Stone Age salmon dwarfed modern equivalents
According to BBC News, scientists at Swansea University have compared the backbones of 30 Atlantic salmon and brown trout specimens unearthed in Spain, with those of modern day fish.
Swansea professor Carlos Garcia de Leaniz joined Dr Pablo Turrero and Prof Eva Garcia-Vazquez from the University of Oviedo, in Spain in the study, which has been published in the scientific journal Royal Society Open Science.
The study concludes the size of salmon and trout caught by Upper Palaeolithic fishermen were much larger than today's fish and their size decreased rapidly from approximately 12,000 years ago.
A Swansea University spokeswoman told BBC News: "The most obvious explanation is the overexploitation of large fish by ancient fishermen, though changes in the productivity of aquatic habitats cannot be ruled out."
