> That is the only possible explanation for how fish could have populated isolated mountain lakes isn't that a common question? "How do fish appear in landlocked lakes/ponds/etc"? After digging a pond and letting it fill with rainwater/groundwater, fish appear. I don't think its because people carried them there. (don't really know the common answer though)
In California, it's because people (the state department of fish and wildlife) put the fish there. You can even see their scheduled fish plantings online: https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FishPlants/PublicPlantSearch
Hunter-gatherers introduced fish to a mountain lake 7000 years ago
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Re: Hunter-gatherers introduced fish to a mountain lake 7000 years ago
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this case they have carbon dated wooden equipment for fish farming and know due to geological factors when the lake could support fish, though of course the fish might have gotten there first somehow. I thought this was interesting because it predates agriculture in the same area.
How did wooden equipment not whither away in 7000 years?
Likely isolated from oxygen in deep water or sediment
Re: Hunter-gatherers introduced fish to a mountain lake 7000 years ago
#63Somewhat related, after desert rains you can often see fairy shrimp (think sea monkeys you might have had as a kid) swimming around in the isolated pools that form. I looked this up after wondering how the heck these water creatures could survive dozens of miles from the nearest permanent water source.
The answer is that their eggs are extremely lightweight, so much so that wind can carry them long distances. Their entire life cycle is extremely accelerated. Once water soaks the eggs the critters can hatch, develop, and lay new eggs in a matter of days. The newly laid eggs have a tiny chance of reaching a new seasonal pool area.
Re: Hunter-gatherers introduced fish to a mountain lake 7000 years ago
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this case they have carbon dated wooden equipment for fish farming and know due to geological factors when the lake could support fish, though of course the fish might have gotten there first somehow. I thought this was interesting because it predates agriculture in the same area.
How did wooden equipment not whither away in 7000 years?
I have the same question - My guess is at that altitude, temperature, and under an ice sheet, and silt until the lake was drained. Here's the paper: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/in...
Re: Hunter-gatherers introduced fish to a mountain lake 7000 years ago
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this case they have carbon dated wooden equipment for fish farming and know due to geological factors when the lake could support fish, though of course the fish might have gotten there first somehow. I thought this was interesting because it predates agriculture in the same area.
Humans were shaping their environments to produce food long before they plowed fields. Hunter-gatherers didn't just hunt and gather willy-nilly, picking up whatever they found, oblivious to how it got there.
Yeah, you have to consider that when you're living in nature you actually need to identify the plants that are edible so you can't actually just eat everything you find even if you could eat it in theory.
So if you wanted to gather plant food how do you make sure that the food you find is edible?
It's quite simple. If you know a plant is edible you take the seeds and you carry them with you and broadcast them all over the place.
The interesting part about this is that this is also a form of selective breeding, since you're choosing the edible plants over the inedible plants.
Note that you do not tend to the plants or do any form of agriculture, you're still foraging from random plants you encounter.
Re: Hunter-gatherers introduced fish to a mountain lake 7000 years ago
#66Yes. One thing that becomes very obvious if you go along "native" human villages in Africa is the reason civilization develops. When you look at villages that don't grow, but do the normal human thing. Grow, war (2 kinds: young vs old and village/tribe vs village/tribe), grow. It's not because of agriculture. They have agriculture (they grow maniok, and you don't need much. They have fire, weapons, ... Also the entir…
It's not obvious at all from your comment.
The answer is that they don't have a shared enemy in the form of an inhospitable environment like winter or the Egyptian desert.
Re: Hunter-gatherers introduced fish to a mountain lake 7000 years ago
#67> That is the only possible explanation for how fish could have populated isolated mountain lakes isn't that a common question? "How do fish appear in landlocked lakes/ponds/etc"? After digging a pond and letting it fill with rainwater/groundwater, fish appear. I don't think its because people carried them there. (don't really know the common answer though)
Before we developed a taste for fish, marine life was far more abundant, particularly in rivers. There are rivers that we consider to be in good health today that have a fraction of the original species. For example, the Thames in London was once full of eels, nowadays an eel in the Thames poses a mystery as to 'how it got there'.
By full, that means not being able to see the bottom of the river due to the amount of eels present.
We ate them all.
The eels made it all the way to the Sargasso Sea and back, for breeding purposes. Clearly they would not be able to get from the sea to a fully landlocked lake, with no route to the sea.
However, my point is that we had so much marine life before we cleared out the rivers, to then need the sea, to go from coastal waters to the depths of the Antarctic ocean in the quest for any fish that have survived previous quests. It is just hard for us to imagine the abundance there once was, and, therefore, the relative ease to populate an isolated alpine meadow lake with fish in former times.
Re: Hunter-gatherers introduced fish to a mountain lake 7000 years ago
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not think anyone is arguing the Sentinelese are immoral?
Why would you bring a mission to a hostile island otherwise?
Because you believe you are proclaiming the truth and have a duty to do so. That does not mean you think they are immoral. Its just an extreme version of things such as the Christian duty to spread the word. Christianity has always had the concept of virtuous non-believers.
Re: Hunter-gatherers introduced fish to a mountain lake 7000 years ago
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not think anyone is arguing the Sentinelese are immoral?
Do we know anything about their morals, aside from that they kill immigrants at sight?
Given how other Andaman islanders have been treated by outsiders hostility towards people who come there uninvited is understandable.
People going to their island are not "immigrants" - no intention of remaining.
Re: Hunter-gatherers introduced fish to a mountain lake 7000 years ago
#70> That is the only possible explanation for how fish could have populated isolated mountain lakes I hate how much of historical science is performed this way. Speculation is not very scientific.
Unfortunately the full article that they are reporting on is paywalled.
https://www.khm.uio.no/english/about/organisation/archaeolog...
To be fair, Gemini says there are no presumed cases of specifically brown trout populating an isolated water body by means other than human stocking. For other types of fish, maybe (eggs stick to bird legs, or one gets pooped out intact), but for brown trout, no! The eggs only survive in cold water, not inside a bird, are relatively large and non-sticky.
To survive a long schlepp up a mountain in a waterskin, it would presumably have been fertilized eggs that were transported (can be found in river gravel) since they have low oxygen needs. According to Gemini even baby fish might only survive a couple of hours, but eggs (if kept in cold water) could survive days or weeks, and obviously would be more practical to transport a sufficient number to have a decent chance of establishing a breeding colony.
Interesting stuff, but maybe better considered as reconstructive history than science.