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Hook History |
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Pre-Historical Hooks
Mankind's superior status
in nature can be ascribed to our ability to develop and use tools and
technology in our struggle to survive. Our focus here is to give a brief, general
presentation of the development and historical background of the fish
hook. |
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Nobody knows how long various kinds of fish hooks have been in use, but it is quite probable that the Cro-Magnon Man, who appeared on the scene 30 - 40,000 years ago, was familiar with and used fish hooks in his struggle to survive. The first known types of fish hooks were made of different materials. A problem for archaeologists, trying to establish the historical facts about fish hooks, is that the materials used were not very durable. We have reason to believe that the very first types of fish hooks were made of wood. If you take a branch with twigs that stick out at suitable angles, it will take very little to make it into a reasonably good hook, and who could, for instance, wish for a sharper point than the pointed thorns of a hawthorn bush. A hook made from this material can be just as sharp as a modern hook. In the British Isles fishermen from Wales to the Thames have caught flounders with hawthorn hooks right up to our time. Other hook materials that we know of are shells, bone and horn. Among other things, Native Americans used the claw of a hawk and the beak of an eagle to make hooks.
(v. Hagen, The Desert Kingdoms of Peru, London, 1965). Many people assume that the use of wooden hooks must have been more or less impractical. Since wood floats, the hook would probably have to be fastened to a stone or something else that was heavy enough to make it sink. But, it would be a rash assertion to maintain that fish will not take a floating hook. The fact is that fishermen have often regarded floating hooks as an advantage. Up until the end of the nineteenth century, and perhaps even later, Lapp fishermen used wooden hooks in the great cod fisheries in Lofoten in northern Norway. They carved their hooks of juniper, a tough variety of wood, and burned the point to make it hard. As late as the 1960s, Swedish fishermen preferred hooks made of juniper for burbot fishing. They claimed that the smell of juniper actually attracts the fish and also that the burbot has a tendency to spit out ordinary steel hooks. Juniper hooks with three sharp points, on the other hand, are impossible to dislodge. The Stone Age man had implements good enough to make extra fine hooks from bone. The fact that no one knows when bone hooks came into use, is largely due to the fact that bone as a material seldom defies the ages. Only under exceptionally favourable conditions, with extra calcareous soil, can bone be preserved for thousands of years. The oldest known hooks seem to be the ones that have turned up in Czechoslovakia during the excavation of the skeletal finds from late Palaeolithic times. * Paleolithic period or " Age of the Old Rock (splintery)" is a term created in century XIX to define the period oldest of the History of the Man, previous to the " Neolithic period " or " Age of the New Rock (polishing)". The duration of the this period, longest of the History of the Humanity, is of about 2.5 million years, since the moment where the first human beings had appeared that had manufactured líticos devices until the o end of the last time glacier, that finished has about 10,000 years Ancient hooks have also been found in Egypt and Palestine. The oldest, found in Palestine, is believed to be 9,000 years old.
In Norway, the oldest known fish hooks were dug up in "Vistehulene", some caves situated at Jæren, not far from Stavanger in the south-western part of Norway. These hooks are believed to be 7-8,000 years old. Finds of bone material on a ledge called Skipshelleren near Bergen are rather more recent. This is the richest discovery of bones that has been made in Norway, and among the wealth of implements here -- tools and equipment for hunting and fishing -- fish hooks have been found that show painstaking workmanship.
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The carving above is from Bohuslän in Sweden. These carvings often conceal a magic motif, although there are many which merely depict the happenings of everyday life.
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A somewhat more morbid example of a material used for fish hooks, can be been found on Easter Island. As there were no large mammals on this island, there was a shortage of bone, and the custom was adopted of making hooks of human bone. Since human sacrifices were made on Easter Island until the first missionaries arrived at the turn of the last century, they had an abundant supply of human bone. In addition to hooks made out of one peace of wood, stone or bone, the Stone-Age Man often made compound hooks, with components -- often of different materials -- tied together. Compound hooks were stronger than the other types. While it is easy to break a slender, rounded bone hook, it would take a lot to break a securely tied compound hook. As a general rule it appears that the most ancient hooks were made without barbs or any other refinement. The oldest hooks that have been found in Denmark and Norway indicate that only after thousands of years were they equipped with barbs, grooves, bulges or holes to facilitate attachment of the bait and line. |
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Forty-three
hooks and the remains of hooks have been found in the Vistehulene caves
at Jæren in south-western Norway. The oldest are possibly 7,000 years
old.
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Bronze Hooks |
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On the threshold of classical antiquity, fish culture began to assume the forms we would recognize today. In ancient Mesopotamia the art of breeding fish in ponds was already known. The fish offered for sale were dried, salted or smoked. Commercial fisheries developed throughout the Middle East and in the Mediterranean countries. In the Golden Age of the Roman Empire, the trade in salted fish made up a considerable part of the ships' traffic in the bustling Roman port of Ostia. The Epicureans of the time, who were worshippers of "a luxurious life", were experts at preparing fish delicacies. They built ruinously expensive cisterns in which to keep noble varieties of live fish. Gradually, a clearer distinction began to be made between those who indulged in fishing as a sport and fishing as a livelihood. In a picture of an angler -- obviously a wealthy man from Thebes (probably around 1,400 BC) a butterfly-like insect has been drawn with symbolic clarity, leaving one to suspect that fly fishing had begun. The Emperors Augustus and Trajan were among the amateur fishermen of Rome.
The transition from wood, shell and bone to bronze, iron and steel was not without consequences. The old, basic types of hooks recur, but from now on the shapes become freer, depending partly on the way the metal had been worked. Iron hooks were often bigger than bronze hooks, a natural development because boats were stronger and could better be used on the open sea. Norwegian fishermen ventured far out at sea even during the Stone Age. The making of fish hooks was gradually left to specialists. The discovery of tools in burial mounds reveals that even before the Vikings much of the finer wrought iron work was done by professional blacksmiths. There were still many home-made hooks, of course. In fact, in remote areas people have continued to make their own hooks right up to the present time. But, this is rare and, as the centuries passed, the commercial fisherman tended to leave the job of making good hooks to the professional blacksmith. Around the end of the Middle Ages it may be assumed that professional hook-makers were at work far and wide, at least in the coastal centres where fishermen did their buying and selling.
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In the Middle East copper and bronze were used at a time when the countries of the north still found themselves in the Stone Age.
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Steel Hooks No one really knows how early professional hook makers started working with good-quality steel. According to British angling literature, there were at least excellent professional hook makers around during the 1600s.
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The
hook on the left was found during the excavation of the Gokstad Viking
ship in Vestfold County, Norway (10th century). The hook on the right is
one of the poorly preserved hooks from Risøya, southern Norway (possibly
7th century). All the Risøya hooks seem to have had an eye, not a flat.
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