Editing Kelp (section)

==In culture==
[[File:Scuba diver in kelp forest.jpg|thumb|upright=.9|Scuba diver in kelp forest]]

Some of the earliest evidence for human use of marine resources, coming from Middle Stone Age sites in South Africa, includes the harvesting of foods such as [[abalone]], [[limpet]]s, and [[mussel]]s associated with kelp forest habitats.

In 2007, Erlandson et al. suggested that kelp forests around the Pacific Rim may have facilitated the dispersal of anatomically modern humans following a coastal route from Northeast Asia to the Americas. This "kelp highway hypothesis" suggested that highly productive kelp forests supported rich and diverse marine food webs in nearshore waters, including many types of fish, shellfish, birds, marine mammals, and seaweeds that were similar from Japan to California, Erlandson and his colleagues also argued that coastal kelp forests reduced wave energy and provided a linear dispersal corridor entirely at sea level, with few obstacles to maritime peoples. Archaeological evidence from California's Channel Islands confirms that islanders were harvesting kelp forest shellfish and fish, beginning as much as 12,000 years ago.

During the [[Highland Clearances]], many Scottish Highlanders were moved on to areas of estates known as [[crofting|crofts]], and went to industries such as fishing and kelping (producing soda ash from the ashes of kelp). At least until the 1840s, when there were steep falls in the price of kelp, landlords wanted to create pools of cheap or virtually free labour, supplied by families subsisting in new crofting townships. Kelp collection and processing was a very profitable way of using this labour, and landlords petitioned successfully for legislation designed to stop emigration. The profitability of kelp harvesting meant that landlords began to subdivide their land for small tenant kelpers, who could now afford higher rent than their gentleman farmer counterparts.<ref>J. M. Bumsted, The People's Clearance: Highland Emigration to British North America, 1770-1815, 1981</ref> But the economic collapse of the kelp industry in northern [[Scotland]] during the 1820s led to further emigration, especially to [[North America]].{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

Natives of the [[Falkland Islands]] are sometimes [[nickname]]d "[[Kelpers]]".<ref>[http://www.allwords.com/word-Kelper.html] allwords.com definition for "Kelper",</ref><ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kelper] dictionary.com definition for "Kelper"</ref> This designation is primarily [[Exonym|applied by outsiders rather than the natives themselves]].

In Chinese [[slang]], "kelp" ({{zh|p=hǎi dài|s=海带|t=海帶}}), is used to describe an unemployed returnee.{{clarify|date=May 2018}} It has negative overtones, implying the person is drifting aimlessly, and is also a homophonic expression ({{zh|p=hǎidài|c=海待|links=no}}, literally "sea waiting"). This expression is contrasted with the employed returnee, having a dynamic ability to travel across the ocean: the "sea turtle" ({{zh|s=海龟|t=海龜|p=hǎi gūi|links=no}}) and is also homophonic with another word ({{zh|s=海归|t=海歸|p=hǎi gūi|links=no}}, literally "sea return").