Global origins of tuna and billfish fisheries reveal the transition from coastal access to oceanic exploitation

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.