Zooarchaeology of the Historic Cod Fishery in Newfoundland and
Labrador, Canada
Matthew W. Betts1,*, Stéphane Noël2, Eric Tourigny3, Mélissa Burns4, Peter E. Pope4, and Stephen L. Cumbaa5
Abstract - Allometry and growth-increment aging of archaeological fish remains has the potential to reveal much about past
fishing strategies, fish processing and trade, and fish populations. This paper documents the age and size characteristics of
four samples of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) bones from early European contexts at Red Bay, Ferryland, Bay Bulls, and
Crouse, which collectively span the middle 16th to early 19th centuries AD. The samples, which document the size structure
of the “fished” population (the death assemblage), allow for a comparison of fishing strategies and techniques between the
early Basque, French, and English commercial operations. At the same time, the samples, derived from multiple fishing
regions around Newfoundland and Labrador, provide an important record of cod populations during early stages of the commercial
fishery and thus offer a critical baseline record against which to compare modern handlined cod population data.
1Archaeology and History Division, Canadian Museum of History, 100 Laurier St., Gatineau, QC K1A 0M8, Canada. 2Laboratoires
d’archéologie, Département des sciences historiques, Université Laval, Québec City, QC G1V 0A6, Canada. 3School
of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK. 4Department of
Archaeology, Queens College, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John’s, NL A1C 5S7, Canada. 5Canadian Museum
of Nature, PO Box 3443, Station D, Ottawa, ON K1P 6P4, Canada. *Corresponding author - Matthew.Betts@civilisations.ca.
Introduction
Responding to Pauly’s (1995) cautions regarding
the “shifting baselines syndrome” in ecological
research, where baseline parameters for population
health are biased by historical impacts and
the depth of historical records, archaeological data
have increasingly been incorporated into fisheries
research. Of particular interest for researchers
working in the Atlantic provinces and adjacent
states is the investigation of archaeofaunas in
order to contribute to our knowledge of Atlantic
cod (Gadus morhua) populations and exploitation
strategies. Zooarchaeological data have been
employed to track the development of early cod
processing, trade, and consumption (Amundsen et
al. 2005; Barrett 1997; Cumbaa 1981; Edvardsson
et al. 2004; Hodgetts 2006; Noël 2010; Perdikaris
and McGovern 2007, 2009; Stevens and Cumbaa
2007; Tourigny 2009), and specifically to estimate
size- and age-based parameters of ancient fish
populations (Betts et al. 2011; Edvardsson et al.
2004; Jackson et al. 2001; Perdikaris and McGovern
2007, 2009; Rojo 1986, 1987, 1990; Spiess and
Lewis 2001). These latter studies, in particular,
have provided good baseline indications of preindustrial
fish population parameters, and some
have attempted to compare these directly to modern
fisheries data. Unfortunately, limited historical archaeological
data exists to track the impacts on cod
populations caused by the rapid development of the
historic cod fishery; an exhaustive search of the
literature indicates only one published study to date
has attempted to reconstruct size-based indicators
of cod populations from an historical archaeological
site in the Atlantic Provinces (Kenchington and
Kenchington 1993).
Size- and age-based indicators are critical measurements
in the documentation of fisheries populations
(Reiss 1989), especially in relation to climatic,
ecological, and human impacts (Jennings et al.
2002, Shin et al. 2005). Climatic changes can affect
reproduction in fish populations that are strongly
temperature sensitive; the resulting fluctuation in
the numbers of juveniles in the population can affect
length and age structures. Fishing is size selective,
with most commercial techniques targeting the removal
of larger fish from populations. Differences in
exploitation techniques can have strong impacts on
the average size and age of fish taken from a population.
Fishing pressure can also cause changes in the
average size of fish populations. For Atlantic cod,
intense fishing pressure which removes large fecund
fish from populations is believed to force evolutionary
changes reflected in smaller size at age and age/
size at maturation (Andersen et al. 2007, Swain et al.
2007; but see also Bianchi et al. 2000, Rochet 1998,
Trippel 1995). Concomitantly, reductions in fish size
in archaeological samples have been interpreted as
a result of fishing pressure (Amorosi, et al. 1994,
Betts et al. 2011, Jackson et al. 2001, Perdikaris and
McGovern 2007, Van Neer et al. 1999).
This paper uses archaeofaunal assemblages of
Atlantic cod bones to track shifts in the size and
age structure of Atlantic cod populations from historical
archaeological assemblages on the north and
east coasts of Newfoundland and the south coast of
2014 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 24:1–21
2014 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
2
Labrador (Fig. 1), collectively spanning the middle
16th century to the early 19th century AD. The samples
here derive from an inshore fishery, where cod were
captured within a day’s travel from shore in small
boats utilizing handlines and jigs, then processed,
salted, and air-dried on shore for export to markets
in Europe and the Caribbean. We assess shifts in the
size and age structure of these fish against multiple
factors, including climate change, differences and
shifts in fishing techniques and technology, shifts in
exploitation pressure, differences in archaeofaunal
context and collection methods, and regional differences
in cod populations.
Sample Description
The research described here draws data from
eight distinct archaeological assemblages spanning
the middle 16th century to the early 19th century AD,
distributed along the southern Labrador coast, the
northeast coast of Newfoundland, and the Avalon
Peninsula, roughly corresponding with the southern
inshore range of northern cod (Figure 1). The contexts
are all derived from locations where significant
historic inshore cod fishing operations were conducted,
and most of the contexts are the direct result
of commercial cod processing (Table 1).
Red Bay - Shore Trench, 24M
Red Bay is a small, well-protected harbor on Labrador’s
southern-most shore. Prior to the 19thcentury,
it directly accessed right and bowhead whale migration
routes in the Strait of Belle Isle. The harbor
contains the remains of several Basque shipwrecks
and submerged deposits, and the adjacent shore
contains hundreds of archaeological features relating
to Basque whale- and fish-processing activities
(Grenier 2007; Ringer 2007; Stevens and Cumbaa
2007; Tuck 1982, 1983; Tuck and Grenier 1981).
The 24M archaeological site at Red Bay contains
the wreck of a 16th-century whaling vessel, probably
the San Juan, which sank in a storm in 1565 (Bernier
and Grenier 2007:303–308). Associated with the
ship are several other sunken vessels and shoreside
Figure 1. Map of Newfoundland and Labrador, showing archaeological sites and NAFO Fisheries Regions mentioned in
the text.
Journal of the North Atlantic
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2014 No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
archaeological contexts most likely related to the
seasonal cod fishery and whaling activities (Ringer
2007). The cod remains sampled for this study were
derived from 24M190M and 24M192M, underwater
excavation units on the southern end of the “shore
trench”, a 2-m-wide trench excavated between the
24M wreck and the shore to establish stratigraphic
continuity between the San Juan and the land-based
archaeological deposits.
Atlantic cod remains were so abundant in the
shore trench that they formed a distinct layer more
than 10 cm thick extending from the shore approximately
26 m into the harbor (Stevens and Cumbaa
2007:193, 195). Embedded in the layer were 16thcentury
objects of Basque origin, indicating that cod
processing on a large scale occurred contemporaneously
with Basque whaling (Cumbaa 1981:26).
The cod layer was collected by hand; sediment was
fanned away by hand and then suctioned by an airlift
operating ≈30 cm above the level of the deposit. The
quiet, clear waters of the harbor enabled all bones
and artifacts to be collected by hand and bagged,
resulting in a virtual 100% sample where little size
sorting could have occurred. There is a small possibility
that extremely small bone fragments could
have been vacuumed up by the airlift which was
used to suction and remove suspended sediment;
however, only fragments small enough to have become
temporarily suspended in the water column
could have been vacuumed, and such fragments
would be much smaller than would have fit through
standard fine mesh screen (3 mm).
Cumbaa (1981) and Stevens and Cumbaa (2007)
conducted extensive analyses on these remains,
revealing that the cod-element distributions were
dominated by bones from the head and abdominal
vertebrae, while they were deficient in caudal vertebrae,
fin rays, and elements of the pectoral girdle
(e.g., cleithra, fin spines, etc.; Stevens and Cumbaa
2007:197). This evidence is strongly consistent with
the detritus from a shore-processing stage that extended
into the water and produced an end product
of split, dried cod. Of note is the fact that a significant
amount of cod bone was recovered in the San
Juan itself, the majority of which was interpreted
as intrusive remains from shore fish processing
Table 1. Description of archaeological sites used in this study, their respective archaeofaunal samples, and the length (in mm) and age (yrs)
measurements from each.
