Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

6 INTRODUCTIONfor their lines, a piece of sharpened iron for their hooks, thornsticksfor their rods, and spHt grain for their bait," be potentenough to produce a protagonist for the priority of the Rod,the boldest advocate would shrink from championing eitherthe Spear or Net. The first mention c. 900 b.c. (I know ofnone actually written before this date i), shows them, and theRod, in general and simultaneous operation.From Crete shines out no guiding light. The debris recoveredfrom centres of the ' Minoan ' civilisation yieldsfrequent and in the main vivid pictures of fish, e.g. those onthe Phaistos Disc (which isconsidered the earliest instance ofprinting in Europe at any rate) and the fljang fish on glazedpottery from Knossos. But unfortunately neither in theAnnual Reports of Sir Arthur Evans to the British School atAthens nor (he tells me) in his forthcoming book do modipiscandi obtain notice.In Greece, a champion of any single method would besadly to seek. The Spear, the Net, the Line, and the Rod alloccur in our earUest authority, Homer, and, curious to note,as a rule in similes. From the fact that the Spear findsmention but once, the Net twice, and the Line (with or withoutthe Rod) thrice, a real enthusiast has deduced an argument forthe priority of the last two over the Spear !This short survey forces the conclusion that we cannotfix definitely which was the method adopted by the earliesthistorical fishermen.Before proceeding on our search for further data two pointsshould be emphasised. First, the period covered even by thelongest historical or semi-historical record counts but as afraction of the time since geology and archaeology prove Manto have existed on earth.Grant, if you will, the demand of the most exacting Egyptologistsor Sumerologists, to whom a thousand years are asnothing ; concede their postulated five or six thousand years ;of what account is one lustrum of millenniums when compared^ The recent discovery of the inscribed bone fragments in Honan apparentlyadds some six hundred years to the history, as apart from the legends of China,for c. 1500 B.C. instead of c. 900 b.c. seems now our starting point. Seeinfra, p. 450.