Ever wonder who started the whole "lets-have-seafood-for-dinner" idea? You have to reach back a bit to find out. How far back? Well, 40,000 or so years ago, when humans lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. An isotopic study of Tianyuan man, the earliest "modern" human to inhabit eastern Asia, concluded that early mans diet featured a daily supply of fresh fish. Discarded fish skeletons and ancient cave paintings demonstrate that seafood was a central part of Tianyuans diet.
While ancient inland cultures followed the hunt of wild game, coastal tribes (and then villages) developed and flourished using fish as their primary source of nourishment. The Nile Rivers importance in the rise of ancient Egypt lay in more than just its prominence as a major trade and transportation route. The Nile fed Egypt in much the same way that the Atlantic fed the colonies, and the Pacific fed Hawaii, and the Mississippi fed you get the idea. Fishing for oneself, ones family and ones community has had a profound historical significance since Tianyuan first took a spear or a hook and a pole into the water.
The fishing industry now employs more than 200 million people worldwide, including coastal cities in both richer and poorer nations. One-sixth of the worlds population receives more than a third of its animal protein from the sea every day. China, Japan, Peru, Chile, Russia and the United States comprise a group of nations that lead the world in global fishing commerce.
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