[HN Gopher] An underwater mystery on Canada's coast
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An underwater mystery on Canada's coast
Author : Thevet
Score : 213 points
Date : 2021-10-17 04:33 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| giantg2 wrote:
| I remember learning about fish traps similar to these. They used
| a similar design but with modern nets in the Chesapeake. Not sure
| what the timeframe was for their use or if they are still used
| today.
| Noam-grin wrote:
| Cool
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| Hi, I see you are new here, so I want to spend a minute
| explaining HN comments, before you get voted down to oblivion
| by other users...
|
| The community tends to vote down comments that add no value to
| the conversation, or are simply single word responses.
|
| The FAQ has some good pointers:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Hope this helps, and welcome to HN! :)
| throwaway20875 wrote:
| Not included in article: photos relevant to the actual mysteries.
| djmips wrote:
| see top post
| peter_retief wrote:
| There are a number of fish traps along the coast of Southern
| Africa http://fynbosstrand.yolasite.com/visvywers.php
| satori99 wrote:
| They exist all over Australia too. Some of them are thought to
| be amongst the oldest examples of human construction on Earth.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewarrina_Aboriginal_Fish_Tra...
| peter_retief wrote:
| Really interesting, the history of humans is constantly
| surprising.
| mrfusion wrote:
| What's the line of sticks down the middle with no fencing on it
| for?
| iamshs wrote:
| Probably to direct more fish into the trap, which otherwise
| would've swam to the other side totally oblivious of the trap.
| Efficiency is increased by that middle fence.
|
| Edited to add excerpt from the original paper.
|
| >A leader set in a linear direction more or less perpendicular
| to the shore so that fish approaching the leader turn and are
| guided toward deeper water and the trap; a leader that bisects
| the trap's entrance to allow fish to enter the enclosure from
| either side of the fence (i.e., on a rising or a falling tide);
| a pair of bilaterally-positioned wings that form a V-shaped
| funnel entry to concentrate and redirect fish toward the trap
| enclosure's entrance; and an entrance which incorporates
| species specific design characteristics (i.e., the width of the
| entrance and non-return devices) to only allow certain types of
| schooling fish to easily enter the enclosure and, once inside,
| prevent their escape.
| mandmandam wrote:
| > Here, the Kwakwaka'wakw People built monumental rock walls,
| large enough to be seen from space
|
| I can see a sidewalk from space by opening Google Earth. I
| propose we kill that expression.
|
| The BBC also neglect to mention imminent climactic changes and
| the effect warming will have on local fish; rather important
| context looking forward.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Local reporting with much better pictures, diagrams and even a
| locally-produced podcast.
|
| https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/the-ingenious-ancient...
| mizzao wrote:
| Great article. It strikes me that this system of fishing is far
| more efficient and environmentally sustainable than the ocean-
| going ships we use these days. After all, here the fish just
| come to you!
| angelzen wrote:
| Fish traps have been in use all around the world for
| millennia.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_trap
| ncmncm wrote:
| Fish traps are common. Sea gardens, less so.
| cfn wrote:
| This should be the link at the top. The BBC article doesn't
| even have a picture of the remnants of the stakes!
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| BBC News articles are mostly now written by AI pulling from
| other newsfeeds. It's only really good enough for the 80% who
| don't actually care about news, information, or actually
| learning anything.
| dzdt wrote:
| Source? If a major respected journalism outfit was using AI
| to generate stories I think that would be news itself, and
| I haven't heard it, outside of the corner-case of within-
| seconds earthquake reporting.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| - https://wan-ifra.org/2021/06/how-bbc-news-labs-uses-ai-
| power...
|
| - https://artificialintelligence-news.com/2017/10/19/bbc-
| ai-im...
|
| - https://techhq.com/2019/12/machines-wrote-the-bbcs-uk-
| electi...
