that what are now the most depleted
whales were once those most frequently used.
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