Red Bay Red Bay Early Ferryland Late Ferryland
Context shore trench shore trench Mansion House Mansion House Bay Bulls
Description Fishing stage Fishing stage Domestic stable/ Domestic midden Fishing stage
midden
Calendar age (A.D.) Ca. 1565 Ca. 1565 Ca.1625–1650 Ca. 1650–1696 1696
Century Middle 16th Middle 16th Early 17th Late 17th Late 17th
Element Premaxilla Anterior abdominal Anterior abdominal Anterior abdominal Anterior abdominal
Measurement Ascending process* Vertical diameter Vertical diameter Vertical diameter Vertical diameter
Mean fork length 806.2 803.09 787.09 762.86 753.29
Median fork length 766.87 771.65 780.4 723.94 740.31
n 93 496 53 176 163
Mean age N/A 11.45 10.9 10.35 10.1
Median age N/A 10 10 10 10
n N/A 390 48 168 128
Archaeological units/ 24M190M, 24M190M, 613 626, 627, 632, 634, Test Units 1, 2, 3
events 24M192M 24M192M 651, 652
Trinity Bay
Context Crouse Phase 2 Crouse Phase 3b Crouse Phase 3c Crouse Phase 4 modern sample
Description Food storage/ Workspace Fishing room/stage Workspace Jigged biological
workspace sample
Calendar age (A.D.) 1707–1765 1765–1805 1765–1820 Post-1805 1995
Century Early 18th Late 18th Late 18th Early 19th Late 20th
Element Anterior abdominal Anterior abdominal Anterior abdominal Anterior abdominal Anterior abdominal
Measurement Vertical diameter Vertical diameter Vertical diameter Vertical diameter Fork length
Mean fork length 732.14 740.17 741.49 746.4 579
Median fork length 701.35 723.94 744.83 738.62 N/A
n 34 25 155 57 1167
Mean age 10.38 10.25 9.51 10.84 5.09
Median age 10 10 10 10 N/A
n 55 32 172 67 1167
Archaeological units/ 1203, 1288, 1318, 1011, 1019, 1031, 1411 1001, 1003,1 005, N/A
events 1320, 1348 1045, 1085 1007, 1009, 1306
*(hm)
2014 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
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(Ringer 2007:165). If this interpretation is correct,
these remains would have been deposited around the
ship by wave action and the behavior of scavenging
fish in the decades surrounding its sinking. A radiocarbon
assay on cod bone collagen derived from an
aggregate sample from the shore-trench bone layer
returned a date of 700 ± 50 BP. This date calibrates
to a calendric range of 1549–1657 AD (1σ) using a
standard marine dataset, which is consistent with the
sinking of the San Juan in 1565 AD.
Ferryland Harbour - Ferryland Mansion House,
CgAf-02
Ferryland, located on the eastern Avalon Peninsula
of Newfoundland, was occupied by migratory
Breton fisherman as early as the 1550s (Pope and
Batt 2008) and became a major center of fishing
and trade during the following centuries. The two
assemblages utilized in this study are derived from a
17th-century English structure known as the Mansion
House, which was commissioned by Sir George Calvert,
Secretary of State for King James I and, later,
the first Lord Baltimore. Built between 1623–1625,
it served as the Calvert family residence and later
as the home of Newfoundland’s first governor and
Ferryland’s economic and political elites until it
collapsed during a French raid in 1696 (Gaulton
and Tuck 2003, Tourigny 2009). The samples were
recovered from various deposits associated with the
house complex and are all representative of domestic
activities that occurred in and around the house
in the 17th century. All Ferryland contexts excavated
in this report were screened through 6-mm mesh,
which appears to be an adequate mesh size for
recovering cod of the size ranges typically encountered
in pre-industrial cod samples (e.g., Betts et al.
2011:177, Maschner et al. 2008).
Because these samples are primarily from domestic
contexts, obvious analytical issues must be
addressed. Specifically, while all of the cod remains
in these deposits were likely derived from the
inshore fishery, they may nevertheless have been
subjected to size selection due to daily consumption
needs (i.e., selecting specific sizes of fish to suit the
number of people being fed at specific meals). A
preference for smaller cod than average would depress
the mean size unnaturally, while a preference
for larger cod would artificially inflate the mean.
In the absence of other data points in the early 17th
century, the Ferryland deposits are included in the
present study, with caution, and with the understanding
that their parameters must be carefully assessed
in light of this potential bias, along with many other
sources of variability (see below).
The earlier Ferryland context relates to a midden
that accumulated in and around a stable that abutted
the Mansion House. This deposit is interpreted as a
refuse midden associated with the house, accumulated
sometime between 1625 and the dismantling
of the stable ca. 1650. Element frequency analysis
by Tourigny (2009:118, figure 7) suggests that this
context (Event 613) contains a relatively even proportion
of skeletal elements from all portions of the
fish, indicating that fresh cod was predominately
consumed during this period. Deposits representing
the later occupation period at Ferryland include: 1)
a midden that accumulated outside the southeastern
portion of the Mansion House, interpreted as the
result of trash accumulation from domestic activity
on the second floor of the structure, 2) deposits
associated with the interior of the principal living
structure, and 3) deposits associated with the Mansion
House’s cellar and the building which contained
the cellar. The latter two contexts were associated
with the collapse of the Mansion House, though
artifactual remains largely indicate that they were
deposited from the latter half of the 17th century up
to the collapse of the structure in 1696. Importantly,
this assemblage can be directly compared to the Bay
Bulls assemblage (see below), which dates to essentially
the same period. If the mean sizes and ages
of fish from both sites are similar, it may indicate
that the late Ferryland sample provides a relatively
unbiased proxy for inshore cod population parameters
during the late 17th century. The cod bone from
this later Ferryland context tends to be dominated
by caudal vertebrae and elements in the pectoral
girdle (Tourigny 2009:118, figure 7), indicating that
split and dried cod are largely represented by these
remains (e.g., Barrett 1997).
Bay Bulls - HMS Saphire, 18M
The Saphire was a 32-gun British fifth-rate
frigate which was scuttled by her captain, Thomas
Cleasby, in Bay Bulls, Newfoundland, on 11 September
1696 after engaging a larger French force
(Barber 1977, Proulx 1979). The ship was partially
excavated in 1974 and 1975, a response to the looting
efforts of commercial divers. The wreck lies
61 m from shore in ≈15 m of water and is preserved
in relatively good condition, with much of the upper
and lower decks preserved, but collapsed and
covered in fine silt. Associated with the wreck was
a thick layer of cod fish bones even more extensive
than that described at Red Bay (Cumbaa 1981:14).
Like the Red Bay excavations, the remains from
Bay Bulls were excavated by hand with the aid
of an air lift to remove floating sediment (Barber
Journal of the North Atlantic
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M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
1977:311). Again, as at Red Bay, no screen was
utilized and materials were bulk-lifted by hand as
100% samples, meaning that little size sorting of
fragments could have occurred. There is a possibility
that smaller elements could have been impacted
by the airlift, although it was held approximately
30 cm above the excavated units and was only used
to recover suspended sediment.
Three 1-m x 1-m test units were excavated at the
wreck, with the majority of material recovered from
Test Unit 2. The majority of the cod bones were
found in a layer approximately 10 cm thick underlying
and compressed by the bottom of the Saphire’s
hull; a small quantity of cod bones were also found
amidst the timbers of the wreck (Cumbaa 1979). An
analysis of the faunal remains shows an abundance
of Atlantic cod (Cumbaa 1979, 1981). Salt cod
stores would not be out of place on a British ship of
the line of that era, though the Saphire had specific
orders “… not to take on board the Ship … any sort
of fish either by way of merchandize freight or otherwise,
except what shall be for use and spending of
your Ships company …” (Admiralty, Instructions to
Thomas Cleasby, 1696). This documentary evidence
indicates that we might expect an element distribution
consistent with preserved fish brought on board
to victual the ship, as was typical in the Royal Navy
in the 17th century (Roberts et al. 2012:3). However,
the Saphire assemblage indicates that abdominal
vertebrae and head parts dominate the assemblage
with concomitantly fewer caudal vertebrae and elements
from the pelvic girdle (S.L. Cumbaa, unpubl.
data). This element distribution is consistent with
detritus from preparing dried fish (Barrett 1997),
leaving two interpretative possibilities: 1) the remains
are the result of processing fish within the
ship, or 2) the remains are actually associated with
fish processing on the shore and not with the use or
sinking of the ship.
