Strandlopers

How did I get into anthropology Well, I'm not an anthropologist, not trained in it anyway. In fact, I'm a marine biologist, and it's more that I'm interested in the strandlopers, the beach walkers, if you like, than in anthropology generally. In fact, it was through my early interest in all things to do with the sea that I first heard of them. As a kid, my favourite pastime was getting down to the beach and mucking about in rock pools and collecting anything the sea tossed up, and the strandlopers lived off the sea and seashore, gathering food such as mussels, oysters, crabs, and so on, just as I did. So when I heard of them, I thought, Right, this is my kind of thing, and I felt a kind of, well, affinity for them. At first, people thought they were a myth, I suppose because there didn't seem to be much evidence for their existence, but now we do have archaeological evidence such as pottery, discarded shells, the bones of seals and large fish and so on, and those shells, we believe, became their first tools, and in some cases were also used as money and jewellery. Of course, before they had the implements, the tools to hunt and fish, everything had to be caught by hand, so they kept mostly to shallow water. Then they might have used a primitive form of fishing line, perhaps the tendril of a climbing plant, or a strip of animal skin with a bone or small piece of wood that would stick in the fish's throat. Anyway, the more we search, the more we discover. Most recently, caves on the coast have been discovered with ancient drawings. I find it endlessly fascinating.