Tuna fishing history stretches far beyond the modern canning era, with people pursuing these powerful fish for tens of millennia. Today tunas underpin a global industry worth about US$40 billion annually, and bluefin specimens can command prices in the millions. Yet humanity’s connection to tuna, from everyday sandwiches to high-end sashimi, is rooted in a much older story.
Researchers specializing in biology and archaeology assembled a team of 18 experts to examine the long arc of human interactions with tunas. Drawing on archaeological tuna bones, rock art, frescoes, vase paintings, historical texts and Indigenous knowledge, the group mapped where, when and why communities caught tuna and how cultural and environmental forces shaped early fisheries. Their synthesis places today’s multimillion-ton harvests in the context of a deep past.
Tuna fishing history and an apex predator
“Tuna” refers to 15 species, including eight true tunas in the genus Thunnus and the widely traded skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis). These are among the largest predators of the open ocean, with some growing to nearly 10 feet, living more than four decades and making extraordinary migrations. Pacific bluefin, for example, can cross the northern Pacific, roughly 5,000 miles, within months. As apex predators, tunas are important indicators of ocean health. Scientific assessments, however, have largely emphasized the past 75 years, often benchmarking stocks to around 1950, leaving questions about earlier exploitation.
A deep and dynamic history
The earliest definitive evidence of tuna capture, likely skipjack, comes from East Timor about 44,000 years ago, where deepwater channels brought schools close to shore. Outside this unusual setting, most regions do not show clear signs of tuna fishing until about 10,000 years ago or later. In Japan and Korea, people were catching tuna at least 7,000 years ago, laying foundations for enduring culinary traditions and substantial harvests that persist today.
In the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, one of the world’s longest-running tuna fisheries developed around Atlantic bluefin. A handful of bones from a Neanderthal site in Gibraltar dating to roughly 26,000 years ago may indicate scavenging. By 9,000 to 11,000 years ago, thousands of tuna bones accumulated in a cave above Kiladha Bay in Greece, and after about 8,000 years ago, sites across Europe with tuna remains proliferate in the archaeological record.
Early fishers used hooks and lines, harpoons, traps and nets, often exploiting coastal topography to herd fish shoreward. Written accounts and artworks attest to tuna’s cultural prominence, including offerings to Poseidon in ancient Greece. By about 3,000 years ago, a commercial bluefin fishery was established in the Mediterranean, supported by specialized gear and trade networks. By the 16th and 17th centuries, annual catches may have reached tens of thousands of tons, enabled by predictable bluefin migrations and coastal access that obviated long oceanic voyages.
On North America’s northwest coast, especially in Nuu-chah-nulth territory, Indigenous communities maintained a sophisticated Pacific bluefin fishery for more than 5,000 years. Ethnographic accounts describe late-summer warm-water events when fishers ventured by night into fjords illuminated by bioluminescent plankton. With spotters on land and fires lit in canoes, they lured tuna within harpoon range, taking fish that could exceed 6 feet in length and weigh as much as 640 pounds. Bluefin vertebrae have been documented at 23 archaeological sites in the region.
In Southern California, Indigenous fishers around Santa Catalina Island harvested Pacific bluefin, yellowfin, albacore and skipjack for roughly 6,000 years, as reflected in site remains. Large-scale commercial and sport fisheries, however, arrived in the 19th and 20th centuries. Tuna’s popularity surged during World War I and World War II, with canneries in Los Angeles and San Diego serving as hubs. Japanese and Portuguese immigrant fishing communities played pivotal roles in expanding what became a global tuna industry.
Emergence of oceanic exploitation
The team compared ancient and modern harvest scales using counts of tuna bones in archaeological contexts as a proxy. Even the most intensive early fisheries, such as those in the Mediterranean, likely removed only thousands of tonnes over millennia. That output is minimal compared with today’s annual removals measured in millions of tons.
This disparity raises questions about the consequences of rapid expansion in oceanic exploitation and how best to manage tuna sustainably. Three commercially important species, southern bluefin, Pacific bluefin and bigeye, are still classified as endangered, vulnerable or near threatened. According to fisheries experts, some regions have stabilized tuna populations through a blend of governance, monitoring and harvest controls, even amid heavy fishing pressure.
Human ingenuity stands out across this timeline. For at least 44,000 years, people have devised ways to find, catch and share tunas, a relationship also reflected in art as well as food. That same capacity, applied through international cooperation and science-based management, could help keep global tuna stocks at sustainable levels, even if they are unlikely to return to precommercial abundance.