The former option is difficult to accept given
that fish processing would likely occur on the upper
deck of the ship where detritus would simply be
thrown overboard. More importantly, isotopes from
the preserved remains of British Naval crews indicate
that they ingested very little marine fish (e.g.,
Roberts et al. 2012). The latter option is therefore
a more likely possibility, given that Bay Bulls was
a major cod-fishing station in the 17th century. The
Saphire was scuttled very close to shore and thus
the remains may have settled amongst contemporary
deposits from shore-based processing activities.
The stratigraphy of the deposits appears consistent
with this interpretation; the fish-bone layer
and a clay deposit below it had been compressed
by the Saphire’s hull; after the ship sank, cod bones
continued to accumulate on the wreck, suggesting
that the processes associated with the deposition of
the cod bone layer were ongoing at the time of the
sinking in 1696 (Cumbaa 1979). An almost identical
situation occurred with cod remains found associated
with the 24M (San Juan) wreck at Red Bay,
which, as described above, were ultimately proven
to be the result of contemporary shore-processing
activities. Therefore, while the cod remains associated
with the Saphire might represent deposits
from an earlier period, using the Red Bay data as a
taphonomic model suggests that a relatively close
temporal relationship existed between the Saphire
and the associated cod-bone layer (i.e., the decades
surrounding 1696 AD).
Crouse Harbour - EfAx-09
European fishing crews are documented at Cape
Rouge Harbour, now Crouse, as early as 1541 (Pope
2008). Archaeological remains uncovered to date
reflect intensive use by inshore fisherman from
the middle 17th to the late 19th century (Noël 2010,
Pope 2008). The archaeological site Dos de Cheval
(EfAx-09) lies about 1 km northeast of the village of
Crouse, on the north side of the Conche Peninsula
and was the major fishing room known to Breton
fishing crews as “Champ Paya”. The stratigraphy of
the site is intricate and represents a complex palimpsest
of repeated seasonal occupations over several
centuries. Champ Paya was normally exploited by
Breton and Norman crews but English or, more
likely, Anglo-Newfoundland crews occupied the site
briefly in the early 19th century (Pope 2008). Anything
resembling domestic structures are ephemeral,
but excavations did expose the stage where fish were
landed, the galets used for drying fish, ramps and
paths, a forge, a ramp for boat repair, and a bread
oven, all generally related to the inshore cod fishery
and the detritus it produced (Pope 2008, 2009).
Due to extremely rocky soil, all deposits excavated
from Crouse were screened through 10-mm mesh
(Noël 2010:43). A test was conducted with bulk
lifted (100% sample) soil to determine the degree of
bias imposed by utilizing 10-mm mesh, resulting in
the determination that primarily “small unidentifiable
fragments of fish bone” were not recovered with
this screen size (Noël 2010:43). This result suggests
that, for present purposes, the size-based analysis
should be relatively unbiased and that most of the
cod remains from Crouse were large enough to not
pass through 10-mm mesh.
Four distinct archaeological contexts from
Crouse were utilized in the present study (Table 1).
2014 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
6
All are relatively well dated based on chronological
changes in associated historic artifact styles. The
first is one of the older relatively undisturbed contexts
from the Dos de Cheval site and dates ca.
1707–1765. Much of this deposit was the result of
gear preparation, storage, and undifferentiated waste
likely largely related to industrial fish processing.
Several contexts associated with a captain’s table
and social area (cook room) were removed from
this analysis because of the unknown size-sorting
effects of feasting and socializing. The second context
dates to ca. 1765–1805 and includes a range
of deposits associated with a boat ramp, working
spaces, and undifferentiated waste. As with the first
sample, contexts associated with a late 18th-century
cook room were removed from this analysis because
of the unknown size-sorting effects related to immediate
consumption. The third deposit is directly
associated with a fishing stage and its nearby spoil
midden, which date from ca. 1750 to 1820, based on
artifact styles. The final deposit dates to the post-
1805 period, with some indications that the bulk of
the archaeological material is from the early 19th
century prior to 1830. The assemblage includes a
range of deposits associated with a working space as
well as undifferentiated waste. Deposits of this time
period thought to reflect on-site consumption were
removed from the analysis.
Noël (2010:76 –79, figure 17) conducted an extensive
analysis of body-part representation for the
Atlantic cod remains from Crouse. His analysis indicates
that in every period and context utilized in this
study, cod remains were almost entirely dominated
by abdominal vertebrae and skull elements consistent
with “… the model of dry cod, where the skull
and vertebral column were left on the butchery site,
and the appendicular elements included in the dry
product” (Noël 2010:76). This finding indicates that
the majority of cod remains from Crouse represent
butchery, processing, and drying of the proceeds of
the inshore cod fishery for export and trade (e.g.,
Barrett 1997).
Methodological Considerations
Size-based analyses of archaeological fish assemblages
have increased in popularity in recent
years, particularly in research concerned with conservation
zooarchaeology (e.g., Betts et al. 2011;
Jackson et al. 2001; Kenchington and Kenchington
1993; Maschner et al. 2008; Nagaoka 2005; Orchard
2001, 2003; Spiess and Lewis 2001). Methodological
constraints are imposed on size-based analyses
in many ichthyofaunal assemblages because natural
and cultural taphonomic processes often restrict the
types and abundance of differently sized skeletal
elements that are preserved (Nagaoka 2005). In the
present study, we focus our analysis on anterior
abdominal (trunk, or thoracic) vertebrae because a)
these are generally the most abundant element in
the faunal assemblages, b) they can be roughly aged
using growth-increment analysis, and c) they are the
focus of other length and age studies in the region
(e.g., Betts et al. 2011; Bourque et al. 2008; Jackson
et al. 2001; Kenchington and Kenchington 1993;
Rojo 1986, 1987, 1990, 2002; Spiess and Lewis
2001) and should therefore be directly comparable
to those studies.
Alfonso Rojo (1986, 1987, 1990, 2002) has
created a series of regression formulae describing
the allometric relationship between specific skeletal
element measurements and the fork length and
weight of Atlantic cod. In this study, we utilize the
vertical diameter of the anterior abdominal vertebrae
(measured from the cranial aspect) to estimate the
live fork length of the cod from which the bone was
derived. While Rojo (1987) has developed regression
equations for several anatomical measurements
on vertebrae, we use the vertical diameter measurement
because it provides a stronger correlation than
the horizontal diameter (Rojo 1987:215). Because
the centrum of anterior abdominal vertebrae vary in
size in a single individual and different researchers
can differ in their identification of anterior versus
pre-caudal vertebrae, we utilize Rojo’s average
vertical diameter equation developed for all vertebrae
classes (Rojo 1987:table 1). It should be noted
that this formula provides the same correlation with
fork length as results produced with the anterior
abdominal vertical diameter regression formulae (in
both cases r = 0.98), and therefore should produce
precisely comparable length estimates. The equation
(using measurements in mm) takes the following
form:
Fork Length = 119.25 + (56.46 x Vertical Diameter)
The efficacy of utilizing vertebrae to document
size structure in ichthyofaunal assemblages has
not been studied in detail, but caution is warranted
for anatomical reasons. Abdominal vertebrae are
far more abundant in the fish skeleton than paired
elements (e.g., Cannon 1987, Wheeler and Jones
1989). The relative frequency of vertebrae means
that one very large or one very small fish, which may
be better represented in the assemblage for myriad
taphonomic reasons, could contribute a significant
proportion of abdominal vertebrae to an assemblage,
thus biasing the average length of the sample. To test
for the presence of this type of bias in such assemblages,
we compared fork-length estimates calculatJournal
of the North Atlantic
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2014 No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
ed from the length of the ascending process of right
premaxillae (Rojo 1986:345) to the vertical diameter
of anterior abdominal vertebrae from the same Red
Bay contexts (see Table 1). A two-way student’s ttest
indicates that the mean fork lengths calculated
from these two different measures are statistically
equal (t = 0.1707, df = 587, P = 0.864487). This
result strongly suggests that vertebrae measurements
are directly comparable to those taken on paired elements
and should not impose any undue bias as long
as sample sizes are adequate.
