The oldest known depictions of fishing were discovered on a cave wall in Germany and may be the key to understanding early fishing techniques from the Stone Age.

While scientists have long known that Paleolithic diets included fish, a new examination of 15,800-year-old rock art has revealed the overlay of fish against a grid-like pattern, providing very rare evidence for the use of a trap or net to catch the aquatic food source.

“These depictions contribute significantly to our understanding of Paleolithic fishing practices and the cultural expressions of the Magdalenian people,” claimed a research paper published by PLOS One.

The research was initiated by a group of researchers from Durham University in the U.K. and the MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioral Evolution in Germany, who were researching engravings on ancient rock plaquettes at the Stone Age camp site of Gönnersdorf, on the banks of the Rhine.

There are 406 known examples of these flat surfaces of schist, a metamorphic rock that can be easily split into thin plates or plaquettes. They feature engravings of various animals like mammoth and reindeer that were routinely hunted by the humans who occupied the camp during the Late Upper Paleolithic period. These specimens have already been extensively studied, but new and sophisticated imaging techniques including Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), have allowed for closer examination of the finest details, revealing “an intricate link between the drawings’ grid patterns and fish figures,” according to the paper’s authors.

Plaquette 355 of the Gönnersdorf schist plaquettes, which are believed to show engravings depicting fishing practices from the Stone Age. Image credit: Robitaille et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0.

The discovery of fish remains at several archaeological sites suggested that fish consumption was common in prehistoric societies, potentially contributing up to 50 percent of dietary protein. Depictions of fish in portable Upper Paleolithic art are therefore fairly common, although representations of fishing are much more rare and tend to feature active methods, like the use of spears.

Although some archaeological evidence suggests that nets and traps were also used for fishing, there is a notable lack of artistic representations of this fishing method. This makes this latest analysis of grid-like patterns particularly significant in deepening our understanding of how Paleothic societies employed a wide range of strategies to fish more efficiently, adapting their approach for certain species or times of year.

For example, the researchers propose that fishing nets would have been useful in targeting fish of specific sizes or for catching large quantities of fish during migratory periods.

Engraving of fish and gridlock structure on plaquette 282 from Gönnersdorf camp site in Germany. Image credit: Robitaille et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0.

The camp site Gönnersdorf is also known for the Venus figurines, Paleolithic sculptures made of carved bone, antler, and mammoth tusk that are remarkable as highly stylized representations of women’s bodies. These were excavated between 1968 and 1976, but the 2024 paper made some interesting observations about style based on the archaeologists’ more recent analysis of rock art from the region.

“Animal depictions from Gönnersdorf, in contrast to those of human females, are usually characterized by a high degree of naturalism, which is typical for the Late Magdalenian art of the region,” the authors noted. “The fish-and-grid scenes, however, are characterized by a minimalist and abstract style, with elongated and streamlined shapes focusing only on their essential forms and avoiding extraneous details.”

The simplicity of the Gönnersdorf fish depictions, coupled with the dominant depiction of traps/nets alongside the fish, suggests that the focus of these engravings was not on the fish as a subject per se, “but rather on the action of fishing, through the use of nets,” the researchers said. Further more, the authors hypothesized that the decision to depict the fish in this way suggests the “symbolic rather than naturalistic importance of these motifs”.