PLoS ONE 16(10):Įditor: Marco Peresani, Universita degli Studi di Ferrara, ITALY

This coincides with significant larger-scale patterns in subsistence evolution, namely broad spectrum foraging, which is an important first signal of the beginning of the transition to agriculture in this region.Ĭitation: Pedergnana A, Cristiani E, Munro N, Valletta F, Sharon G (2021) Early line and hook fishing at the Epipaleolithic site of Jordan River Dureijat (Northern Israel). The appearance of such technology in the Levantine Epipaleolithic record reflects a deep knowledge of fish behavior and ecology. The complexity of this technology is highlighted by the multiple steps required to manufacture each component and combine them into an integrated system. This together with associations between the grooved stones and hooks in the same archaeological layers, suggests the emergence of a sophisticated line and hook technology. Wear on the grooved stones is consistent with their use as sinkers while plant fibers recovered from the grooves of one hook shank and one stone suggest the use of fishing line.

These include inner and outer barbs, a variety of line attachment techniques including knobs, grooves and adhesives and some of the earliest evidence for artificial lures. The study of the fish hooks reveals significant variability in hook size, shape and feature type and provides the first evidence that several landmark innovations in fishing technology were already in use at this early date. This paper presents a multidimensional study of the hooks, grooved stones, site context, and the fish assemblage from macro and micro perspectives following technological, use wear, residue and zooarchaeological approaches. Although Jordan River Dureijat was occupied throughout the Epipaleolithic (~20–10 kya the fish hooks appear only at the later stage of this period (15,000–12,000 cal BP). Accounting for hook spacing effects in other fisheries may improve estimates of trends in relative abundance and lead to better management.Nineteen broken and complete bone fish hooks and six grooved stones recovered from the Epipaleolithic site of Jordan River Dureijat in the Hula Valley of Israel represent the largest collection of fishing technology from the Epipaleolithic and Paleolithic periods. Regardless, historical and future trends in hook spacing can have important effects on longline CPUE standardization, highlighting the value of collecting this information. For this stock, it is likely the effect of hook spacing on CPUE was minimal due to little variation in average hook spacing over time. We found a clear non-linear spacing effect (i.e., hooks were less effective the closer they were), but accounting for space had a larger effect on CPUE trends than accounting for hook spacing. We quantify this effect using non-parametric and parametric relationships inside a spatially-explicit (geospatial) CPUE standardization model for commercial data, and non-linear mixed-effects model for experimental data. It thus provides a unique opportunity to explore the effect of hook spacing and its effect on CPUE trends. Both commercial and experimental (fishery-independent) data with hook spacing, and a survey-based CPUE series, are available for this fishery. Here, we use the Pacific halibut ( Hippoglossus stenolepis) long-line fishery as a case study to explore the spacing effect. In longline fisheries, one important factor that can affect CPUE is the spacing between hooks (‘spacing effect’), which influences effective effort and has largely been ignored in previous analyses. However, for CPUE to be an unbiased index, influences that are not related to population abundance (e.g., spatial variation in effort and temporal changes in gear efficiency) must be accounted for in analyses known as CPUE standardization. Catch per unit effort (CPUE) is a widely used index of population abundance for informing stock assessments for the purpose of estimating population status and setting fishing policies.

On the hook