The efficacy of using vertebral growth increments
to age fish is currently debated in the biological literature
(Göçer and Ekingen 2005, Gunn et al. 2008,
Khan and Khan 2009), with a general consensus that
it results in assessments of age that are somewhat
less accurate (but potentially still useful) than otoliths
(Hill et al. 1989:841, Jones 1992:2, Prince et al.
1984; although see Khan and Khan 2009), typically
because annual growth rings are more difficult to
discern in vertebral centra than otoliths. The vertebral
ring-counting technique remains popular in
assessments of fish bone assemblages when otoliths
are not abundant (Van Neer et al. 1999), particularly
for Atlantic cod (e.g. Krivogorskaya et al. 2005,
Rojo 1987, Spiess and Lewis 2001).
As discussed by Wilson (1982:1375), there is
often not a strict numerical agreement between vertebrae
and more accurate growth-increment structures
such as otoliths and scales, but there is often
significant statistical agreement on a rank scale. That
is, vertebrae are usually not precisely accurate absolute
predictors of age, but can provide an indication
of differences between populations on a rank-order
level. Therefore, in the analysis that follows, we use
our age estimates not to determine the absolute mean
age of samples, but as a comparative device to assess
the direction of changes between the mean age of
fish vertebrae assemblages and to assess the potential
magnitude of changes between the historical and
modern eras.
Similar to the observations of other researchers
(e.g., Rojo 1987:221, Wilson 1982:1375), we observed
that growth increments in cod vertebrae are
sharp, dark, and highly visible close to the centrum
but become more diffuse near the margins of the
vertebrae, especially in larger fish. We viewed all
of the samples analyzed here under a low-power
binocular microscope, and the number of paired
light (summer) and dark (winter) growth bands were
counted and recorded as one year of the fish’s life. If
a count ended in a partial light growth band, as the
vast majority of vertebrae did, we noted this with a
“+” notation but rounded down for quantitative purposes
(essentially, the age counts utilized here reflect
the number of dark growth bands). If the vertebrae
ended in a partial dark growth band, we counted that
as an additional year.
The increment analysis for this study was conducted
by four different analysts; however, despite
identical training, we were concerned that interanalyst
variability would be a problematic source of
error. Therefore, we conducted a test by having three
of the researchers analyze growth bands from a portion
(n = 93) of the same assemblage from Crouse;
encouragingly, a one-way ANOVA indicated there
was no statistical difference between the mean ages
(F2,276 =0.02, P = 0.982855) derived by the different
researchers.
Results
Table 1 outlines the result of the fork-length and
age analyses, and Figures 2 and 3 display box plots
of the data for comparative purposes. As displayed
by Figure 2 and Table 1, the mean fork length of the
cod from these assemblages varies significantly over
time, from a maximum of 806 mm to a low of 732
mm. An ANOVA returned a result of F8, 1243 = 5.14,
P = 0.000003, indicating that there are significant
differences in the mean fork length of cod in these
samples. A Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVA of
ranks returned a similar result for the median length
(χ2
8df = 32.42904, P= 0.000078). The mean age of
cod does not vary as significantly over the sequence,
with a maximum mean age of 11.5 years and a minimum
of 9.5 years. However, an ANOVA indicated
that there are significant differences in mean age
between the samples (F7, 1052 = 9.32, P < 0.0000001).
Again, a Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVA of ranks
returned a similar result for the median fork length
(χ2
7df = 56.56892, P < 0.0000001). Modern data on
age and length distributions for cod were obtained
from a sample of 1167 handlined cod recovered
from Smith Sound, in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland
in 1995 (Brattey 1997). We conducted a series of ttests
to compare the archaeological fork length and
age means to the modern means, and all are significantly
different (P < 0.01). A numerical comparison
of these modern data to the archeological samples is
very striking (Table 1); the average jigged cod taken
in 1995 is at least 15 cm shorter than the smallest
average of the previous 450 years and more than 22
cm shorter than the largest average cod from that period.
While age comparisons may not be as accurate
due to problems with aging vertebrae, the mean age
of the modern cod was at least 4 years younger than
the youngest archaeological sample.
2014 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
8
Figure 2. Box plots of mean fork length (in mm) as reconstructed from archaeological cod bone. The boxes represent the
interquartile range, the line represents the median length, and the whiskers represent the largest and smallest estimated
lengths. The circles represent the mean fork lengths for each sample.
Figure 3. Box plots of the mean age (in years) as reconstructed from archaeological cod bone. The boxes represent the
interquartile range, the line represents the median age, and the whiskers represent the largest and smallest ages. The circles
represent the mean age for each sample.
Journal of the North Atlantic
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M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
factors, all part of the taphonomic history of the
bone assemblages, which may have impacted the
size distribution of the samples. In so doing, we attempt
a comprehensive interpretation of the size and
age variability inherent in Figures 2 and 3.
Spatial variability in northern cod stocks
Modern fisheries managers tend to treat Atlantic
cod in the present study area as one large
northern cod population, known as the “2J3KL”
population (Fig. 1) based on North Atlantic Fisheries
Organization (NAFO) convention areas (DFO
2012).1 Genetic differences can impact the growth
and maturation rate of cod, thereby potentially
impacting the size structure of the population. Genetic
evidence has suggested that cod in the 2J3KL
region are highly migratory and that there is considerable
genetic homogeneity between cod stocks
dispersed across local inshore bays and inshore/offshore
populations (Beacham et al. 2002). However,
some local heterogeneity has been discovered, with
genetically distinct populations occurring within
some bays and areas, presumably the result of a
strong natal homing instinct in cod (Svedäng et al.
2007).
DNA-based studies have indicated that the
inshore cod stocks in both NAFO regions 3K and
3L are very similar genetically, and can be considered
parts of a single population (Beacham et al.
2002:657, 659). These stocks are also closely related
to the offshore stocks of the Northern Grand Banks
and Funk Island Bank, though these show some
distance-mediated genetic differences. This finding
is to be expected because tagging studies reveal
significant movement between bays and offshore
banks for fish in the 3K and 3L regions (Brattey et
al. 2000, Lilly et al. 2001). However, these studies
indicate that inshore and offshore Labrador (2J) cod
are very distinct genetically, suggesting they belong
to separate cod populations (Beacham et al. 2002).
While the genetic similarity of the stocks on the
northeastern shore indicates that many of the sites
we have sampled should be comparable, the genetic
differences between the Labrador stocks calls into
question variability in the size of the Red Bay sample,
which is on average both much larger and older
than any of the other samples. Modern populations
of inshore cod in NAFO region 2J (Labrador) tend
to be significantly smaller for their age (length and
weight) than both inshore and offshore cod populations
in 3L and 3K NAFO regions (Ruzzante et al.
2000: 436). This difference is probably a result of
colder waters around Labrador, which negatively
impact growth rates in Atlantic cod (Brander 1994,
1996). These data indicate that, all things being
Of specific note are the maximum size and age
values of the archaeofaunal cod recovered. Cod
greater than 1 m in length commonly occurred in
the assemblages, with one specimen, from Red Bay,
returning an estimate of 175.1 cm. As a comparison,
the largest cod recorded in the modern era from the
Northeast Atlantic measured 160 cm (Moiseev 1953).
Similarly, cod of 15 or more years regularly occurred
in all but two of the assemblages. The oldest cod,
from the Red Bay assemblage, was 30 years old and
was associated with many additional individuals over
20 years of age. Modern cod typically have a life-span
of approximately 15 years; the oldest cod caught in
modern times, from coastal Labrador, was 27 years
old (Lear 1984). Perhaps it is not unsurprising that
the oldest and largest cod in the study were associated
with the oldest sample in the sequence recovered
from Red Bay.
It is not unexpected that modern cod populations
should be so significantly different from ancient cod
populations. As discussed above, archaeological
studies have documented significant differences in
average size between such populations (Betts et al.