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| None of this of course even remotely addresses the false
| (and, to any tech incined person who reads the BBC and
| has seen the state of AI-generated content) patently
| absurd claim you made that BBC News articles are "now
| mostly written by AI".
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| Yeah maybe I was hyperbolic in my wording, but in my
| defense, most of the articles DO read like an AI hacked
| them together.
| quesera wrote:
| > BBC News articles are mostly now written by AI pulling
| from other newsfeeds.
|
| ...bold assertion challenged...
|
| > Yeah maybe I was hyperbolic in my wording, but in my
| defense, most of the articles DO read like an AI hacked
| them together.
|
| That's really not OK.
|
| Your first comment was not written as an opinion or
| speculation.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ap-expands-
| relation...
|
| > The Associated Press has selected Data Skrive as its
| preferred platform for automated sports and gambling
| content. The increased breadth of content provides AP
| customers more inventory of local-focused sports and
| gambling news. The AP expects the expansion of content to
| help both small and large publishers attract new
| subscribers and grow audience.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/business/media/artific
| ial...
|
| > Roughly a third of the content published by Bloomberg
| News uses some form of automated technology. The system
| used by the company, Cyborg, is able to assist reporters
| in churning out thousands of articles on company earnings
| reports each quarter.
|
| > The program can dissect a financial report the moment
| it appears and spit out an immediate news story that
| includes the most pertinent facts and figures. And unlike
| business reporters, who find working on that kind of
| thing a snooze, it does so without complaint.
|
| > In addition to covering company earnings for Bloomberg,
| robot reporters have been prolific producers of articles
| on minor league baseball for The Associated Press, high
| school football for The Washington Post and earthquakes
| for The Los Angeles Times.
|
| > Last week, The Guardian's Australia edition published
| its first machine-assisted article, an account of annual
| political donations to the country's political parties.
| And Forbes recently announced that it was testing a tool
| called Bertie to provide reporters with rough drafts and
| story templates.
|
| It's all over the place now.
| 542458 wrote:
| From what I've seen of the tech, "assist" is the operant
| word here. It's more like those article summary bots or a
| template fill-in-the-blank rather than something like
| GPT-2 that's generating entirely novel phrases. A human
| still has to go in and make the text flow, correct things
| that don't make sense, add good hooks, and (of course) an
| enticing title. The text isn't "mostly written" by a bot
| - it's still text that a human wrote, although it may
| have been summarized or had details populated by a bot.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Depends on the category. Here's an automated high school
| sports article that likely never had a human touch it.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/allmetsports/2017-fall/gam
| es/...
| 542458 wrote:
| That's the sort of fill-in-the-blank thing I'm talking
| about. It does data ingest from a very structured source
| (sports scores, financial reports, weather) and populates
| a pre-written template. But... the article is dull as
| dirt (so you'd only use it as a starting point, or for
| relatively low-value content), and it only works for
| things with very structured data. This almost certainly
| isn't the case with the OP article, or most reporting you
| read on a day-to-day basis.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Thanks. Wow, what a beautifully done online-magazine. (A ~ 20
| person operation)
|
| RSS Feeds: [https://www.hakaimagazine.com/rss-feeds/]
|
| Lots of YT videos too.
| [https://www.youtube.com/c/HakaiMagazine/videos]
| TheCycoONE wrote:
| And for a really deep dive the 2015 paper:
| https://www.academia.edu/23327812/The_Comox_Harbour_Fish_Tra...
| zoomablemind wrote:
| Not sure which is the primary source (BBC is very much likely),
| but [1] gives more details on the look of the stake sites, the
| discovered locations, and most intriguingly (for myself) the
| supposed design of the fish traps.
|
| [1]: https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-
| archaeology/fir...
| cassepipe wrote:
| Yes, but [1] also seems to be the kind of websites that
| promotes mystical/conspirational stuff about how the
| aliens/atlants actually built the pyramids with state-of-the-
| art alien tech and how they already had batteries, aircrafts...
