The prelude to industrial whaling: identifying the targets of ancient European whaling using zooarchaeology and collagen mass-peptide fingerprinting

Abstract

Taxonomic identification of whale bones found during archaeological excavations is problematic due to their typically fragmented state. This difficulty limits understanding of both the past spatio-temporal distributions of whale populations and of possible early whaling activities. To overcome this challenge, we performed zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry on an unprecedented 719 archaeological and palaeontological specimens of probable whale bone from Atlantic European contexts, predominantly dating from ca 3500 BCE to the eighteenth century CE. The results show high numbers of Balaenidae (many probably North Atlantic right whale ( Eubalaena glacialis )) and grey whale ( Eschrichtius robustus ) specimens, two taxa no longer present in the eastern North Atlantic. This discovery matches expectations regarding the past utilization of North Atlantic right whales, but was unanticipated for grey whales, which have hitherto rarely been identified in the European zooarchaeological record. Many of these specimens derive from contexts associated with mediaeval cultures frequently linked to whaling: the Basques, northern Spaniards, Normans, Flemish, Frisians, Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians. This association raises the likelihood that early whaling impacted these taxa, contributing to their extirpation and extinction. Much lower numbers of other large cetacean taxa were identified, suggesting that what are now the most depleted whales were once those most frequently used.

Palaeoproteomic identification of a whale bone tool from Bronze Age Heiloo, the Netherlands

“…However, due to the limited availability of species-level identified whales from Bronze Age Netherlands, we included archaeological findings from other periods, as well as the modern distribution of the candidate species. The presence of Eubalaena glacialis is attested in the Netherlands from the mid-Holocene (Foote et al 2013) and at least the first millennium AD onwards (van den Hurk, Spindler, and McGrath 2022) and it has been tentatively suggested that this species might have been one of the most frequently exploited cetaceans along the European Atlantic coast (van den Hurk et al 2023). The two other candidate species, Eubalaena japonica (North Pacific right whale) and Eubalaena australis (southern right whale), are native to the North Pacific Ocean (Kenney 2009) and the southern hemisphere, respectively (Richards 2009) and can therefore be safely excluded as potential sources of sample 2199.…”

“…Additionally, the sites indicate an overall marine focus of the culture, displayed by their diet and material culture (Brinkkemper, Drenth, and Zeiler 2011; van den Hurk et al 2023). The case for active whaling in 6th century Scandinavia is more robust.…”

“…It is impossible to determine if a single bone is derived from a beached or hunted animal, but several characteristics have been proposed that would suggest it is more likely that a whale bone assemblage was obtained by active whaling rather than opportunistic scavenging. Active whaling assemblages are thought to be relatively limited in taxonomic diversity (van den Hurk et al 2023; Wellman et al 2017), whale remains must be abundant and there must be some form of industry associated with the whale remains, such as bone artefact production or blubber processing (Hennius et al 2018, 2023; Wellman et al 2017). A potential side-effect of this requirement is that active whaling purely for consumption becomes more difficult to detect archaeologically than whaling to acquire resources for product manufacture.…”

“…A potential side-effect of this requirement is that active whaling purely for consumption becomes more difficult to detect archaeologically than whaling to acquire resources for product manufacture. Lastly, written sources are frequently used as evidence for active whaling in historical periods (Hennius et al 2018; van den Hurk et al 2023), but these are not available for prehistoric periods. In general, most studies on active whaling agree that it needs to be accompanied by a certain scale of whale resource exploitation.…”

“…Early suggested examples of active whaling are the Dutch Neolithic Vlaardingen Culture (van den Hurk et al 2023) and 6th century Scandinavia (Hennius et al 2018). Then from the Middle Ages onwards active whaling seems to become more prevalent along the Atlantic coast, most notable are the Basques and northern Spaniards starting from at least the 11th century (Rey-Iglesia et al 2018), but also in the Netherlands (van den Hurk, Spindler, and McGrath 2022).…”