page_title: History of seafood
section_title: China
hierarchical_section_title: History of seafood / China
caption_attribution_description: Détail d'une jarre à couvercle à décor de poissons rouges. Dynastie Ming, période jiajing (1522-1566). Musée Guimet, Paris.
context_page_description: The harvesting and consuming of seafoods are ancient practices that may date back to at least the Upper Paleolithic period which dates to between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago. Isotopic analysis of the skeletal remains of Tianyuan man, a 40,000-year-old modern human from eastern Asia, has shown that he regularly consumed freshwater fish. Archaeology features such as shell middens, discarded fish bones and cave paintings show that sea foods were important for survival and consumed in significant quantities. During this period, most people lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and were, of necessity, constantly on the move. However, where there are early examples of permanent settlements such as those at Lepenski Vir, they are almost always associated with fishing as a major source of food.
  The ancient river Nile was full of fish; fresh and dried fish were a staple food for much of the population. The Egyptians had implements and methods for fishing and these are illustrated in tomb scenes, drawings, and papyrus documents. Some representations hint at fishing being pursued as a pastime.
context_section_description: Aquaculture in China began before the 1st millennium BC with the farming of the common carp. These carp were grown in ponds on silk farms, and were fed silkworm nymphs and faeces. Carp are native to China. They are good to eat, and they are easy to farm since they are prolific breeders, do not eat their young, and grow fast. The original idea that carp could be cultured most likely arose when they were washed into ponds and paddy fields during monsoons. This would lead naturally to the idea of stocking ponds. The Chinese politician Fan Li was credited with authorship of The Fish-Breeding Classic, the earliest-known treatise on fish farming.
  During the 7th- to 10th-century Tang dynasty, the farming of common carp was banned because the Chinese word for common carp (鯉) sounded like the emperors' family name, Li (李). Anything that sounded like the emperor's name could not be kept or killed. The ban had a productive outcome, because it resulted in the development of polyculture, growing multiple species in the same ponds. Different species feed on different foods and occupy different niches in the ponds. In this way, the Chinese were able to simultaneously breed four different species of carp, the mud carp, which are bottom feeders, silver carp and bighead carp, which are midwater feeders, and grass carp which are top feeders. Another development during the Tang dynasty was a mutation of the domesticated carp, which led to the development of goldfish.
  From AD 1368, the Ming Dynasty encouraged fish farmers to supply the live fish trade, which dominates Chinese fish sales to this day. From 1500, methods of collecting carp fry from rivers and then rearing them in ponds were developed."
caption: A carp on a Ming porcelain pot, AD c. 1540
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