| Although they will never say it out loud, you have to watch the
| documentaries until the end. The conspirational part is how the
| egyptologist/archeologist lobby try prevent us from the knowing
| the truth. The video editing and false truthes in them also
| look like any other conspiracy-theory video. It's innocuous but
| had to be noted.
| zoomablemind wrote:
| > ... Yes, but [1] also seems to be the kind of websites that
| promotes mystical/conspirational stuff...
|
| I can't vouch for the site [1] itself, I just wish the BBC
| Travel article was more illustrative about the subject, it
| kept me wondering what the described staked fish traps were
| supposed to look like.
| markdown wrote:
| Someone I know recently posted a photo of similar structures in
| use in Kiribati. They're made with rocks instead of wooden poles
| though.
|
| https://twitter.com/mytagimoucia/status/1445189713535528961
| vmception wrote:
| Reading this and the talk about how "surprising" it is reminds me
| of how I've been researching British Columbia's relationship with
| First Nations people, and this research extended to other people
| in the Pacific Northwest under the US system.
|
| My takeaway is that everything about this is heavily
| misunderstood.
|
| As CPG Grey also concluded, the entire concept is overinclusive,
| to its detriment. As we squabble between terms like indigenous,
| First Nations, native American, Indian, we are missing that these
| are all distinct cultures and there is no overarching grouping
| really possible. Each distinct group has its own name, own
| customs, _own case law_ and enjoyed its own sovereignty at one
| point, and should be addressed by the name of their people, at
| the same standard we distinguish people by country or religion.
|
| British Columbia is uniquely addressing this, with rights
| conveyances group by group. But it is a very long way from being
| closer to accurate. I think accelerating this relies on non First
| Nations people understanding that there is no overarching term
| possible (I dare say, including "First Nations") and that the map
| of North America should be dotted with microstates just like
| Europe is
| rendall wrote:
| > _As we squabble between terms like indigenous, First Nations,
| native American, Indian, we are missing that these are all
| distinct cultures and there is no overarching grouping really
| possible._
|
| I agree; and moreover about the terms "white" and "black".
| Using these terms as if they actually refer to something in
| common beyond melanin level elides the true and magnificent
| variety of human cultural expression and historical diversity.
|
| White for example refers to peoples as different as Appalachian
| descendants of Scottish Reavers as well as Berber royalty,
| among thousands of other cultures and heritages. Black,
| likewise, refers to peoples as different as African-Americans
| as well as to elite descendents of millenia-old Malian and
| west-African dynasties; among thousands of other heritages and
| cultures.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> that the map of North America should be dotted with
| microstates
|
| So who gets which microstate? Which point in history should be
| selected as _the_ point whereby the name of the resident people
| is attached to a particular patch of land? These peoples moved
| around, they migrated and conquered one another for millennia.
| Does the arrival of Europeans suddenly lock them into whatever
| territory they had at the moment of first contact? Making the
| groups smaller risks dividing communities and cutting off
| people from the most lucrative claims processes. I 'm sure the
| people of northern BC don't want to be cut off from the claims
| in the south, the claims involving the most valuable lands.
|
| BC, and Canada more widely, is struggling to determine who
| should even be at the table to negotiate. Traditional
| territories overlap. Blood claims are often based on shaky
| evidence. Something as slim as a single forged letter can
| expand or contract a community by thousands. If treaties or
| settlements are going to be signed, by who? Are the people in
| charge of various groups today in any better position to sign
| permanent deals than their ancestors were a few hundred years
| ago? We are generations away from any real conclusion to these
| issues.
| vmception wrote:
| I agree on all points.
|
| Another time overinclusivity rears its head is when people
| get vicariously offended for _all_ indigenous people when
| they see someone wearing a headdress. One tribe says its
| ceremonial, can another tribe license it out ...
