In celebration of the ten-year anniversary of Paul Salopek's first steps on his Out of Eden Walk journey, this dispatch is now available for educational use in fifth- and eighth-grade reading levels. The original text is available as the default reading level, as well as on the Out of Eden Walk website.

By Paul Salopek

RABIGH, SAUDI ARABIA (11/5/2013)

In the Saudi Arabian city of Rabigh, the fish auctioneer sits atop a wooden stool in the souk, or market, and calls out the bids on the catch of the day. “35 riyals … 35 … 35 … 40 … 40 … 45 …” This antique chant sounds like some monotone prayer, or the repetitive cry of a shorebird. Bangladeshis and Indians who do the bulk of the fishing in Saudi Arabia—the number of catches is down, and many Saudi fishermen have given up—drag burlap sacks into the souk. They contain a few mackerel, an armful of barracuda, and a bushel of nagel, a prized grouper the color of fire that is now approaching commercial extinction. It’s all over in less than an hour.

In the beach town of Thuwal, an underemployed Saudi fisherman named Anwar al-Jahdali sang for me. The songs he sang were as old as the teakwood dhows, or boats, that once sailed through the Red Sea. The lyrics told of the forgotten names of winds, of lost love, of pleas to Allah for better fortune. Anwar couldn’t understand where the fish had gone. The government has closed prime fishing grounds, and still the hooks come up empty. He said the fish have “traveled somewhere else.” And I thought of my own years aboard fishing boats in the Indian Ocean and the North Atlantic, and how we thought we were special, superior, and free—the last hunter-gatherers in the post-industrial world. We raked Georges Bank until it became a desert.

Sixty thousand years ago, humans walked out of Africa and ate their way across the globe, digesting entire groups of animals. The seafood in the Red Sea, like edible fish everywhere, has vanished down our throats. Meanwhile, the endangered local fishermen of Saudi Arabia have attracted the attention of anthropologists. The University of Exeter in Britain has begun sending ethnographers to Saudi Arabian towns such as Thuwal and Rabigh. They will record the traditional songs of the Red Sea. “It is important,” the researchers say, “to capture the last true remnants of the songs of the sea”—before they become mere imitations.