{ "abstract": "Ocean ecosystems have played a crucial role in people’s lives around the world for millennia. However, questions persist about when, why, and how people first began removing biomass from offshore habitats and established fisheries in distant, oceanic environments. We explore the antiquity and evolution of tuna (Thunnini) and billfish (Istiophoridae/Xiphiidae) fisheries, two groups of fishes that occur around the world, are economically significant, and are ecologically important open ocean apex predators. The earliest archaeological evidence of fishing for tuna occurs ~44,000 years ago and billfish at ~10,000 years ago, with early fisheries for some tuna species appearing around the world by 3,000 to 1,000 years ago. Most early fisheries are in areas where tunas and billfishes could be accessed relatively close to shore (e.g., submarine canyons) and/or where these fishes may come inshore seasonally or during warm ocean events. Early tuna and billfish fisheries were often linked to ceremony/ritual, alongside advances in maritime technologies. With few exceptions, sustained and intensive commercial exploitation of pelagic predators in offshore and oceanic habitats is a late development in the human past, occurring primarily during the last 200 y. Our findings document a long-term continuum of human interactions with global marine ecosystems spanning thousands of years, including significant differences between the timing and pathways by which people became dominant ecological drivers in nearshore compared to offshore/oceanic ecosystems.", "abstract_shown": true, "affiliations": [ "Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013-7012", "Section for Marine Biology, Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Oslo 0579, Norway", "UMR 7209–BioArch, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle/CNRS, Paris 75005, France", "School of Cultural Heritage, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, People’s Republic of China", "Department of Ecology and Zoology, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis- SC 88035-972, Brazil", "Language and the Anthropocene Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena 07745, Germany", "Institut für Koreastudien, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 14195, Germany", "Instituto Español de Oceanografía–Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid 28002, Spain", "Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures, College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook University, Cairns, QLD 4870, Australia", "Florida Museum of Natural History and Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611", "Department of Anthropology and Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469", "School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia", "Anthropology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064", "Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Augusta, ME 04333", "Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice 30123, Italy", "Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, Norwich NR1 4DH, United Kingdom", "Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904", "Department of Biology and Center for Stable Isotopes, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131" ], "article_type": "research article", "arxiv": null, "author_total": 18, "authors": [ { "affs": [ 0 ], "name": "Torben C. Rick", "orcid": "0000-0002-8254-5885" }, { "affs": [ 1 ], "name": "Adam J. Andrews", "orcid": "0000-0002-9000-6523" }, { "affs": [ 2 ], "name": "Philippe Béarez", "orcid": "0000-0003-0397-2393" }, { "affs": [ 3 ], "name": "Marcella Festa", "orcid": "0000-0002-9149-2965" }, { "affs": [ 4 ], "name": "Thiago Fossile", "orcid": "0000-0002-6997-4677" }, { "affs": [ 5 ], "name": "Mark Hudson", "orcid": "0000-0002-9483-9303" }, { "affs": [ 6 ], "name": "Melanie Janßen-Kim", "orcid": "0009-0006-0426-9981" }, { "affs": [ 7 ], "name": "Maria José Juan-Jordá", "orcid": "0000-0002-4586-2400" }, { "affs": [ 8 ], "name": "Ariana B. J. Lambrides", "orcid": "0000-0002-7492-448X" }, { "affs": [ 9 ], "name": "Michelle J. LeFebvre", "orcid": "0000-0002-1741-9997" }, { "affs": [ 9 ], "name": "Alisa Luthra" }, { "affs": [ 10 ], "name": "Bonnie Newsom", "orcid": "0000-0001-7240-9778" }, { "affs": [ 11 ], "name": "Sue O’Connor", "orcid": "0000-0001-9381-078X" }, { "affs": [ 12 ], "name": "Eréndira Quintana Morales", "orcid": "0000-0001-5927-5058" }, { "affs": [ 13 ], "name": "Arthur Spiess", "orcid": "0009-0006-3575-3370" }, { "affs": [ 5, 14, 15 ], "name": "Claudia Zancan", "orcid": "0009-0008-3411-7000" }, { "affs": [ 16 ], "name": "Caitlin Zimmer", "orcid": "0009-0001-2808-9153" }, { "affs": [ 0, 17 ], "name": "Emma A. Elliott Smith", "orcid": "0000-0002-3221-0737" } ], "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/cxy9d1y2yj1fb.bib", "cited_by": 2, "doi": "10.1073/pnas.2512066123", "fulltext_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13715807/", "id": "cxy9d1y2yj1fb", "issns": [ "0027-8424", "1091-6490" ], "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2512066123", "language": "en", "licence": "CC-BY-4.0", "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0", "licence_source": "article", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", "metadata_licence": null, "native_subjects": [ [ "hal", "0.sde" ], [ "hal", "0.sdv" ], [ "heading", "402" ], [ "heading", "447" ], [ "heading", "9" ], [ "heading", "Anthropology" ], [ "heading", "Biological Sciences" ], [ "heading", "Perspective" ], [ "heading", "Social Sciences" ], [ "heading", "Sustainability Science" ], [ "openalex", "1204|Maritime and Coastal Archaeology" ] ], "openalex": "W7222496917", "pdf_url": "https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.2512066123", "pmcid": "PMC13715807", "pmid": "42886756", "published": "2026-10-16", "publisher": "National Academy of Sciences", "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/cxy9d1y2yj1fb.ris", "sources": [ { "first_seen": "2026-11-01T12:23:00Z", "native_id": "PMC13715807", "source": "pmc", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2512066123" }, { "first_seen": "2026-11-02T12:20:44Z", "native_id": "hal-05847811", "source": "hal", "url": "https://hal.science/hal-05847811v1" } ], "subjects": [ { "field": "biology", "origin": "hal:0.sdv", "subfield": "general" }, { "field": "earth", "origin": "hal:0.sde", "subfield": "environmental-science" } ], "title": "Global origins of tuna and billfish fisheries reveal the transition from coastal access to oceanic exploitation", "title_text": "Global origins of tuna and billfish fisheries reveal the transition from coastal access to oceanic exploitation", "type": "peer-reviewed", "updated_at": "2026-11-04T12:20:47Z", "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/cxy9d1y2yj1fb", "venue": "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America", "versions": [] }