2011, Jackson et al. 2001, Kenchington and Kenchington
1993). However, what was not expected were
the significant differences between the pre-modern
samples themselves. Our statistical analysis clearly
indicates significant changes in cod length over the
350-year period covered by our samples.
Understanding Size and Age Differences in
Archaeological Cod Assemblages
The archaeofaunas discussed here represent samples
of several different death assemblages, which
themselves are drawn from potentially different living
communities of fish (e.g., Lyman 1994:26–33).
To understand variability in the samples, assessing
their relationship to the living community and understanding
the nature of the living community itself
is of paramount importance. For example, if the
different cod samples were removed from the same
living community using the same fishing techniques
and gear, and if their remains subsequently underwent
similar taphonomic processes, then differences
in length and age between the samples could reflect
changes in cod stocks caused by climatic and/or
exploitation pressures. However, because these samples
are derived from four different archaeological
sites excavated using four different methodologies,
the samples may have very different taphonomic
histories which could impact the size of the fish or
the size of the fragments recovered. In the analysis
that follows, we address multiple taphonomic, technological,
behavioral, biological, and environmental
2014 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
10
and age over the sequence. It is possible that this
assemblage reflects a more or less random sample of
the inshore catch, although we can never be certain
of this assumption.
The element distribution from the late Ferryland
cod assemblage, excavated from a domestic midden
and cellar feature associated with the Mansion
House, included an abundance of fin elements, caudal
vertebrae, and elements in the pectoral girdle,
which is consistent with a dried-fish assemblage
(Tourigny 2009:118). If dried fish was procured
in bulk (i.e., with little size selection) to provision
the Mansion House, this assemblage may provide
a relatively unbiased indicator of cod size and age
of inshore cod for the period. Corroboration of
this assumption may be provided by the roughly
contemporaneous Bay Bulls sample, which is statistically
indistinguishable from the late Ferryland
assemblage (t = 0.5447, df = 337, P = 0.5864 for fork
length; and t = 0.7252, df = 294, P = 0.4689 for age).
This finding suggests the late Ferryland context is a
good indicator of the captured-cod size structure.
As outlined above, collections procedures between
sites varied significantly. No significant size
biases are likely to have been introduced in the
recovery of the underwater assemblages from Red
Bay and Bay Bulls as these remains were bulk-lifted
as 100% samples of all specimen size classes. In
contrast, the Ferryland deposits were screened with
standard 6-mm mesh, suggesting that elements from
the smallest size classes of cod may not have been
completely recovered. This problem is even more
severe at Crouse, where deposits were screened
with 10-mm mesh due to limitations imposed by the
rocky soil matrix. If coarse recovery methods did
impact the average size of the vertebrae measured
in this study, one would expect artificially inflated
mean fork lengths (and ages) for each of these
samples. This potential bias might be problematic if
these samples returned larger means and ages than
the Red Bay and Bay Bulls samples; however, this
apparently did not occur, as Ferryland samples appear
smaller than the bulk-collected samples from
Red Bay, and the Crouse contexts tend to have the
smallest mean lengths and ages of all the samples.
Therefore, we believe that the cod comprising the
death assemblages for these sites were generally
so large that coarse recovery did not considerably
impact their estimated size distribution (e.g., Betts
et al. 2011:177). Regardless, the possibility exists
that the Ferryland and Crouse estimates are artificially
larger than the captured population (death
assemblage) due to recovery issues. If this is the
case, then the perceived declines in average size
equal, the archaeological cod from Red Bay should
be, on average, smaller than the samples from the
3L and 3K fisheries regions. However, the samples
exhibit the largest mean size and greatest mean age
when compared to other samples, a finding which is
not consistent with a genetic difference in cod stocks
being responsible for the archaeological patterns.
In fact, modern genetic data suggest that if we had
samples recovered from more southerly and warmer
waters in northern and eastern Newfoundland dating
to the middle 16th century, they would be even larger
than the Red Bay cod.
Archaeofaunal context/collections procedures
As explained above, the samples used in this
study were derived from diverse archaeological
contexts collected in myriad fashions. However, before
interpreting variability in the graph, it is critical
that we assess whether differences in archaeological
context or collections procedures might have caused
the revealed patterning. As described above, the
samples from Crouse, Red Bay, and Bay Bulls represent
similar archaeological contexts which are all
associated with debris from the commercial processing
of salted and dried cod. While the proximity to
flakes, other drying areas, and stages vary from context
to context, the element distributions from these
contexts indicate that all locations contain higher
proportions of elements discarded during processing
cod for salting and drying, including an overrepresentation
of abdominal vertebrae and skull elements,
excluding the pectoral girdle. As a result, the deposits
should represent all size classes of fish that were
processed for storage, thus providing a good proxy
for shifts in the average size and age of the death assemblage.
The Ferryland assemblages are perhaps the most
problematic from the standpoint of archaeological
context. As mentioned above, the earliest Mansion
House context exhibits an element distribution
consistent with the consumption of fresh whole
fish. While this finding suggests the assemblage is
derived from the inshore fishery, the data should be
used with caution as the assemblage may have been
subjected to post-capture selection factors related to
immediate consumption (e.g., Cerón-Carrasco 1998,
Barrett 1997, Bigelow 1984, Krivogorskaya et al.
2005). These factors could range from ease of preparing
differently sized cod, to the estimated number
of meal participants, to economic factors related to
the purchase of the fish. Regardless, the mean fork
length of this assemblage falls neatly within the
range of variability of all samples, and fits nicely
within a sequence of decreasing mean fork length
Journal of the North Atlantic
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M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
banned the use of seines in the 17th century, because
they believed it removed smaller cod from the system
(Lounsbury 1934). The notion that the French used
seines in their early modern cod fishery would open
up the possibility that the French assemblages from
Crouse exhibit comparatively depressed average
sizes and ages due to use of such seine technology.
The Crouse samples do, in fact, have the lowest average
means of the pre-modern assemblages, with the
early 18th-century context exhibiting the smallest
average length. A series of t-tests reveal that the slight
increase in size over these four samples is not significant
in this instance (P > 0.5). As we might expect,
all of the Crouse samples, excepting the early 19thcentury
context, also have the lowest average ages of
the pre-modern sample. But, since there is no historical
or archaeological evidence for the use of seines
in fishing for adult cod in the period before 1800, we
have to find another explanation for the continued decline
in average cod size.
On balance, our data as well as the documentary
record give no indication that seines were used to
take significant numbers of commercial cod in the
period covered by the archaeological contexts, and
thus differences in gear type are not responsible for
the small average size of cod in the Crouse deposits.
Furthermore, statistical tests reveal that the slight
increase in the mean size and age of cod displayed
by the Crouse samples is not significant. In fact,
historical records exist that indicate that cod stocks
continued to be impacted during the 18th century,
the time period covered by the Crouse samples. For
example, Turgeon (1995) has documented a decline
in the ratio of cod liver oil to dried fish recorded in
shipping records during the 18th century, indicative
of a trend towards smaller average fish. This decline
in mean size may correlate with the average declines
in age we see in this period, which reach its lowest
pre-modern levels in the late 18 th century (Fig. 3).
Interestingly, the last pre-modern point in both
datasets, dating to the early 19th century, occurs
during a period when the French discontinued the
use of seines for bait fish and banned longlines,
the latter having been used on the banks fishery for
many years, ostensibly to protect the inshore fishery
(Hutchings and Myers 1995:70–71). In our samples,
the early 19thcentury is marked by a slight increase
in mean fork length and a significant increase in
mean age. While tenuous, this finding indicates that
the discontinuation of the seine for bait fish (including
cod), and the delayed adoption of the longline,
allowed for a brief recovery in the size and age of
the northern cod stock in the early 19th century. This
interpretation would suggest that the bait fishery was
(and age) would be even larger than portrayed here,
as the average size of fish from contexts with coarser
recovery strategies would have been smaller than
indicated in Figure 2.
Gear type
Fishing gear is size-selective and can result in
differences in the average size of fish represented
in harvested assemblages. Presumably, all of the assemblages
analyzed here are the result of the inshore
fishery, which from the late 15th century to the late
18th century was conducted by single fishermen using
between one and three baited hooks on weighted
lines (Pope 2004:25).
