Global origins of tuna and billfish fisheries reveal the transition from coastal access to oceanic exploitation
18 affiliations
- 1Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013-7012
- 2Section for Marine Biology, Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Oslo 0579, Norway
- 3UMR 7209–BioArch, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle/CNRS, Paris 75005, France
- 4School of Cultural Heritage, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, People’s Republic of China
- 5Department of Ecology and Zoology, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis- SC 88035-972, Brazil
- 6Language and the Anthropocene Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena 07745, Germany
- 7Institut für Koreastudien, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 14195, Germany
- 8Instituto Español de Oceanografía–Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid 28002, Spain
- 9Australian 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
- 10Florida Museum of Natural History and Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611
- 11Department of Anthropology and Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469
- 12School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
- 13Anthropology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064
- 14Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Augusta, ME 04333
- 15Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice 30123, Italy
- 16Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, Norwich NR1 4DH, United Kingdom
- 17Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904
- 18Department of Biology and Center for Stable Isotopes, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131
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.
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BibTeX
@article{rick2026global,
title = {{Global origins of tuna and billfish fisheries reveal the transition from coastal access to oceanic exploitation}},
author = {Torben C. Rick and Adam J. Andrews and Philippe Béarez and Marcella Festa and Thiago Fossile and Mark Hudson and Melanie Janßen-Kim and Maria José Juan-Jordá and Ariana B. J. Lambrides and Michelle J. LeFebvre and Alisa Luthra and Bonnie Newsom and Sue O’Connor and Eréndira Quintana Morales and Arthur Spiess and Claudia Zancan and Caitlin Zimmer and Emma A. Elliott Smith},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1073/pnas.2512066123},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2512066123},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Global origins of tuna and billfish fisheries reveal the transition from coastal access to oceanic exploitation
AU - Torben C. Rick
AU - Adam J. Andrews
AU - Philippe Béarez
AU - Marcella Festa
AU - Thiago Fossile
AU - Mark Hudson
AU - Melanie Janßen-Kim
AU - Maria José Juan-Jordá
AU - Ariana B. J. Lambrides
AU - Michelle J. LeFebvre
AU - Alisa Luthra
AU - Bonnie Newsom
AU - Sue O’Connor
AU - Eréndira Quintana Morales
AU - Arthur Spiess
AU - Claudia Zancan
AU - Caitlin Zimmer
AU - Emma A. Elliott Smith
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/16
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2512066123
UR - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2512066123
AB - 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.
SN - 0027-8424
SN - 1091-6490
ER -