When did the earliest documented cases of beaching of ocean-dwelling animals (fishes, whales, etc) happen?
score:2
While not exactly records of actual events, stranded whales where important enough to the early Icelanders that they regulated them in their laws. Grágas states that you are even allowed to work to secure a stranded whale on Sundays.
Stranded whales are also recorded in sagas, such as Grettir's saga, which, among other things, records a feud over a stranded whale. While the sagas can not be taken as straight history (Grettir also encounters ghasts and witches), they can provide valuable insight into mentality and everyday happenings.
Upvote:0
From Melville's Moby DIck:
Chapter82 - The Honour and Glory of Whaling
.... Let not the modern paintings of this scene [St.George vs the dragon] mislead us; for though the creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of old is vaguely represented of a griffin-like shape, and though the battle is depicted on land and the saint on horseback, yet considering the great ignorance of those times, when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists; and considering that as in Perseus' case, St. George's whale might have crawled up out of the sea on the beach; and considering that the animal ridden by St. George might have been only a large seal, or sea horse; bearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether incompatible with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to hold this so-called dragon to be the great Leviathan himself. ...
and
Chapter 104 - The Fossil Whale
....
"Not far from the sea side, they have a Temple, the Rafters and Beams of which are made of Whale-Bones; for Whales of a monstrous size are oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore. The Common People imagine, that by a secret Power bestowed by God upon the Temple, no Whale can pass it without immediate death. But the Truth of the Matter is, that on either side of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into the Sea, and wound the Whales when they light upon 'em. They keep a Whalle's Rib of an incredible length for a Miracle, which upon lying upon the Ground with its convex part uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which cannot be reached by a Man upon a Camel's Back. ....
Upvote:0
1620. http://whale.wheelock.edu/archives/ask02/0179.html beaching isn't a new thing. it isn't humans fault. nor is it accidental
Upvote:2
Depends in part how you want to define 'documented' - contemporary attestation or deduced by subsequent researchers?
There are a number of archaeological sites where evidence for consumption of whales has been found, which - given the difficult of hunting whales - can often be taken as evidence for beaching. See, for example, this paper, discussing samples from ~14,000 years ago:
A total of 167 plates of two whale barnacle species (Tubicinella major Lamarck, 1802 and Cetopirus complanatus Mörch, 1853) have been found in the Upper Magdalenian layers of Nerja Cave, Mina Chamber (Maro, Málaga, southern Spain). This is the first occurrence of these species in a prehistoric site. Both species are specific to the southern right whale Eubalena australis, today endemic in the Southern Hemisphere. Because of Antarctic sea-ice expansion during the Last Glacial Period, these whales could have migrated to the Northern Hemisphere, and reached southern Spain. Whale barnacles indicate that maritime-oriented forager human groups found stranded whales on the coast and, because of the size and weight of the large bones, transported only certain pieces (skin, blubber and meat) to the caves where they were consumed.
More post
- 📝 Why were terminal train stations built in Germany?
- 📝 Size of army and battle in Napoleon's invasion of Russia
- 📝 Did Vietnam have to pay back the Soviets / China?
- 📝 In historical slave societies, what jobs were left over for poor free laborers?
- 📝 Which of LBJ's fellow representatives were less active than him in the House?
- 📝 Who first precisely measured the length of the year?
- 📝 What is the motivation of having heavy infantry to the right and light infantry to the left flank?
- 📝 How did cadet branches start?
- 📝 Where (if anywhere) were X-ray machines put on trains or trolleys to image "Everybody over 14 years old"?
- 📝 Can anyone confirm the identity of these WWI uniforms?
- 📝 Did Hezbollah kidnap Russian diplomats, and Russia subsequently dismember Hezbollah family members?
- 📝 When did the Russians first employ a successful envelopment tactic?
- 📝 How did the USSR manage to innovate in an environment characterized by government censorship and high bureaucracy?
- 📝 Was Freud the first to say that Judaism borrowed from Atenism?
- 📝 When did results of general elections start being available within twelve hours after an election?
- 📝 Where is or was the place called Apapis?
- 📝 Could someone help to identify this Japanese mon found on what appears to be a late Edo Period Jingasa?
- 📝 How much of a role did Sakamoto Ryoma play in overthrowing the Shogunate?
- 📝 Which countries actually played a part in the foundation of the UN
- 📝 Did Bismarck have any influence on Hitler?
- 📝 Do photos of Wernher von Braun and Neil Armstrong exist? Have they ever met?
- 📝 How good were Confederate resupply capabilities during the Gettysburg campaign?
- 📝 Why was the Cold War carried out over the whole world instead of between Siberia and Alaska?
- 📝 How does Louise Bryant's assessment of how the Soviet Union would fall hold up at the beginning of the 21st century?
- 📝 What sources or documentation exists to indicate Stalin's level of popularity in Russia today?
- 📝 What was the English Civil War called during the Protectorate?
- 📝 How can Germany be blamed for World War 1?
- 📝 How were wars financed under Islamic empires?
- 📝 Where was the cultural inheritance of the Greco/Roman world/antiquity preserved?
- 📝 Was Operation Kugelblitz really a success for the partisans?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 When did the earliest documented cases of beaching of ocean-dwelling animals (fishes, whales, etc) happen?
- 📝 When the Portuguese began the exploration of the West African Coast, did they believe the Indian Ocean was an enclosed sea?
- 📝 Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
- 📝 When did people decide that all caps means the writer is shouting?
- 📝 When did the allies find out about the killing of Jews during WW2
- 📝 Why did archery not make a comeback when armor was phased out in the 18th century?
- 📝 How and when did the word "nuclear" replace the word "atomic"?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 Did it take 3 minutes to reload a musket when the second amendment to the US constitution was ratified?
- 📝 When did humans develop the ability to sail any direction regardless of wind direction?
- 📝 When and how did the USA and the UK become allies?
- 📝 When did the Romans finally acknowledge that they were living in an empire?
- 📝 When did the Greeks stop calling themselves "Roman"?
- 📝 Where did Hitler get the funds to invest in economic development programs such as the autobahn when the German economy was in a depression?
- 📝 When did "&" stop being taught alongside the alphabet?
- 📝 When did the Roman Empire fall according to contemporaries?
- 📝 When did the practice of formally "declaring war" cease and why?
- 📝 When did the U.S. Army start saying "oh-six-hundred" for "6 AM"?
- 📝 When did official documentation stop referring to black people as Negros in the States?
- 📝 When and why did the use of the lifespans of royalty to limit clauses in contracts come about?
- 📝 When did the hypocrisy to call a dictatorship "free, democratic, republic etc." start?
- 📝 When Israel won the Six Day War, did they consider expelling all Arabs from the annexed territories?
- 📝 When did Britain learn about the American Declaration of Independence?
- 📝 When did the term "Nationality" first come into use? How did ancient civilizations refer to themselves? By ethnicity?
- 📝 Were there ethnic Russians in Alaska when the US purchased it 1867? Did they stay?
- 📝 How did people react to Cavendish bananas when they first replaced the Gros Michel strain?
- 📝 When did the Hebrews stop speaking Hebrew and start speaking Aramaic?
- 📝 When planning Barbarossa, did Germany conceive of the Soviet migration of heavy industry?
- 📝 When did the round house fall out of vernacular use throughout Britain and Ireland?
- 📝 When and how did the Han ethnic group become by far the biggest ethnic group in China?