| _commercially_ ... and all is fine? The same question as you,
| who gets to sign the contract, who has a say? How do you know
| the person wearing the headdress at a festival is breaking a
| relevant rule, or if they arent of a tribe, or if they
| _didnt_ get permission - you cant tell by skin color or any
| phenotype so who gets to say - , and so on and so forth.
|
| The consensus making process is completely broken because
| even the most progressive and sensitive people are doing an
| extremely insensitive overgrouping.
| [deleted]
| angelzen wrote:
| Europe is far from being dotted with microstates. There are a
| handful of relics, but most of Europe has been unified under
| some larger nation state. For a historical perspective, a
| political map of pre-1800 Germany with 'up to 350 states':
| https://twitter.com/weird_hist/status/1260451732221542400
| vmception wrote:
| I think that neither enhances or dilutes my point.
|
| Modern microstates are the nearest analog. But they are on
| more kinds of maps, lists of countries, and the people
| currently on reservations should have something more similar
| to that.
| angelzen wrote:
| Modern Europe is not a good comparison. Something like
| Papua-New Guinea is probably closer. Not even sure how far
| into Europe's past one needs to go to find an ethno-
| political system similar to B.C. circa 1800. Medieval
| Europe? The era of Greek city states?
|
| https://www.muturzikin.com/cartesoceanie/oceanie2.htm
| vmception wrote:
| Sure, I'll bite: how would you describe Papau-New
| Guinea's system in a way that could quickly convey an
| enhancement to what the reservation and other treaties
| around North America, since "Microstate like Europe"
| doesn't convey that - to some
| angelzen wrote:
| To the best of my understanding, B.C. circa 1800 can be
| described as 'patchwork of sovereign micro-ethnic groups
| in rugged terrain'
|
| Europe microstates: Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican,
| Liechtenstein, Faeroe, maybe Iceland and Luxembourg.
| Relics of times long past, historical curiosities.
|
| Papua NewGuinea: 832 living languages, presumably each
| with an independent history tracing hundreds if not
| thousands of years. Most of them with <3k speakers each.
| The largest ones with <250k speakers.
|
| https://www.languagesgulper.com/eng/Papuan.html
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> B.C. circa 1800 can be described as 'patchwork of
| sovereign micro-ethnic groups in rugged terrain
|
| So was Appalachia at that time. So too were the expanses
| of Russia. So too was even Ireland. Pretty much every
| 17/1800s settled territory without a nearby railroad was
| composed of tightly-knit micro-ethic groupings. That
| doesn't meant they were not also part of a larger nation.
| geenew wrote:
| Roads and canals do fine for knitting together a nation
| in the cultural and political sense of the word, and for
| enforcing/dispensing all the fruits of central
| government. Europe in the early 1800s was less
| homogeneous than today, perhaps, but it's strange to
| claim that areas without nearby rail service were a
| 'patchwork of sovereign micro-ethnic groups'.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| And in places like BC, the water network linked everyone.
| geenew wrote:
| It didn't link everyone into centrally run sovereign
| nation states, though, which I thought was what we were
| talking about.
| closewith wrote:
| That's definitely not true of Ireland in the 19th or even
| 18th century. Nothing could be farther from the truth -
| Ireland at that time was a centrally (and externally)
| managed state much closer to a modern state than anything
| described in this thread.
| vmception wrote:
| And how would that mix with losing to a more powerful
| group which has diplomatic consensus with the rest of the
| world while maintaining sovereignty and trade with the
| more powerful winner?
|
| I am not seeing how recognizing Papua-New Guinea's
| language history addresses that? I'm not familiar with
| how its governed or if it has to balance cultures,
| resources and property with an imperial force that merely
| tolerates everyone else.
| angelzen wrote:
| Can't help with that. I'm interested in ethno-geography.
| Here's a nice map of early XIX century Coast Salish micro
| ethnic groups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_Salish
| #/media/File:Coast...
