In this blog post, we will examine how agriculture and fish storage technology have influenced the survival of humankind and the development of civilization, and how this led to humans becoming the rulers of the Earth.
Humans, animals that are neither large nor strong, rule the Earth today. This is the result of adapting to harsh environments based on intellectual abilities superior to other living creatures. In the process, humans gradually experienced various innovative changes, such as creating tools, using fire, and developing language. One of the most revolutionary changes was the beginning of agriculture. Agriculture brought fundamental changes to the human way of life and is considered an important turning point in human history.
The distant ancestors of modern humans lived nomadic lives, moving from place to place in search of food. They lived in groups and obtained food through hunting and gathering, but as they acquired new skills in farming, they began to settle down. British archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe called this event the Neolithic Revolution.
This revolution not only changed the way people obtained food, but also had a major impact on the development of social structures and culture. However, the plants cultivated in the early days of agriculture did not provide enough protein, which is essential for human survival. Therefore, hunting continued, but even with tools, it was dangerous to hunt animals in groups.
Furthermore, even if they managed to hunt successfully, the meat would quickly spoil, so they had to constantly risk their lives in search of prey. In this sense, securing a stable food supply was a key issue for the survival of humankind, and it had a major impact on human history and culture.
People living this kind of life would have wanted nothing more than to obtain meat that could be caught without great risk and stored for long periods of time. Fish, another source of protein they used, had the advantage of being easy to catch in large quantities with simple tools, but the problem was that it spoiled more quickly than meat at room temperature. Therefore, if a method of storage could be found, fish had the potential to be used as an excellent food source.
Over many years, humans finally discovered ways to delay the spoilage of fish. In the process, humans developed methods of storing fish not only for survival, but also for economic gain. The documentary “Super Fish” aired on KBS in South Korea tells the story of how people in the past stored fish. In the early days, the main methods used were drying and smoking. The common feature of these methods is that they remove moisture from the meat. Drying involves trimming the necessary parts and drying them in the sun and wind for a certain period of time. The indigenous people of Alaska catch salmon that return for spawning during the short summer and dry them using this method to get dried salmon to get through the long winter. In contrast, smoking fish uses smoke to quickly remove moisture from the fish. This process greatly reduces the volume of the fish, making it easier to store and transport, and also removes the fishy smell. This method is still used today near the Niger River in Africa.
Although it appeared a little later than the above methods, salting had a tremendous impact on human food resources. This method of preserving fish by salting to prevent decay has a much longer storage life than drying or smoking and also improves the taste. With the advent of salting, humans were finally able to consume fish in large quantities, which not only solved the problem of survival but also brought about major changes in society and the economy. Examples of this can be found in ancient Egypt, the Mediterranean, and Cambodia.
Let’s take a look at Egypt first. Ancient Egypt, which flourished early on as one of the four great civilizations in the Nile River basin, is thought to be the first place to discover that salt prevents decay. This is because Egyptian murals estimated to have been painted 5,000 years ago depict fish being salted. Fish preserved with salt could be stored for a long time, so the Egyptians of that time caught enormous amounts of fish. Some of it was used as food for many people, and the rest became an important trade item. This must have brought tremendous wealth to Egypt. In this sense, salting technology contributed greatly to the maintenance of the ancient Egyptian empire.
Not only Egypt, but also the Roman and Khmer empires benefited from salting. Three thousand years ago, the Roman Empire, which ruled the Mediterranean, and the Khmer Empire, located in Cambodia, were able to support the livelihoods of countless people by salting tuna and small fish called riel, respectively. Not only that, but they also accumulated wealth by trading salted fish, which enabled them to build magnificent empires. Even today, salting fish is an important way of life for people living in these regions.
Before watching this program, I thought of salt as simply a mineral essential for human survival. However, I learned that salting has had a greater impact than I had imagined. Salting provided humanity with more than just a method of preserving food; it was an innovative technology that enabled economic prosperity and even the formation of empires. It was interesting to learn that salting methods varied depending on the region, which was influenced by climatic conditions. The Mediterranean coast, with its abundant sunshine and winds, produces large amounts of salt. Therefore, fish is covered with salt, weighed down, and left to salt for a period of time. There is no need to worry about salt shortages in this area, so all parts of tuna are salted and preserved. This can also be seen in Baello Claudia in southern Spain, which is known for its salting ruins from the Roman period. There are several large pits here. It is believed that salted fish were stacked in salt before being loaded onto trading ships, and it is thought that an enormous amount of salt was used continuously.
On the other hand, salt is not produced in abundance in the cold, sun-deprived regions of Northern Europe. Therefore, in the past when transportation was not well developed, salt was inevitably expensive, and the people living in these regions began to salt their fish only halfway. They added only about half the amount of salt to prevent spoilage. The result, as expected, was that the fish rotted halfway. However, they took advantage of this and developed a unique method of salting. They fermented fish by soaking it in salt water and placing it in barrels. This is how surströmming, a Swedish herring dish known as the world’s most foul-smelling food, was born. Many people today cannot even imagine eating it due to its terrible smell, but for the people who lived in Northern Europe in the past, it was a welcome smell that allowed them to survive.
Of course, today, various storage methods have been developed, including refrigeration, and the importance of drying, smoking, and salting used in the past has declined. However, these techniques led to the development of today’s refrigeration technology and had a major impact on modern food storage and distribution systems.
Furthermore, these techniques have enabled a stable food supply throughout the course of human development and have become the foundation for cultural and economic development. Nevertheless, traditional methods such as salting, drying, and smoking still play an important role in our food culture. Thanks to the discovery of these techniques, fish has been transformed from a temporary food source into a food resource that can be eaten over a long period of time, and its influence has been so great that it has even led to the creation of empires.
If humans had not discovered how to prevent fish from spoiling, we might still be hunting for our lives with weapons. In this way, fish preservation methods played an important role in changing the way humans live, and these changes became the driving force behind human civilization. If agriculture was the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution, then fish preservation can be said to have completed it.
