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Paper short abstract:

The study focuses on historical relationships between catch rates and environmental factors in Ireland and England, with economic data used to assess socioeconomic pressures on marine life extraction. Fish consumption trends and adaptation strategies amid changing conditions are also explored.

Paper long abstract:

Marine transitions such as the medieval ‘fish event horizon’ or the 16th century ‘fish revolution’ were complex phenomena shaped by a complex interplay of environmental, social, economic and cultural factors all of which converged to reshape the relationship between humans and the sea. Changes in climate had significant impacts on fish populations, with changes in ocean currents, temperature and nutrients all influencing marine ecosystem productivity and biodiversity, while heavy exploitation of fish led to overfishing in many regions. These factors combined with urbanisation, political centralisation, shifting dietary practices, development of global trade networks and exploration created a perfect storm leading to a surge in demand for sea fish and it had profound economic, cultural and ecological implications. We present an initial case study of the historical relationship between catch rates and environmental drivers such as severe changes in temperature or precipitations (e.g., floods/storms, droughts) in Ireland and England to see when and where these factors had meaningful influence. At the same time, we use economic data such as fish prices that both reflect and influence demand to assess socioeconomic and political pressures on historic extractions of marine life such as herring and salmon, and their interactions with variations in natural abundance. We also use economic data to look at spatial and temporal patterns in fish consumptions to explore how human societies adapted to changing conditions in the past, which in turn can inform strategies for building and making informed decisions about ocean futures.

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Paper short abstract:

This study explores human-marine interactions in Sligo, NW Ireland, by targeting archaeological shell middens for field surveys and radiocarbon dating. Results reveal a complex interplay between humans and marine resources, from subsistence-level oyster harvesting to larger-scale utilisation.

Paper long abstract:

The study of long-term human-marine interactions often neglects the rich archaeological data present in coastal and intertidal settings. Here we present new findings from field surveys and a programme of radiocarbon dating targeting archaeological shell middens in County Sligo, NW Ireland. The research uncovers a temporal sequence of oyster exploitation and midden deposition that helps reconstruct a detailed account of human interaction with littoral resources through time.

Initial results indicate a multifaceted relationship between human communities and the marine environment, with evidence of both small scale subsistence activities and incremental steps toward larger-scale resource utilisation. These patterns suggest that marine resource exploitation in this region was a complex interplay between ecological availability and societal needs, illustrating the crucial role these activities played in supporting the local economy and communities. These localised practices juxtapose the larger commercial oyster cultivation and harvesting operations that developed elsewhere on the island but offer an equally vital lens to understanding the nuanced interplay between human societies and the marine environment.

By bridging the gap between local archaeological data and global environmental research agendas, this study hopes to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of marine transitions and their ecological and societal implications.

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Paper short abstract:

This study explores the opportunities for using a database structure to correlate and qualify anecdotal source material related to severe weather phenomena in the North Atlantic area in a way that allows for analysis of intensity and severity of severe weather events in the Early Modern period.

Paper long abstract:

This study explores the opportunities for using a database structure to correlate and qualify anecdotal source material related to severe weather phenomena in the North Atlantic area in a way that allows for analysis of intensity and severity of severe weather events in the Early Modern period (c. 1500-1850). The material has mainly been collected from catalogs and compilations, useful but often underexplored resources, on historical weather events. These would previously be regarded as second grade sources in comparison to climatological data extracted from ice cores, speleothems, pollen deposits, and dendrochronological records, due to their anecdotal nature. By integrating the information collected from these catalogs and compilations into a data framework, anecdotal information from adjacent regions can be intercorrelated, which in turn can qualify or reject the individual piece of information. Correlating the information across regions allows for the integration of various independent sources on a given weather event, both qualifying that the event did take place as stated by the source, while also providing information on the spatial impact of the given event. The study proposes systematic and statistical models for exploring variations in intensity and severity of these past severe weather events. A case study on intensity and severity of storm surges and flooding in the North Sea area in the Early Modern period is presented to demonstrate this approach.

