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Nile tilapia can reach about 60 cm in length and 4–5 kg in weight
In natural populations.

The species is hardy, tolerant of low oxygen, and reproduces readily
Females mouth-brood eggs and young, which made the fish common in natural freshwater habitats.

The presence of these freshwater fish are less generally documented before the Bronze Age
Due to sparse recovery and analysis of fish bones from early Levantine sites; most systematic fish studies focus on the Bronze Age and later.

Gilthead sea bream fish were traded, and later nile fish as part of inter-regional commerce

Given its mouth-brooding behavior, Nile tipalia are depicted in Egypt and art, and featured in tomb reliefs and hieroglyphs
The fish are often associated with regeneration and rebirth.

How were they caught:
Nets and traps: commonly used in shallow waters.
Hooks/lines, and spears: likely in more open channels.

Early fish would have been cooked over open fire, probably with available staples such as flatbread, legumes, and animal fats

They were a reliable food source: abundant, easy to catch in shallow freshwater.

Its believed transplanation between basins and aquacultures was after the neolithic era.

Native to much of Africa & parts of the Middle East. Including the Jordan Valley & Levantine rivers. Nile tilapia, or oreochromis niloticus, are cool freshwater cichlid (fish) dating to the neolithic. Check it out with some more neolithic architecture today.

Bibliography: Fish remains from archaeological sites as indicators of former trade connections in the eastern mediterranean W. VanNeer, O. Lernau, R. Friedman, G. Mumford, J. Poblome and M. Waelkens : Archaeozoology, Fish, Trade, Eastern Mediterranean, Ichthyology. Mots Clefs : Archéozoologie, Poissons, Commerce, Méditerranée orientale, Ichtyologie.

Nico, L.G.; P.J. Schofield; M.E. Neilson (2019). “Oreochromis niloticus (Linnaeus, 1758)” (http://www.fao.org/fishery/culturedspecies/Oreochromis_niloticus/en). Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nation

public library of science. (n.d.). Fish in the Sahara? Yes, in the early Holocene. https://phys.org/news/2020-02-fish-sahara-early-holocene.html

Bar-Yosef, Daniella. Marine Resources in the Early Neolithic of the Levant: Their Relevance to Early Seafaring.