For those of you who read my earlier blog post, as promised I did some follow up research about stone fishing weights. I found out that they make up a large proportion of the ancient fishing equipment found at archaeological sites. The presence of stone weights (or other indicators of ancient fishing such as other fishing equipment, watchtowers, fish remains, etc) can be used to determine the type of fishing that occurred during ancient times. A large amount of evidence may indicate that fishing was a part of a major export. Less evidence present might indicate that fishing was merely a way to provide food for local consumption. The two stone weights that we found at Boztepe would probably have been used on a dragging net. Lighter clay weights were used for throwing nets. -Liz

See Jakob Munk Hojte’s article “The Archaeological Evidence for Fish Processing in the Black Sea Region” for more information.