The remarkable homogeneity of technology,
gear type, and technique over hundreds of years
is a unique trait of the handline fishery (e.g., Pope
2004:25), and had much to do with the need to catch
fish in the size range preferred for drying and marketing
the catch. Indeed, archaeological evidence
documents that 18th-century cod hooks from the
French settlement of Louisburg, 17th-century cod
hooks from the English town of Ferryland, and 16thcentury
cod hooks from the Basque fishing station
of Red Bay are virtually identical in size-range and
shape (e.g., Charlotte 2004:126, Nixon 1999:176;
see also Duhamel du Monceau 1772: plates 1–7
for a description of French handline gear in the
18th century). All are eyeless wrought-iron hooks
approximately 6.5–11.0 cm long, with a “gap” approximately
2.0 to 3.5 cm, a size range remarkably
similar to “J” hooks used in modern handlines and
longlines (Betts et al. 2011:176). Based on the archaeological
and historical evidence, differences in
gear type for the handline inshore fishery over the
last half millennium that may have impacted the size
of average fish caught appear largely negligible and
therefore should not be responsible for any patterns
in the archaeological data presented here.
Some sources suggest that the French employed
seines to take cod throughout much of the 16th, 17th,
and 18th centuries (de Loture 1949, Hutchings and
Myers 1995:86). However, there is no apparent corroborating
evidence that the French used seines to
capture anything but bait fish during this period. The
contemporary observers of the fishery, Denys (1672)
and Duhamel du Monceau (1769), both describe a
strictly line-based cod fishery on the coasts of Acadia
and Newfoundland, while the foremost authority on
the history of the French fishery in Atlantic Canada,
de la Morandière (1966), indicates that prior to AD
1800 seines were used only to take bait fish (cf. Candow
2009a:392–398). Bait fish were normally caplin
or herring but also included small cod. The English
2014 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
12
as the climate change lasted for a sustained period
(e.g., several years), and as long as both the chronological
resolution of the archaeological samples and
the climatic records are such that short-term or longterm
climatic trends can be traced.
Regardless, understanding the local effect of this
sort of temperature-mediated recruitment is difficult,
because, essentially, the response of cod populations
to climate change is highly dependent on where local
sea temperatures fall within their preferred temperature
range. For example, studies of northern cod
around Newfoundland indicate that ocean warming
(SST increases from 1 to 4 degrees above present)
will likely increase cod populations in most Newfoundland
waters (Drinkwater 2005:1331, 1333).
Conversely, research has shown that cold periods
result in a reduction of cod populations in inshore
Newfoundland waters (Pörtner et al 2001:1977).
In the Gulf of Maine, at the southerly range of the
cod’s distribution and where water temperature averages
are much higher, the opposite is likely to occur.
There, higher sea surface temperatures will negatively
affect cod recruitment, and lower temperatures
will result in positive effects (e.g., Drinkwater
2005:1331, Fogarty et al. 2008:464–465, Planque
and Frédou 1999, Sunby 2000:283–284, Pörtner et
al. 2008:1977; see also Betts et al. 201 1).
Cod around Newfoundland and southern Labrador
live at the lower temperature range for the
species (Sunby 2000:283), and correlations have
previously been noted between higher cod densities
and increases in temperature, such as that which occurred
during the AD 1920–1940 warming event off
Greenland (Rose 2005:1369). Changes in sea-surface
temperature can also result in distributional or migrational
changes in cod species (Drinkwater 2005:1333,
Rose 2005:1361, Sunby 2000:280). Newfoundland
and Labrador populations are known to move to more
appropriate locations (both locally and regionally) in
response to climate change (Rose 2004).
Therefore, in general, cold regimes should
negatively affect recruitment in Newfoundland and
Labrador waters; this reduction in juveniles would
necessarily be evidenced by an overall increase in
mean fork length. Conversely, in warm sea-temperature
regimes, recruitment of juveniles will increase
around Newfoundland, resulting in a general decrease
in mean fork length. It should be noted that in
a previous paper (Betts et al. 2011) we have argued
that Atlantic cod populations should positively respond
to cold regimes in the Gulf of Maine, which is
located at the southerly limit of Atlantic cod’s range.
This data is supported by recent research (Drinkwater
2005:1333) which indicates that increasing SST
at least in part regulating the average size of cod in
the Crouse samples (i.e., fewer small fish were being
procured), and thus it was impacting cod stocks in a
measurable way.
Unfortunately for this study, many of the major
changes in gear type occur during a period for which
we have no archaeological data. After ca. 1850,
longlines were introduced to the inshore fishery, followed
by cod traps in the 1870s (Hutchings and Myers
1995:70). In the 20th century, gradual increases in
the use of boat motors and motorized hauling mechanisms
(for setting and hauling longlines and traps)
greatly increased the efficiency of these gear types.
It is generally understood that compared to jigs,
longline trawls tend to select for smaller fish (Halliday
2002) and cod traps tend to select for larger,
more mature fish (Maschner at al. 2008:392). If we
had archaeological data for the late 19th century, the
competing effects of these two different gear types
could potentially obfuscate patterning in the sizes of
recovered fish bones.
Climate change
Climate change, especially changes in storminess
and sea surface temperature (SST), are known
to have significant impacts on demersal fish popula -
tions such as cod (Drinkwater 2005, Pörtner et al.
2001, Sunby 2000). In some areas of the northern
world, cold climate regimes appear to positively
impact fish populations. However, the relationship
between Atlantic cod and temperature is very complex,
and spatially different cod populations can
react differently to sea temperature changes (Pörtner
et al 2001:1977). Atlantic cod prefer to feed where
sea bottom temperatures are in the -1 o to 10 oC range
and to spawn in waters typically in the -0.5 o to 6 oC
range (Rose 2005:1363). In general, when sea surface
temperatures increase, cod recruitment tends to
increase where sea bottom temperatures are cooler
than 5 oC. In contrast, recruitment decreases when
bottom temperatures are above 8.5 oC (Drinkwater
2005:1331, Sunby 2000:278).
The relationship between recruitment inputs
and average length is well established in fisheries
research (e.g., Shin et al. 2005:table 1), such that
smaller average sizes are generally associated with
higher recruitment levels because of the regular
input of smaller juvenile fish into the population.
Conversely, large average sizes should be associated
with decreased numbers of juveniles. Given that
juvenile inputs into the cod population system occur
on a yearly basis, we believe that changes in length
caused by changes in recruitment should be preserved
in archaeological cod bone samples, as long
Journal of the North Atlantic
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2014 No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
values will, in general, negatively impact Gulf of
Maine Atlantic cod stocks, resulting in population
declines and decreased recruitment, while colder
regimes should result in an increase in recruitment
(see Betts at al. 2011 for application to a cod-length
sequence from the Gulf of Maine).
Understanding these competing climatic variables
in an archaeological context is very difficult
because climate records are often too coarse to apply
directly to the archaeological record. However,
recent high-resolution analysis of δ15N and δ40Ar
gas in the GISP2 ice core has resulted in an annual
record of average air temperature for the Eastern
Arctic/Greenland which can be used as a proxy
for the North Atlantic. The nitrogen-argon method
is specifically suited to measuring abrupt climate
changes and tends to result in a higher amplitude record
than comparable δ18O temperature reconstructions
(Kobashi et al. 2011:2). These data have been
plotted in Figure 4 (utilizing publicly released data
after Kobashi et al. 2011) simultaneously with the
GISP2 δ18O values for comparative purposes (utilizing
publically released data after Alley 2000).
The GISP2 data reveal that a warming period,
the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, occurred during
the 11th and 12th centuries AD, and was followed
by a slow decline in temperatures after ca. 1400
AD, the beginning of the Little Ice Age (Kobashi
et al. 2011). Figure 4 shows that this cooling trend
persisted, punctuated by decades of warmer temperatures,
until ca. 1600 AD, after which the region
experienced a maximum period of cooling, reaching
its coldest temperatures in the 18th century. Temperatures
slowly recovered until about 1850, marking the
end of the Little Ice Age, after which temperatures
rapidly increased to present levels (see also Kobashi
et al. 2011).
