Signs of early settlement in the Nordic region date back to the cradle of civilisation

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

My parents studied trout in Scotland in the 1950's. One of the mysteries was how trout could have colonised remote mountain lochs with no possible swimmable link to other populations. The assumption was a fish ready to spawn dropped from the talons of an eagle or some such improbable scenario. I always thought it more likely to be humans introducing fish to remote lochs in ancient times.



There's a terraced field near here that seems to be the remains of a system similar to this.

www.frankbeswick.co.uk...
"The technique was simple. The monks dug two large ponds about four feet deep and ensured that there was a ramp going down into each. One of them was filled with water and stocked with carp, which were allowed to feed happily there. The second was left empty, and cattle taken down the ramp and allowed to graze in it. The method behind this was that the cattle would manure the ground and enrich it. Next year the first pond was drained, Enough fish were taken from the pond to feed the monks. but a breeding stock was kept, and the second filled, with the surviving fish transferred there. Here is where the manure mattered. It fostered the growth of pond weed, on which pond life could flourish. The carp would eat the pond life, along with any feed the monks put into the pond.The cycle would be repeated every year.



Here is where the third pond comes into play. This was known as the stew pond, and it was deliberately kept as clean as possible and not manured. This is where the fish were kept prior to eating. The reason for this is that carp can take on a muddy taste if they are kept in muddy water, so to purify the flesh of the muddy taste they were kept in clean water for a week or two. During this time they would only feed on insects that came to the surface of the water.



The monstrous act of vandalism that we miscall the English Reformation drove the monks from their homes and ended much of the good that they did. Fish farms were part of the loss. You can occasionally see the sedimented up remnants of monastic ponds in some of the estates that were stolen from the monks. They are small depressions in the ground prone to weediness and flooding when it rains, always near old monastic sites."

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Byrd

It could be that the author heard the term "corn" and just linked it to maize.

Corn is just a generic name for kernel or grain outside the US. Inside the US, it has a very specific meaning: maize. Which we (for some unknown reason) don't really even use. Even the spanish speaking population around here tends to just call it corn.

Possibly. That thought had crossed my mind. But corn was not mentioned in the original - only grass seeds. And the article that was poorly written used the word, "maize" (which caught my laser-like attention.)

originally posted by: harold223
Australian aborigines have been trapping fish with stone traps for many thousands of years, probably 10's of thousands. Sometimes on a large scale like in the link below.

environment.gov.au...

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Interesting, thanks!

I think that some on here are differentiating between the trapping of wild fish versus the seeding or husbandry of fish within cages or ponds. Aquaculture is more of the latter.

originally posted by: Kester
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

My parents studied trout in Scotland in the 1950's. One of the mysteries was how trout could have colonised remote mountain lochs with no possible swimmable link to other populations. The assumption was a fish ready to spawn dropped from the talons of an eagle or some such improbable scenario. I always thought it more likely to be humans introducing fish to remote lochs in ancient times.



There's a terraced field near here that seems to be the remains of a system similar to this.

www.frankbeswick.co.uk...
"The technique was simple. The monks dug two large ponds about four feet deep and ensured that there was a ramp going down into each. One of them was filled with water and stocked with carp, which were allowed to feed happily there. The second was left empty, and cattle taken down the ramp and allowed to graze in it. The method behind this was that the cattle would manure the ground and enrich it. Next year the first pond was drained, Enough fish were taken from the pond to feed the monks. but a breeding stock was kept, and the second filled, with the surviving fish transferred there. Here is where the manure mattered. It fostered the growth of pond weed, on which pond life could flourish. The carp would eat the pond life, along with any feed the monks put into the pond.The cycle would be repeated every year.



Here is where the third pond comes into play. This was known as the stew pond, and it was deliberately kept as clean as possible and not manured. This is where the fish were kept prior to eating. The reason for this is that carp can take on a muddy taste if they are kept in muddy water, so to purify the flesh of the muddy taste they were kept in clean water for a week or two. During this time they would only feed on insects that came to the surface of the water.



The monstrous act of vandalism that we miscall the English Reformation drove the monks from their homes and ended much of the good that they did. Fish farms were part of the loss. You can occasionally see the sedimented up remnants of monastic ponds in some of the estates that were stolen from the monks. They are small depressions in the ground prone to weediness and flooding when it rains, always near old monastic sites."

Interesting history! I didn't know about that with regards to Scotland. Why do you think that this was suppressed during the information? I am watching the Tudors tv show right now, and in that Henry VIII began taking away the land and property of lots of churches and monastic orders.

originally posted by: Kester
My parents studied trout in Scotland in the 1950's. One of the mysteries was how trout could have colonised remote mountain lochs with no possible swimmable link to other populations. The assumption was a fish ready to spawn dropped from the talons of an eagle or some such improbable scenario. I always thought it more likely to be humans introducing fish to remote lochs in ancient times.

The existence of the previous glacial maximum and the consequences of the end of the last ice age were not much known or understood in the 1950s. Worse, establishment science was hostile to the idea, believe it or not.

Back then, talk of relatively recent drastic changes in landscapes etc would still get you lumped in with Velikofsky and attacked by the establishment as a creationist and/or 'catastrophist.' The establishment was basically still dealing with the trauma of the ideological battles of the late 1800s. There was next to no awareness of the sort of changes that occurred due to the recent end of the previous ice age, some of which were drastic. At the time, large scale catastrophes and rapid changes in general were thus widely rejected in service to the defense of Uniformitariansm as part of a larger cultural conflict between science and religion.

PBS's "NOVA" series has an episode, "The Mystery of the Megaflood," about the discovery of the reasons for the existence of the Channeled Scablands in Washington State and Montana in the US. It goes back to the end of the ice age and the enormous inland lakes of glacial meltwater that formed and then created inland tsunamis which were for a long time very hard to explain.

It also tells the story of the scientists who studied the area and used science to discern what happened there and when. They were truly leaders in their field, and yet they spent most of their careers being unfairly treated as religious nutcases. Fortunately, they mostly lived to see themselves vindicated, but not until surprisingly recently.

So nowadays, we know about the last glacial maximum. Thus...when the glaciers were melting in Scotland, there were larger, fuller mountain lakes and rivers connecting them all the way to the sea and other freshwater bodies. Thus, the trout up in the mountains are no longer difficult to explain.

Another thing that was happening in this part of the world after the last glacial maximum: relatively frequent, massive tsunamis. They were caused by giant landslides resulting from giant piles of loose rocks etc accumulated by retreating glaciers falling into the sea en masse. Giant tsunamis were happening every 500-1000 years or so at the time, with smaller but significant ones happening more frequently. The English Channel didn't even exist until ~5000 BCE.

a reply to: 11andrew34

Trout stranded by changes in drainage have evolved into subtypes over time. Your explanation is part of the story. Some anglers have an interest in fishing remote high altitude lochans and have stocked them with local fish. The question is how distinct subtypes came to be in remote high altitude lochans where the topography prevented fish entering from by the process you describe. I would lean more towards deliberate stocking by anglers in ancient times.