New research suggests that medieval Icelanders were scavenging and likely even hunting blue whales long before industrial whaling technology.
This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com. In the fall of 1385, according to a 17th-century Icelandic text, a man named Ólafur went fishing off the northwestern coast of Iceland.
As the climate shifted from the medieval warm period, which ended in the 13th century, to the colder temperatures of the little ice age, evidence of many smaller whale species disappeared from the archaeological record. Blue whales, however, still dominated. When Szabo saw the results, she was “staggered.” No other culture is known to have relied on blue whales so regularly.
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