If shifts in average sea temperatures did impact
mean lengths and ages of the Northern cod stocks
throughout its range, one would expect that the slow
decline in temperature from 1500 to 1700 would be
associated with an increase in mean length around
Newfoundland as recruitment decreased and the
proportion of juveniles declined. However, this pattern
is the exact opposite of the trends observed in
our samples, which indicate that both mean length
and age decrease progressively over this cold period.
Nevertheless, it is important to point out that
reconstructions of historic catch rates based on archival
documents (Pope 1997, 2004:table 1, 2006;
Figure 4. δ15N and δ40Ar temperature reconstruction from the GISP2 ice core (Kobashi et al. 2011; data from ftp://ftp.ncdc.
noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2-temperature2011.xls), plotted simultaneously
with δ18O temperature reconstruction from the GISP2 core (Alley 2000; data from ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/
icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt).
2014 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
14
Starkey and Haines 2001:table 2) for the 17th–19th
centuries correspond well with the reconstructed
temperature changes recorded in Figure 4. Furthermore,
reports of reduced inshore catches between
1710 and 1739, which were so severe that they
played a significant role in the entry of the British
into the offshore cod fishery (Hutchings and Myers
1995:72, Lounsbury 1934, Starkey and Haines
2001:6), correlate with the coldest temperatures of
the study period.
It is also interesting to note that the lowest average
mean cod fork lengths around Newfoundland
occur during this extremely cold period, which is the
opposite of what we might expect if climate change
were mediating these effects (as described previously,
cold regimes should be indicated by an average
increase in length as cod recruitment decreased).
However, one potential instance of correlation may
be identified in the slight increase in the mean age of
cod during the coldest period of the Little Ice Age,
during the early 18th century. If cold negatively affected
recruitment in the Newfoundland stock, an
increase in mean age would result. As indicated in
Figure 4, average temperatures continued to climb
during early 19th century, which should be associated
with a decrease in mean age and length in our
samples as juvenile recruitment increased; however,
the mean length increased slightly while the mean
age increased dramatically. Thus, while the correlation
between the historical catch rate data varies as
would be expected with temperature, this correlation
does not hold for the archaeological data. This
implies that although these climate shifts mediated
the distribution of cod significantly (after Rose
2004), they in general did not impact the fork length
and age structure of cod in a manner that could be
tracked here.
In sum, climate proxies appear to have little relationship
to the metric parameters of our samples
and thus the parameters of the historically fished
cod populations of Newfoundland and Labrador.
A slight increase in mean age during the coldest
period of the Little Ice Age, in the early 1700s, may
be the only climatically linked change that can be
tracked by our metric data. This finding strongly
suggests that variability in cod population structure,
as measurable from archaeofaunas, was primarily
mediated by factors other than climatic and
environmental conditions.
Human exploitation pressure
The earliest written record of a European
(English) inshore cod fishery in Newfoundland
and Labrador is from 1502 (Quinn 1979:110). Historic
documents indicate that the fishery expanded
throughout the early 16th century with Portuguese
plying Newfoundland waters by 1506, followed by
Basque ca. 1520 (Pope 2008). While Basque and
Portuguese participation had waned by the late 16th
century, the English fishery steadily increased, with
the number of participating ships increasing rapidly
between 1550 and 1600 (Cell 1982, Musset 1899).
The French and English shore-based fisheries expanded
and became entrenched in the early 1600s.
By the middle-late 17th century, continued wars
with the Spanish and Dutch reduced the size of the
English fishing fleet dramatically, reaching a low in
the 1660s (Matthews 1968) after which it recovered
and expanded rapidly (Pope 2004:19–20). At the
same time, the French fishery expanded steadily
throughout much of the 17th century until the 1680s
when it too declined (Pope 2004:424–425). The
17th-century French migratory transatlantic fisheries
often produced over 50,000 tons of cod in a season,
dwarfing the contemporary British fisheries, which
produced about 20,000 at best (Candow 2009a:409).
Note that these figures do not represent the weight of
live catch, which would have been almost five times
these figures. At least half of this fish was produced
in Newfoundland (Pope 1997:table 4).
War between Great Britain and France at the
turn of the 18th century had considerable negative
impact on the fisheries of both nations, and warfare
continued to affect the transatlantic fisheries into the
early 19th century (Candow 2009a:424). The wide
geographic dispersion of the French fishers permitted
them to adjust their participation in particular
areas, for example, by increasing effort in the postwar
decades after 1713 at Cape Breton and reducing
effort on Newfoundland’s Petit Nord where catches
were currently poor. In the early 18th century, France
produced at best between 25,000 and 40,000 tonnes
of transatlantic cod (Candow 2009a:426–427), while
English production expanded significantly from their
17th-century baseline to as much as 38,000 tonnes at
Newfoundland alone (Lounsbury 1934). English
participation in both the migratory and resident
fishery at Newfoundland increased steadily through
the second half of the 18th century. For example, a
steady increase in documented catch rates in Trinity
Bay can be observed between 1710 and 1830 (Myers
2001:21). After the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763),
French production rebounded and then fluctuated
wildly but more or less stabilized at almost 40,000
tonnes—still impressive, given that the Treaty of
Paris in 1763 now confined French fishing crews to
Newfoundland waters (Candow 2009a:432).
In the late 18th century, the British migratory fishery
began a decline which became definitive after
1815, with the rapid growth of a Newfoundland
Journal of the North Atlantic
15
2014 No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
resident fishery (Candow 2009b:436–439, Ryan
1986). France suspended fishing at Newfoundland
(with minor exceptions) during the Napoleonic Wars
(1793–1815) but re-established its transatlantic industry
after the wars, expanding fishing on the French
Shore rapidly in the 1820s (Candow 2009b:439). The
re-establishment of the treaty shore pushed the growing
Newfoundland-based floater fishery to Labrador,
which saw rapid growth through the 19th century,
accounting for 46% of the entire Newfoundland and
Labrador catch by 1890 (Ryan 1986).
The inshore resident fishery on the Northern
Peninsula and the west coast expanded greatly after
France ceded its treaty rights to a shore fishery in
1904, so that the number of resident Newfoundland
fishermen doubled between 1857 and 1911 (Hutchings
and Myers 1995:57). The inshore fishery exceeded
the offshore banks fishery consistently during
the first half of the 20th century. Overall catches
continued to increase, even though inshore fishing
catch rates per fisherman declined significantly after
ca. 1910 (Hutchings and Myers 1995:52–53, 57).
Regardless, fishing effort continued to increase and
catches continued to expand, reaching an historic
maximum in 1968.
Historical records indicate that the inshore fishery
went through many “boom and bust” cycles over
the last half millennium, at least some of which were
believed (at the time) to be a result of overfishing.
Hutchings and Myers (1995) have quantified harvest
rates (proportion of estimated harvestable biomass
actually caught) from 1500 to 1995 based on historical
documents. Their estimates indicate a slow
increase in harvest rates to ca. 1700, after which harvesting
rates increased significantly, to a peak in ca.
1920, with significant declines in harvest rates at ca.
1710–1730, 1800, 1830–1850, 1875, and 1900 (see
also Cadigan and Hutchings 2001:36). Data clearly
show that catch rates on the English shore were depressed
during much of the mid-17th century, from
ca. 1657–1675, after which they recovered slightly
before collapsing again at the turn of the 18th century
(Pope 1997, 2004, 2006). Detailed research by Starkey
and Haines (2001), reveals that these changes
must be kept in relative terms because catch rates
were generally quite high (more than 200 quintals
per boat) for nearly every year between 1676 and
1828, except for the period between 1710 and 1730.
This data indicates a fishery that was ultimately still
very productive right up until the middle 19th century
(e.g., Hutchings and Myers 1995:81, Starkey and
Haines 2001:9).
This extended productivity does not mean that
exploitation pressure wasn’t significant and, in the
absence of clear gear changes or climatic impacts,
the statistically significant decline in the average
size and age of cod from the mid-16th century
to the early 18th century can only be interpreted
as the result of fishing pressure. While changes
in the latter part of the graphs may be somewhat
obscured by climate change and the effect of gear
types that impacted the size of fish caught by jigs,
the decline in mean age from the early 18th century
to its lowest pre-modern point in the late 18th century
persuasively suggests that changes in this era
were also mediated by fishing pressure. Again, it
is important to note here that the decline in age is
consistent with research that documents an average
decline in cod size over the 18th century based on
the ratio of cod liver oil to salt cod produced (Turgeon
1995).