| dsomers wrote:
| This is kind of debatable through, sure there are national
| laws, and even EU wide laws. However, Germany has its states,
| Berlin has different laws than Hamburg for certain things,
| same as Italy and Spain have their regions with various
| levels of autonomy. Every municipality all over Europe has
| control of some of its local laws, too. We don't just have
| one European wide law, or even German wide law for every
| aspect of law.
| angelzen wrote:
| Sure, but not every small town has a distinct language and
| distinct set of laws. The OP talks about "food security for
| an estimated 10,000-12,000 K'omoks People", unclear that
| the K'omoks ethnic group was much larger than 10k.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%27%C3%B3moks
| Kluny wrote:
| On Vancouver island where the Komoks people lived, there
| certainly was a distinct language and culture and
| possibly laws for probably half a dozen or more groups.
| On the island alone, I (a white person), know of the
| Songhees, Lekwungen, Tsartslip, Tsawout, Wsanec,
| Cowichan, Pacheedaht, Ucluelet, and Homalco nations. All
| those are local to the island and have their own
| languages and traditions.
|
| Point being that there can be a surprising number of
| micronations in a very small area.
| vmception wrote:
| Regarding your disclaimer, wouldn't it be more apt to say
| "someone with no Komoks blood" or "a white person that
| also has no First Nation lineage" the latter if you also
| want the affect of your disclaimer. I'm thinking its a
| pretty distinctly North American experience for people of
| any color to have some First Nation/indigenous/local
| heritage. At least for the black and white people that
| have been here for 200-600 years.
|
| this is more so curiosity than a correction.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Just like every county in the US can have different laws.
| An example might be sales tax rates in Florida.
|
| Maybe the top poster should say that the map of North
| America should be dotted with micro-states _like the USA_
| (maybe even like Canada, I don 't know)
|
| That way it wouldn't sound like an American trying to paint
| Europe as some kind of parochial backwater of medieval
| fiefdoms.
| dsomers wrote:
| Yeah, he definitely did not word it well. I'm from
| Canada, and how you describe it as North America having
| micro states is also kind of true. There are states,
| territories and provinces, across North America with a
| lot of local control, but there are also local native
| reservations that have a lot of sovereignty. For example,
| there are plenty of tribal lands close to where I grow up
| that have completely separate laws from the provenance
| that they are in, they deal directly with the federal
| government and even do their own policing. Although you
| almost never see those boarders on maps, there's a strong
| argument that they're a type of micro state, and Canada
| probably has multiple dozens of them if not hundreds with
| different languages and laws.
| vmception wrote:
| > trying to paint Europe as some kind of parochial
| backwater of medieval fiefdoms
|
| no idea how you got "parochial backwater" from
| "microstate", it bothers you way more than it should
|
| some of the most impressive, highly developed, secular,
| constitutional republics are microstates. whatever you
| associate the word with is not what I associate the word
| with.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Until recently, the sophisticated technology had been
| overlooked by Western science.
|
| This feels like an overstatement. Fish traps are a very well-
| understood technology, and we've always known coastal people used
| them. This discovery is significant because of its scale, and how
| _the site itself_ was overlooked, not because it represents
| evidence of previously-ignored technology.
| Kluny wrote:
| Rtfa
| karaterobot wrote:
| I literally quoted the article.
| billfruit wrote:
| BBCs headlines leave much to be desired. They dont want to
| summarise the article in the headline, they merely want to pique
| the readers interest.
| mhh__ wrote:
| They also edit them to something more detailed after a few
| hours sometimes, slightly devious.
| arpa wrote:
| If anything, headlines like these make me avoid clicking. My
| attention is a scarce resource. I'm not going to read through a
| longform (unless it's from damninteresting.com - but I
| purposefully go there for longform trivia) if I have no idea of
| the longforms' relevance to my current interests.
| 0xTJ wrote:
| I usually try to avoid clicking them out of spite. I'm sure
| that they've found that it overall increases viewership,
| otherwise they wouldn't do it, but I hate that this is what
| news is now.
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