Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Friday, September 11, 2015

Tudor fisherman cast their nets as far away as Canada: Research shows 16th century ships were travelling 2,000 miles for catch

Fish served on the dinner tables of Tudor England could have been caught more than 2,000 miles away off the coast of North America, research revealed yesterday.

DNA tests on the bones of cod provisions stored on Henry VIII’s doomed warship the Mary Rose reveal that some came from as far away as Canada.

Demand for fish from the growing urban population forced mariners to seek new supplies further afield – which in turn helped fuel the colonisation of Northern America, the Cambridge University study suggests.

More

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

so much for a fresh Fish dinner, huh ...

Anonymous said...

Why couldn't climate shift (not climate change) relocate fish species? All kinds of ocean temperature changes have occurred over the last 1000 years or so.A DNA test absolutely could not guarantee specifically where the fish were caught.Colonization depended on their own 500 or so mile limit to catch fish.