If the early historic fishery was impacting cod
populations significantly (by removing larger, older
fish from the system faster than they could be replaced),
did its participants recognize the effect of
their overfishing? A host of conservation measures
were instituted between the 17th and 19th centuries,
indicating that inshore fishers were concerned
about the impact their fishing was having on stocks
(cf. Pope 2004:424). In 1663, the English banned
the catch of small bait cod using seines to protect the
cod fishery (Hutchings and Myers 1995:71, Lounsbury
1934). Although they persisted in using this
technology in the Petit Nord, the French nevertheless
outlawed the adoption of longlines by the inshore
fishery in the late 18th and early 19th centuries
(Hutchings and Myers 1995:71). This opposition to
longlines continued throughout the mid- to late 19th
century, apparently because fishermen perceived
that this gear type unnecessarily removed very
large spawning cod from the population. Declining
catches in the late 19th century were troublesome
enough that the Newfoundland government commissioned
a report to study the causes of the decline
in 1877 (Hind 1877), instituted a governing body,
the Newfoundland Fisheries Commission in 1889,
and built a cod hatchery in Trinity Bay in 1890. All
of these efforts appear to be related to a commonly
held perception that overfishing was the cause of the
declines (Harvey 1894, 1900).
Did these conservation efforts work? The slight
increase in cod size and age in the early 19th centuries
may be a response to the reduction in the use of
seines to take bait cod, but otherwise it is difficult
to track any other effects of conservation efforts on
the mean age or size of archaeological cod. It is also
possible that the prolonged period of warfare that
affected the fisheries during the late 18th and early
19th centuries played a role in the seeming recovery
in average age and length at that time.
2014 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
16
Nevertheless, the available historical records
indicate that over the ≈350 years tracked by these
data, fishing effort was increased at every opportunity,
punctuated only occasionally by reductions in
the fleets due to war and/or small conservation measures.
Indeed, the overall trend indicated by our zooarchaeological
analysis is towards decreasing mean
size and decreasing mean age, a finding which can
only be explained by the increase in fishing effort
over this period. Fishing pressure is known to impact
the size and age structure of fished populations over
time (Andersen et al. 2007, Swain et al. 2007), and
the available data indicate that Newfoundland cod
stocks were significantly affected very early in the
European fishery, within the first 50 to 100 years that
we can track with archaeological data. This analysis
does not, however, mean that the early fishery was
not sustainable, only that it had an inevitable impact
on cod populations. As suggested by Hutchings and
Myers (1995:56), “If only 25% of the estimated harvestable
biomass was available to inshore gear each
year, fishing mortality rates may have exceeded sustainable
levels … [only by] the early 19 th century”.
Conclusions
This multidisciplinary study has brought together
data from history, archaeology, zooarchaeology,
biology, and fisheries research in an attempt to
quantitatively assess changes in cod populations in
Newfoundland and Labrador inshore waters. Utilizing
size and age as our primary metrics, our paper
focuses on two primary issues: 1) sample quality
and relevance, and 2) a holistic analysis of various
factors impacting the size and age distribution of cod
bone assemblages.
While the sample-quality issues outlined in this
paper are comparable to many other studies with
similar goals, aspects relating to sample size and
differential recovery methods remain problematic.
Regarding sample size, it is important to note that
all of the faunal assemblages analyzed in this report
where derived from extensive excavations resulting
in samples that each contained hundreds, and
often thousands, of identifiable cod bones. However,
although the assemblages were large and well
preserved, fragmentation was a serious issue. Even
relatively minor damage to the vertebral body (in
all cases the most abundant elements in each assemblage)
negated that element from measurement,
therefore severely limiting sample sizes. Some
of the fragmentation we witnessed was a result of
trephic factors (those taphonomic factors affecting
the assemblage after collection), and we recommend
that where age and size studies are a goal of
analysis, special care be taken to carefully protect
fragile fish remains.
Collection and sieving protocols are pernicious
issues in icthyofaunal research. The samples in this
study result from myriad collections procedures,
ranging from 100% (bulk) recovery to relatively
coarse collection with 10-mm mesh screen. Despite
these differences, our analyses suggest that those
samples with the smallest mean size were the samples
collected with the coarsest recovery methods.
In fact, it is likely that if the cod from Crouse would
be even smaller, on average, had bulk recovery or
finer recovery procedures been utilized. While these
fortunate coincidences are specific to our particular
study, we believe our analysis demonstrates that it
is possible to work with collections collected using
differential recovery methods, as long as careful
consideration is given to the possible effect of those
recovery techniques on the variables being measured
and on the inferences drawn from them.
We believe that it is necessary to adopt a careful
holistic approach in all sized-based zooarchaeological
studies. Average measures are by nature difficult
to interpret, and therefore carefully considering
multiple competing influences, including taphonomic
and sampling issues, are necessary to fully
understand patterning. In this instance, climatic
variables were probably the most difficult variable
to assess given that cod stocks respond in complex
ways to temperature changes. Another issue arises
from the fact that detailed palaeoenvironmental data
from Newfoundland and Labrador does not exist on
the decadal scales necessary to compare to the resolution
of our samples, forcing the use of proxy data
from Greenland.
On balance, however, the available climatic data
do not suggest that temperature changes had a significant
impact on the size and age distribution of
the cod in our samples. Rather, it seems clear that the
primary reason for most changes in size was exploitation
pressure. From this perspective, the most telling
result of our analysis is that cod recovered from
all archaeological sites were on average much larger
than anything caught with the same methods today.
As documented by Starkey and Haines (2001:9), the
Newfoundland cod “… fishery was prone to fluctuate”,
but there is little remaining debate that the most
significant damage to northern cod stocks in recent
years was caused by massive increases in fishing
effort between 1950 and 1990, a nightmarish model
for recruitment overfishing (Rose 2004, Sinclair and
Murawski 1997).
However, the archaeofaunal data presented here
provide some indication that cod stocks were being
significantly impacted much earlier, perhaps by the
Journal of the North Atlantic
17
2014 No. 24
M.W. Betts, S. Noël, E. Tourigny, M. Burns, P.E. Pope, and S.L. Cumbaa
17th century (cf. Pope 2006). That the historic fishery
had a measurable negative impact on stocks so quickly
should not be unexpected considering that fishing
pressure on cod increased from a subsistence-level
aboriginal fishery to one of the world’s largest commercial
fishing operations in the course of a few generations.
Rather, what is noteworthy is that significant
fishing returns were able to be sustained for so long
(e.g., Starkey and Haines 2001). Our data indicate
that northern cod stocks experienced only a gradual
change in the mean fork length and age over 350
years of unprecedented fishing pressure. Indeed, the
very precipitous declines in the average size and age
of cod occurred in the period between 1850 and 1990,
which unfortunately is not covered by archaeological
data. That the northern cod stock bore this onslaught
for so long is a testament to just how productive the
waters of Newfoundland and Labrador were, and how
resilient the species was to human exploitation.
Acknowledgments
The research described above was kindly supported by
the Canadian Museum of History, the Canadian Museum
of Nature, the Memorial University of Newfoundland,
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
of Canada, the Provincial Archaeology Office (PAO) of
Newfoundland, the Institute for Social and Economic Research,
and the J.R. Smallwood Foundation. Parks Canada
provided access to the Bay Bulls and Red Bay collections
in the form of a long-term loan of materials. Colin
Amudsen graciously provided advice stemming from his
previous work on these two assemblages. Carolyn Tropea
measured thousands of cod vertebrae for this study, and
her patience and dedication are greatly appreciated. Karen
Ryan and David Morrison commented on a previous version
of this manuscript, and their advice is greatly appreciated.
We thank Sophia Perdikaris and Keith Goldfarb for
shepherding this paper through the editorial process, and
we appreciate the insightful comments of the two anonymous
reviewers; their comments and advice resulted in a
far better offering.
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Endnotes
1We note that Red Bay is located 70 km west of the 3K
NAFO region and is technically in the 4R NAFO region;
however, given its close proximity to the study area, this
boundary can be considered artificial for comparative
purposes.