Waves of Change and a Drawn Net

[Narration]
Thousands of years ago, grains and meat were not the only sources of food for Neolithic people. As Gimhae was surrounded by rivers and the sea, the people who inhabited this region enjoyed a diet supplemented with virtually every type of fish and marine food.

[Tourist]
Every type of fish and marine food! During the Neolithic Age! That must be an exaggeration.

[Narration]
No, not at all! The remains of fish, dolphins and even seals were identified from food waste heaps dating from the Neolithic Age.

[Tourist]
It’s funny that we have learned about ancient people from their trash.

[Narration]
Such trash heaps have revealed information about the diet of the Neolithic people, and also the fishing methods they employed. These net sinkers and bone fishhooks were found in food waste heaps as well.

[Tourist]
Are those fishhooks that I can see on the right? Sometimes I go fishing myself, so although they look clumsy I can see that they would work!

[Narration]
Yes. By using the divided fishhooks shown at the top, even large fish such as tuna and shark could be caught. Net fishing has also been in use from as long as 3,000 years ago. Just as communities of people worked together to gather food, the scale of fishing increased by their working together cooperatively. The artifact on your left is a weight. As we saw earlier, it was attached to a net to help it sink so that fish could not escape.

[Tourist]
Neolithic people were more intelligent than I thought.

[Narration]
They were intelligent. Although these artifacts are from the Neolithic Age, they are not primitive at all. They are functionally comparable to the modern fishing equipment used today. Now you know that the assertion that Neolithic people enjoyed all kinds of marine foods is not an exaggeration!