Creatures of the Water and Their Impact on Human Lives

In studies of human-animal relations there is often a focus on mammals and other large animals, while creatures of the sea are ignored or underrepresented. This is despite their enormous importance both in the island communities of Crete and Cyprus, and in the river-dependent areas of Egypt and Western Asia. Fish and molluscs were part of subsistence strategies, and thus central to ancient economies, but they also feature prominently in religious practices and as powerful symbols in iconography. Further, various types of water (oceans, rivers, lakes and so on) may give rise to a range of relations. We here present and discuss some of the ways in which this topic can be approached and what we might learn from employing a variety of methods and data—including zooarchaeological, stable isotope, iconographic, functional and archaeological studies, contextualising the chapters that appear in this volume. These themes are brought together to examine how animals of the water impacted human lives and are placed in the broader contexts of human-environment relations in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean and beyond.