Ancient whale exploitation in the Mediterranean: species matters
2016
Rodrigues, Ana S.L. | Horwitz, Liora Kolska | Monsarrat, Sophie | Charpentier, Anne | Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE) ; Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) ; Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD [Occitanie])-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Institut Agro Montpellier ; Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Université de Montpellier (UM) | National Natural History Collections ; The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ) | ANR-11-CEPL-0006,MORSE,Gestion de ressources marines sous des attendus changeants : amener la perspective historique dans la conservation de mammifères marins(2011)
International audience
显示更多 [+] 显示较少 [-]英语. How did ancient communities around the Mediterranean exploit the presence of whales in their seas? Given that the whales currently present in the region are seldom found near the coast, it seems probable that ancient whale exploitation would have been restricted to stranded animals. The authors explore, however, the possibility that additional species migrated seasonally through the Strait of Gibraltar to visit coastal calving grounds, which could have supported an organised whaling industry. Classical literature provides a number of descriptions suggestive of coastal encounters with whales. New methods of whale bone identification will shed light on which species were previously present in the Mediterranean and thus on the probability of ancient whaling. This article is one of two on ancient whaling in the current issue, and should be read in conjunction with that by Darío Bernal-Casasola and colleagues.
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