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Paper short abstract:

Harmful algal bloom (HAB) events occur since records begun. Rapid growth of HABs can be triggered by extreme weather events like floods or drought. This paper investigates historical HAB events, where and when they happened and how they affected livelihoods of coastal communities in past times.

Paper long abstract:

Commonly, the explosive growth in phytoplankton is an essential event for the marine food web that takes place in the spring/early summer. It is the food source for the marine pelagic ecosystem. By harnessing sunlight and nutrients phytoplankton turns inorganic material into organic matter which provides nourishment to all higher trophic levels. Only 2% of algae species are harmful or toxic capable of killing fish, other aquatic animals, mammals, birds and, rarely, humans.

These harmful algal bloom (HAB) events occur since records begun. The bible describes the “First Plague” of Egypt, that “turned the Nile River red” which is consistent with a red tide event. Frequently, we find anecdotal evidence of HABs and scientific journal articles on the topic start as early as 1672. Descriptions include the abnormal behaviour or deaths of dogs, cattle and birds after drinking water from lakes exhibiting a “hairy efflorescence”.

Rapid growth of harmful phytoplankton is a result of multiple factors, including high water temperatures, high light penetration and slow water movement. Extreme weather events can trigger HABs like cyclones, floods or drought usually when high nutrient concentrations are present. This paper identifies and investigates historical HAB events during the last two millennia, where and to what magnitude they happened, if they can be linked to extreme weather events and how they affected livelihoods of coastal fishing communities in past times.

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Paper short abstract:

A case study into Hawaiian demographic trends from 1-2022 CE opens up opportunities for examining Marine Transitions that have occurred across the archipelago and the implications for societies and ecologies.

Paper long abstract:

To determine how ecologies and societies transformed and impacted Marine Transitions, we must establish an understanding of past human population trends in coastal regions. As a precursor to developing a global demographic series, we present a case study for the archipelago of Hawaii, revealing novel population insights through the era of human settlement on the islands, c 1000 - 2022 CE. The methodology employed for deriving our population estimates is described and the implications for past marine exploitation across the islands are also discussed.

This work is based on the latest research and consideration of multiple academic and statistical sources in the fields of history, archaeology and demographic studies. The marine impact of human settlement and exploitation requires population estimates to provide the basis for quantitative assessment and enumeration of past marine extractions. Through developing population series, our work can contribute to assessing when and where Marine Transitions were occurring in Pacific marine environments. Furthermore, this case study offers a template for expanding demographic research to surrounding Polynesian Islands, and into the larger Oceania.

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Paper short abstract:

This presentation addresses the importance of the long-term capture and extraction of fur seals and sea lions in Southern Africa, grounded on an extensive literature review on the local pinnipeds.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to call attention on the long-term extraction of pinnipeds in Southern Africa. To this purpose a literature review has been conducted looking for studies with quantitative information about captures and extractions of animals from this taxonomic group, in pre-industrial times, aiming at a global view of the state-of-the-art on the topic. The review considered scientific articles and reports published in Portuguese, Spanish, English and French and it was focused in 4 countries - Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique - between the FAOS 47-51 and LME’s 29-30, and 4 species - earless and ‘true’ seals, fur seals and sea lions - for the period between late 1st millennia BCE and 1860. The data seems to attest that the extraction of these species occurred when European colonial powers settled and developed in the region. However, as archaeological, anthropological and ethnographical studies are being processed at this stage, it is acceptable that the literature review encompassing these disciplinary areas will give extra information on the use and consumption by local and indigenous populations since the early Holocene. Therefore, this presentation, underlines the relevance of pursuing such a review as well as the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to this topic for a better comprehension of the global long-term impact of these captures and extractions in Southern Africa.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the relationship between British marine resource extraction and expanding colonization efforts between the 16th and 19th centuries, as well as the implications of these activities for marine ecologies.

