The Holocene occurrence of Acipenser spp. in the southern North Sea: the archaeological record

Abstract

Archaeological sturgeon remains from the southern North Sea basin used to be automatically attributed to Acipenser sturio, since this was the only acipenserid species believed to occur there. These species identifications, however, were in need of revision after a growing number of indications were found for the historical presence of Acipenser oxyrinchus in western Europe. In this study, morphological and genetic data on sturgeon remains from archaeological sites along the southern North Sea are revised. A large number of Dutch, Belgian, British and some French archaeological sturgeon remains, dating from the Mesolithic up to Late Modern times, are morphologically examined and fish sizes are reconstructed. This study of >7000 acipenserid bones proves the sympatric occurrence of European sturgeon A. sturio and Atlantic sturgeon A. oxyrinchus in the southern North Sea at least since the Neolithic (fourth millennium BC onwards), with A. oxyrinchus remains always outnumbering those of A. sturio. Human influence is documented by the decrease in finds through time, but no clear evidence was found for a diachronic change in fish lengths that could possibly be related to fishing pressure.

An environmental (pre)history of European fishing: past and future archaeological contributions to sustainable fisheries

“…For example, both archaeological and historical data show temporal changes (major reductions) in the distribution of anadromous fishes such as sturgeons Acipenser spp. and salmon Salmo salar L. 1758 in the rivers around the North Sea (Desse‐Berset, ; Lenders et al, ; Nikulina & Schmölcke, ; Thieren et al, ). In the case of Acipenser spp., comparison of past and present further demonstrates that both Acipenser sturio L. 1758 and Acipenser oxyrinchus Mitchill 1815 once occupied European waters.…”

“…Of fishes with at least partly marine life histories, anadromous and catadromous taxa show the clearest patterns of long‐term anthropogenic changes in biogeography, based on both archaeological and historical evidence (Clavero & Hermoso, ; Lenders et al, ; Thieren et al, ). Freshwater fishes, also susceptible to human influence on bounded aquatic ecosystems, reveal similarly stark extirpations.…”

Faunal Remains from Archaeological Sites Document Human Impact on the Terrestrial and Aquatic Environment: examples from the last thousand years in Belgium

“…Examples are sturgeons (in our region both Acipenser sturio and A. oxyrinchus; Figure 3), Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), but also less spectacular species such as allis shad (Alosa alosa), twaite shad (Alosa fallax) and smelt (Osmerus eperlanus). The decline of sturgeons in the North Sea and adjacent areas can be followed archaeologically (Thieren et al 2016), and a case study in the Netherlands shows the negative effect of overfishing combined with construction works (in particular water mills) on Atlantic salmon (Lenders et al 2016). Similar diachronic data are not available for allis shad and smelt, but the regular presence of these species in past faunal assemblages of our study region contrasts sharply with the poor status of these fish nowadays and the occurrences mentioned in fishery literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries (Vrielynck et al 2003).…”

“…This is necessary as the outcome of archaeozoological analyses usually appear in arts and humanities publications. However, there are some exceptions with summaries of archaeozoological (and historical) data relevant from an ecological or zoogeographical point of view that have been published in biological journals (e.g., Van Damme et al 2007;Van Neer and Ervynck 2009;Thieren et al 2016;Barrett 2019). In the case of the Belgian freshwater fish fauna, archaeozoological data have been taken into account to some extent when discussing the autochthonous or allochthonous nature of species (Vrielynck et al 2003).…”

Russia–UK Collaboration in Paleontology: Past, Present, and Future

“…For example, all wild populations of European bison were extirpated by the early 20th century, but the species formerly occurred across a large area of European Russia as far north as Lake Ladoga (Sipko 2009) (Fig. 7); and archaeological remains demonstrate that multiple sturgeon species (Acipenser sturio, A. oxyrinchus) occurred in the North Sea during the Holocene (Ludwig et al 2002;Thieren et al 2016). A large number of mammal and bird species alone are now known to have become regionally extirpated elsewhere in Europe, e.g.…”