Were there any civilisations or societies that developed through fishing/aquaculture?

by CiaoGamer

I have been reading up on early societies and civilisations as of late. I have read of ones that developed as agricultural and pastoral cultures as well as the older hunter/gatherer system. Were there any that depended solely or near solely on fishing? How many feed themselves by gathering solely fish or by developing more complex aquaculture? In addition why were agricultural and pastoral cultures much more common?

ahalenia

Absolutely! Many coastal and many riverine communities developed based on water resources. Plateau and Northern California tribes didn't have land-based agriculture but based much of their diet on salmon runs.

But far more ancient are the ancient Peruvians on the Pacific coast (Scroll down to "Coastal Beginnings"). The early time period was known as "Cotton Pre-Ceramic." Because of the plentiful fishing and hunting of sea mammals, societies developed the earliest cities in the Americas. They began agriculture with cotton farming, which produced clothing but also fishing nets. Aspero is one of these earliest cities, dating back to 3000 BCE. It's believed that initially agricultural foodstuffs wasn't grown on the coasts, but traded with inland communities.

ahalenia

By total coincidence, aboriginal clam farming on the Pacific Coast came up on the radio today.

"The nature of archaeological discussions about marine resource management have changed in recent years, in part prompted by the growing body of literature on ancient plant management and also on the relatively recent recognition by archaeologists of ancient features that were undeniably used to manage clams ..." (in Lepofsky and Cadwell).

One technique of aboriginal clam farming was to carve underwater terraces, providing more surfaces for the clams to grow.

Another technique was to create rock walls to protect the clams: photos also from Lopofsky and Cadwell.

QVCatullus

By coincidence, I've been reading the pop history book "Cod," which contains as a major theme the impact of access to the cod fisheries on the Basque people. Salted cod, being plentiful and easy to store, not to mention delicious, was a tremendous part of the economy of the Basques and many other West/North European societies. It can be argued that access to the cod fisheries of the Grand Banks was one of the chief motivations for exploration and settlement of North America by the Europeans.