Paper long abstract:

England’s (Great Britain following the 1707 Acts of Union) colonial empire was dependent on control and exploitation of marine environments. One area that historians and archaeologists have thoroughly studied regarding this topic is the role of naval sea power in England’s imperial expansion, with less attention given to the relationships between resource extraction activities, like fishing, and colonial endeavours. Recent research, however, has begun to emphasize the acquisition and distribution of marine resources as an essential aspect of globalizing processes. Examples of these connections include provisioning the navy with cod and herring for voyages, establishing and challenging trade relationships with other imperial powers, and distributing supplies and trade goods to colonial subjects. These activities not only impacted colonization efforts, but also the marine ecosystems from which resources were extracted. Urban centers are a valuable starting point to begin investigating these relationships, because they often acted as hubs of imperial systems and central points of exchange for colonial peripheries between the 16th-19th centuries. Using archival documentation, including supply contracts, trade agreements, and newspaper advertisements, this paper frames urban English fish markets as a starting point to interrogate where marine resources were coming from, where they were being distributed, and how this affected globalization. These networks complicate the relationship between British marine resource extraction and expanding colonization efforts between the 16th and 19th centuries, as well as the implications of these activities for marine ecologies.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper showcases whaling operations developed in Portugal and in territories formerly under Portuguese rule, from the medieval period to the 20th century. It discusses the overlapping or transitioning between whaling styles or hunting areas, and environmental, colonial, and economic drivers.

Paper long abstract:

Addressing transversely the historical practices of marine extraction and exploitation is of particular relevance in the understanding of global human activities and impacts on the oceans. Whaling should be placed at the core of these dynamics. With evidence from the first human coastal settlements to nowadays controversial operations, the hunting of cetaceans has happened worldwide along history with strong impacts both for human societies and animal populations. In this paper we explore whaling operations developed in Portugal and in territories formerly under Portuguese rule, from the medieval period to the 20th century, as a showcase of long-term transformations and adaptations towards the capture and consumption of whales’ species and products. For that, we have been conducting a systematic literature review together with a critical analysis of documental sources and material remains to assess the historical processes and contexts, to identify target species and to estimate the size of the catches. We aim at identifying and mapping whaling operations using coastal stations in northern and southern regions. We will centre our discussion on moments of overlapping or transitioning between whaling styles or hunting areas, while questioning environmental, colonial, and economic drivers.

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Paper short abstract:

We aim to discuss the local techniques for enclosing sea turtles in the Caribbean, between the 16th and 18th centuries. We will address these structures as a way of maintaining the animals as marine resources alongside practices of domestication.

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses the consumption of sea turtles during the European colonization of the Caribbean, considering coastal enclosure techniques. Following Indigenous knowledge and practices of extraction, which already impacted ecosystems, turtles were presented as a viable resource for the subsistence of European settlers and navigators. The arrival of Europeans demanded a great deal of animal protein, a resource that in Europe was ensured by the controlled rearing of cattle which was not always possible to replicate in new colonial spaces. However, following that European model of livestock farming, marine resources were kept alive either to be consumed or sold in markets alongside cattle meat. This process involved both the intensive capture of these animals in their natural environment and the building of structures to keep the animals alive and confined in the water. As this process avoided the rapid putrefaction caused by the hot climate in these regions, no wasting occurred. Port Royal in Jamaica or the Cayman Islands, where archaeological and historical evidence shows the presence of nurseries supplying the port city's meat market on a daily basis, will be discussed. We will identify enclosure techniques and typologies, how these structures were linked to the availability of the resource, and dynamics of domestication.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper will discuss the exploratory mappings for the ERC 4-Oceans Atlas of intersections between warfare, piracy, privateering, trade, fisheries, gyres, ecologies and climate during the pre and early modern period, when the size of the human footprint on global oceans increased significantly.

