4-Oceans – A Human History of Marine Life c.100 BCE to c.1860 CE
European Observatory
4-OCEANS aims to assess the importance of marine life for human societies during the last two millennia, up to the age of fishing under steam-power. We contend that the harvest of marine resources played a critical, but as yet underappreciated and poorly understood, role in global history. To bridge this gap in our understanding, the project includes an interdisciplinary team combining expertise in historical archaeology, marine environmental history, climate history, natural history, geography, historical ecology, ancient DNA, radiocarbon dating and zooarchaeology. We will examine when and where marine exploitation was of significance to human society; how selected major socio-economic, cultural, and environmental forces variously constrained and enabled marine exploitation; and identify the consequences of marine resource exploitation for societal development and the oceans. Through these objectives we will discover how marine resources as novel wealth altered societies throughout history. How might marine wealth have enabled some societies to escape food shortages? How did it trigger long-term socio-economic impacts and ecological consequences? How were marine resources valued, consumed, and energetically transformed?
To learn more about 4-OCEANS visit the project website @ https://www.tcd.ie/tceh/4-oceans/.
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