The blue whales had been investing their funds in industrial technology, and the Medieval Icelanders did not like that. This unfortunate event delayed the Industrial Revolution by centuries.
Per Occam’s Razor, this is the most likely explanation. The title can be fixed with a simple comma, instead of some multi-character, multi-syllable word like “before”.
Interesting timing to see this since today/yesterday saw a headline about a cruise ship coming in to port with a dead whale stuck to the bow.
We’ve come from “losing 5 spears in a day and giving up whale hunting” to killing them accidentally.
From a purely historical lens whale hunting in a small boat is one of the most extreme things I can imagine. The closest I’ve physically come to whales is sailing and hearing a pod breathing while swimming past - I was scared since the unexpected sound was quite loud and deep.
Just spit balling here but interesting to think of whales “hunting humans” as we’ve seen them start taking out more pleasure craft around Europe (and elsewhere?) in the past few years. Would be curious to “hear” their side of history!
I did a whale watching tour from Húsavík last year on a cranky old boat. We found one but the poor thing was asleep apparently, just surfacing every few minutes to breathe. Immediately buzzed by about 5 boats full of people every time it surfaced, two pictured here: https://imgur.com/a/g4em6sc . I think I'd be in the mood to tip a fishing boat after that every day.
There was an orca (technically not a whale) on the west coast of canada that famously ripped fishfinders off the bottoms of boats. Evidently it didn't like their noise. But it wasn't just the active ones. It found and ripped them off parked boats too.
I did the same in Husavik some... 8 years ago in wintery conditions (april iirc, inland was completely inpassable and even ring road had heaps of snow) and they were fine, we saw plenty of them and pretty active (mostly mink whales). Maybe bad luck or they are quite seasonal?
https://archive.org/details/map-1539
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The map is truly a historical marvel. Especially at higher resolutions, can see many country details around the Baltics and Scandinavia, down to Poland, and part of Scotland and England.
Strange animals and details of different warfare.
"Ólafur appears to have developed a personal kinship with the whale, choosing not to try to kill her again. But he had no problem shooting the whale’s calf. One summer, when he raised his spear and took aim at the calf, his spear went askew, hitting the mother instead.
With that, he’d had enough. That was the last time Ólafur speared a whale."
A mother's love is unconditional like 99% of the time regardless of the species and humans are more or less the same across culture, time and space 99% of the time :(
does anyone ever think about a less vicious world? like I know evolution / survival of the fittest all that is a thing but did it have to be like this? Could we have evolved without killing?
Readit News
"Medieval Icelanders were likely hunting blue whales long industrial technology"
Seems they were trying to hunt industrial tech from whales. I guess a "before" went missing before "industrial"?
> New research suggests that medieval Icelanders were scavenging and likely even hunting blue whales long before industrial whaling technology
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"You shot 290,000 pounds of food, but were only able to carry 100 pounds back."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3638853.stm
From a purely historical lens whale hunting in a small boat is one of the most extreme things I can imagine. The closest I’ve physically come to whales is sailing and hearing a pod breathing while swimming past - I was scared since the unexpected sound was quite loud and deep.
Just spit balling here but interesting to think of whales “hunting humans” as we’ve seen them start taking out more pleasure craft around Europe (and elsewhere?) in the past few years. Would be curious to “hear” their side of history!
I did a whale watching tour from Húsavík last year on a cranky old boat. We found one but the poor thing was asleep apparently, just surfacing every few minutes to breathe. Immediately buzzed by about 5 boats full of people every time it surfaced, two pictured here: https://imgur.com/a/g4em6sc . I think I'd be in the mood to tip a fishing boat after that every day.
It is in latin tho, and created in Rome. It is the oldest "complete" map where scandinavia is depicted with any kind of accuracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carta_marina
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A macabre kinship that involved spearing her calf. And eventually, killing the female whale herself while trying to kill her calf again.
"Ólafur appears to have developed a personal kinship with the whale, choosing not to try to kill her again. But he had no problem shooting the whale’s calf. One summer, when he raised his spear and took aim at the calf, his spear went askew, hitting the mother instead.
With that, he’d had enough. That was the last time Ólafur speared a whale."
does anyone ever think about a less vicious world? like I know evolution / survival of the fittest all that is a thing but did it have to be like this? Could we have evolved without killing?
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