Ancient DNA evidence for the ecological globalisation of cod fishing in medieval and post-medieval Europe

Abstract

Understanding the historical emergence and growth of long-range fisheries can provide fundamental insights into the timing of ecological impacts and the development of coastal communities during the last millennium. Whole genome sequencing approaches can improve such understanding by determining the origin of archaeological fish specimens that may have been obtained from historic trade or distant water. Here, we used genome-wide data to individually infer the biological source of 37 ancient Atlantic cod specimens (ca. 1050 to 1950 CE) from England and Spain. Our findings provide novel genetic evidence that eleventh- to twelfth-century specimens from London were predominantly obtained from nearby populations, while thirteenth- to fourteenth-century specimens derived from distant sources. Our results further suggest that Icelandic cod was exported to London earlier than previously reported. Our observations confirm the chronology and geography of the trans-Atlantic cod trade from Newfoundland to Spain starting by the early sixteenth century. Our findings demonstrate the utility of whole genome sequencing and ancient DNA approaches to describe the globalisation of marine fisheries and increase our understanding regarding the extent of the North-Atlantic fish trade and long-range fisheries in medieval and early modern times.

Ancient DNA evidence for the ecological globalization of cod fishing in medieval and post-medieval Europe

“…The data are provided in the electronic supplementary material [74]. All authors gave final approval for publication and agreed to be held accountable for the work performed therein.…”

“…The raw reads for the ancient specimens are released under the ENA accession number PRJEB52865. This manuscript is available as a pre-print in BioRxiv at https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.03.494519v1 [73].…”

Tracing 600 years of long-distance Atlantic cod trade in medieval and post-medieval Oslo using stable isotopes and ancient DNA

“…While the earliest known example of long-distance trade of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) presently has a terminus ante quem of ca. 1066 CE (by which date northern Norwegian cod was brought to Haithabu in what is now Schleswig-Holstein) [5], the species was predominantly locally acquired in England and Flanders during the tenth to twelfth centuries [6][7][8]. Thereafter, an increasingly commercialized long-range trade of air-dried Atlantic cod (stockfish) only appeared from the thirteenth to fourteenth century onwards, around the southern North Sea and the eastern Baltic Sea [6][7][8].…”

“…1066 CE (by which date northern Norwegian cod was brought to Haithabu in what is now Schleswig-Holstein) [5], the species was predominantly locally acquired in England and Flanders during the tenth to twelfth centuries [6][7][8]. Thereafter, an increasingly commercialized long-range trade of air-dried Atlantic cod (stockfish) only appeared from the thirteenth to fourteenth century onwards, around the southern North Sea and the eastern Baltic Sea [6][7][8]. This dried fish was likely traded via Bergen to medieval centres across Europe (Germany, Sweden, Poland, Estonia, England) [3,6,7,[9][10][11][12].…”

“…Recent advances in ancient DNA (aDNA) approaches have provided insights about the usage of fish across time [18], its historical declines [19] and distributional fluctuations [20], and offer opportunities to investigate the biological origin of archaeological fish bones [5,8].…”