Exploring Fishing in Cyprus from the Neolithic to the Early Christian Periods

The research presented here is based on the results developed during the author’s PhD research project (Michael, M. To Fish or Not to Fish? The Case Study of Fishing Activity in Cyprus (PhD dissertation)). University of Southampton, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of Archaeology, 2022). The current chapter briefly presents the tradition of fishing on the island of Cyprus from the Neolithic to the Early Christian periods. This is accomplished by examining the archaeological finds of fishing technology and fishbone assemblages recovered at several archaeological sites on Cyprus. The iconographic and written sources and the environmental and ethnographic data are supporting classes of evidence. With the examination of the main indicators of fishing, it is possible to enable the exploration of the reasons for the presence or absence of evidence in the Cypriot maritime landscape through time. Furthermore, the parallel study of the available evidence with aspects of traditional knowledge of fishing demonstrates that the absence of evidence sometimes does not equal the absence of fishing from the archaeological record. This examination contributes towards a more holistic understanding of fishing, which involves interdependent economic, cultural, technological, and environmental aspects. Based on the reported archaeoichthyological data, it appears that fishing on Cyprus occurred more or less continuously from the Neolithic to the Early Christian periods. The systematic mapping of the archaeological sites where finds of fishing gear and fish remains have been recovered demonstrates regional and chronological patterns, which are also discussed in this chapter.