On the morning of the 28th of August, 1981, the founders of what was later to become the I.C.A.Z. Fish Remains Working Group (FRWG) met for the first time at the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen. The meeting, attended by 16 people (Table 1), took place at the request of a small group of scholars, notable among which were Inge Bodker and Knud Rosenlund of the host institution, which had for years felt the need for a more systematic analysis of fish bones retrieved (and often missed!) in archaeological sediments.

In retrospective, we can say that the Copenhagen Meeting was a truly productive one, both in terms of the nature (Appendix 1) and the treatment of issues. Introductory lectures were followed by a lengthy discussion open to all participants; such flexible, seminar-like contributions were regrettably lost in subsequent meetings, partly due to the drastic increase in the number of presentations. To compensate for this, starting with the second meeting, contributions became grouped into sessions of more or less similar content (Appendix 2). This arrangement was enhanced after the Stora Korno Meeting allowing the organizers to set up prioritary topics for each conference, but we had to wait until this past conference to watch one of the prioritary subjects (i.e., overfishing in the archaeological record) develop into a significant portion of the conference.

The main goal of the Copenhagen meeting has, nevertheless, been maintained over the years. This was the participants’ determination to create a true (and not just nominal!) working group, which encourages close contact among its members, and which would not only hold biennial meetings, but would also disseminate the information presented to the best of its ability while promoting contact with other groups, organisations and individuals both within and outside I.C.A.Z. The success of the <>, 14 years after its inception, has been so dramatic that it became a model for other Working Groups (in particular the Middle East and Bird Remains WG) and, perhaps, in the future, may pave the way as a model for a federal re- structuring of I.C.A.Z., which is undergoing a profound process of renewal at this very moment.

Turning to more mundane matters, the development of the FRWG seems to have been a mixture of gradual and punctuated processes (Table 1; Figure 1). After the initial Copenhagen <>, a second one exemplified by the Sophia Antipolis and Groningen conferences doubled the number of attendants and tripled the number of presentations (Appendix 2 & 3). The third pulse, starting with the York meeting and still ongoing, exhibited a gradual increase in the number of attendants doubling the number of contributions (Appendixes 4-7). One might argue that both the Leuven and Madrid meetings, by their sheer size, could be considered as a fourth incremental pulse but we would rather consider them from the perspective that the FRWG has not yet stabilized, but is simply gaining momentum, due to its dynamic nature and the decisiveness of its members.

Since one of the aims of the FRWG was to create a forum of debate for the discussion and standarization of techniques, presentations of methods have always made up a substantial portion of the contributions offered at each meeting (Table 2; Figure 2). The Copenhagen conference, as a matter of fact, was basically conceived as a colloquium on methods (Appendix 1) and, except for the Groningen, Schleswig and Leuven meetings, methodological papers always ranked at the top of the list of topics (Figure 2; Table 2; Appendixes 1-7). A pervasive pattern throughout these years has been the somewhat erratic rise in contributions which were neither methodological nor descriptive <> (i.e., the <> category in Figure and Table 2). Most contributions in this category are papers: a) dealing with fishing in the past, b) regional surveys; and c) the biology of fishes. By their very nature, a great many of these contributions include data from fields alien to archaeozoology and their progressive importance in succesive meetings testifies to the growing interdisciplinarity within archaeoichthyology as well as the willingness of the FRWG to incorporate new ideas, data and scholars.

Meetings of the FRWG have also been witness to important developments. One such instance was the Sophia Antipolis conference where Jean Desse presented a much needed initiative: the <> Project. Since then, the program has developed well beyond the realm of archaeoichthyology reaching rechearches in I.C.A.Z. and the natural sciences. At Copenhagen it was decided that the group should have a Newletter. Through the years, thanks to the generous and anonymous effort of its editors, Knud Rosenlund and Dirk Heinrich, the Newsletter has been instrumental in keeping the FRWG alive and in promoting joint research among its members (note how many papers from later meetings have been presented by research teams from more than one country!).

I strongly believe that the most remarkable aspect of all these achievements, which include the publication of the proceedings from all but one meeting by relevant publishers (CNRS, BAR, Offa, etc.), is the fact that they were achieved in an atmosphere of honest friendship. The FRWG has never had individual leadership, strong hierarchy or the like. It has never felt the temptation of pulling out or taking over anything. It simply does not need to do that to keep on being what it is, namely, a united and cohesive group of friends. That cohesiveness is the secret of its strength. No more, no less (but by no means a modest achievement!).

To conclude, I look to the future and I want to draw attention to the single criticism of the FRWG: its eurocentrism. For historical reasons, the fish group was born in Europe (though one of the <>, the late Hanan Lernau, was Israeli!) and the number of European members has traditionally outnumbered those from other continents (in the latest 4 newsletters we record 87 from Europe, 41 from the Americas, 6 from Asia, 1 from Africa and 4 from Australia and the Pacific). Logistics, in particular shortage of funds, have shaped a profound and, to a certain extent, unfair, asymmetry: all eight meetings have been held in Europe. This has prevented a lot of colleagues within the FRWG from attending even a single meeting. At this meeting Elisabeth Reitz and Elisabeth Wing were prevented from attending at the last minute but, at least, we can feel proud that many Americans and even Foss Leach and Atholl Anderson, from our Spanish antipodes, could finally make it. On the horizon we have Panama. The 1997 meeting will hopefully constitute a landmark for the FRWG which is dangerously leaning into an strictly EFRWG (i.e., european FRWG) much to my general regret. I therefore want to end these remarks by telling all our non-European friends: come’n boys, it’s your turn now! Happy meeting! Thank you!

TABLE 1: Main features of the eight I.C.A.Z. Fish Remains Working Group meetings. Presentations in brackets refer to posters.

TABLE 2: The presentations at the various Fish Remains Working Group meetings arranged according to content.