MOSCOW, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- An international team of archaeologists has discovered 7,500-year-old fish seines and traps near Moscow, said to be the oldest in Europe.
The uncovered equipment displays great technical complexity, researchers said, yielding clues to the role of fishing among the European settlements of the early Holocene period, especially in areas where inhabitants did not practice agriculture until nearly the Iron Age.
"Until now, it was thought that the Mesolithic groups had seasonal as opposed to permanent settlements," Ignacio Clemente of the Spanish National Research Council, which led the study, said.
"According to the results obtained during the excavations, in both Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, the human group that lived in the Dubna River basin, near Moscow, carried out productive activities during the entire year."
Inhabitants of this region preferred to hunt during summer and winter, fish during spring and early summer, and harvest wild berries at the end of summer season and autumn, he said.
"We think that the fishing played a vital role in the economy of these societies, because it was a versatile product, easy to preserve, dry and smoke, as well as store for later consumption," Clemente said.
"The documented fishing equipment shows a highly developed technology, aimed for the practice of several fishing techniques."
Researchers said they recovered hooks, harpoons, weights, floats, needles for net manufacture and repair, and bone knives to scale and clean the fish.
