World's Oldest Fish Trap Found Near Sweden

Marine archaeologists have discovered fishing traps they think were constructed around 9,000 years ago. "This is the world's oldest find when it comes to fishing," says one expert. The researchers found the remnants of seven wooden traps on the Baltic Sea bed off Sweden, reports the BBC. The artifacts consist of sticks believed to once be components of basket traps.

They may have been used as a "sort of fence to lead the fish into a creel or they were part of the actual creel," says one of the archaeologists. The pieces were discovered in an underwater ancient river valley near Sweden's southern coast, and carbon dating revealed one of the traps to be about 9,000 years old, notes AP. (More fishing stories.)