Paper long abstract:

The European discovery of the northern and southern hemispheres of the Americas in the fifteenth century inaugurated the age of mercantile capitalism sparking bourgeoning imperial and mercantile wars over ‘New’ World gold, silver, furs, fish, and timber. The discovery of Northwest Atlantic fisheries and the opening the world’s oceans as major theaters of trade and war led to significant ecological impacts: “the development of ocean-going sailing ships, the biggest and most complex machines” ever built “enabled Europeans to establish their control over almost half the world” during their era of imperial expansion, leading to an unprecedented need for oak and other hard woods: “at the beginning of the eighteenth century the building of a warship could consume 4,000 trees- and for smelting iron. Forests were being depleted faster that they could regrow.” The manufacture of ordnance and gunpowder outfitting period ships also consumed trees and agrarian land at unprecedented rates. At the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, English furnaces were smelting 1000 tons of ordnance, whilst her government’s “saltpetremen” confiscated fields fertilized with manure to harvest the sodium nitrate required to produce military grade gunpowder for the Royal Navy. The inauguration of early modern oceanic trade and warfare occurred during the Little Ice Age, when temperatures in the North Atlantic experienced a pronounced decline from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century due to the impacts of orbital forcing, shifts in oceanic circulation, low solar radiation cycles and increases in volcanic eruptions releasing particulate matter into the Earth’s atmosphere.

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Paper short abstract:

We aim at reviewing the historical exploitation of dugongs in parts of their geographical range, based on documental sources for the early modern and modern periods. This will be put in close connection with local cultural contexts and with current populations’ extirpations and conservation.

Paper long abstract:

The industrialisation was a major historical transition moment in the exploitation of the marine environment and diverse marine resources and stocks, including the extractions of marine mammals across the globe. Both the transformation into industrialized practices and techniques, and the intensification of traditional ones, led to an increased effort in the populations exploited. Prior to that, another important threshold was the moment of the European expansions and colonisations. We will explore the case-study of the exploitation of dugongs (Dugong dugon) in the Indo-Pacific Region, supported by a systematic review of the literature produced about or related to the topic. We will identify moments of disruptions in populations and ecosystems, as in the local, traditional, and indigenous realities. We will also address gaps of information and provide perspectives to understand the long-term exploitation and use of these marine mammals, once targets of extractions, today icons of conservation. This is particularly relevant in a moment when the evidence of extirpations – or functional extinctions of local populations (e.g. Japan, China) - poses significant impact on the global trends in the numbers of dugongs across their regional range. As part of the project 4-OCEANS: Human History of Marine Life, we expect to produce a global overview of sirenian’s extractions, its drivers, and natural and cultural impacts and, at the same time, to give new historical information and contextualization that may contribute to practices leading to the species conservation.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper will map the changes in the quantity and movement of certain marine species (e.g., herring) in East Asia, from approximately 1400 CE to 1900 CE. It aims to identify the stages of marine transitions and discuss the various factors (e.g., climate change) that contribute to these changes.

Paper long abstract:

The uses of marine resources have always been driven and affected by varying interwoven environmental, socio-economic and cultural factors. In East Asia, on the one hand, the climate history and the societal responses to environmental changes are well-documented, which allows scholars from multiple disciplines to reconstruct the climatic characteristics of different times. On the other hand, the various historical materials regarding marine life and fishing activities have not been systematically studied yet. Taking China as an example, the time from 1400 CE to 1900 CE is classified as the “local records period” based on the availability of historical sources, by Zhu Kezhen, a pioneering meteorologist, in his influential paper regarding climatic changes in China in the last 5000 years. High-resolution local climatic records of these centuries are available, and they provide great potential for future research in this aspect. Similarly, the understudied detailed local historical documents about fish, fisheries, and fishing-related activities of this period deserve to be further explored with both qualitative and quantitative research methods. This paper intends to map the changes in the quantity and movement of certain marine species (e.g., herring) in East Asia and discuss the various factors (e.g., climate change, societal conditions) that contribute to these changes. Primary research on relevant historical texts (e.g., dynastic histories, local gazettes, and diaries) will be conducted to extract quantitative data. Building on this, we can identify moments and stages of marine transitions and the causes and consequences behind them.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper presents the commercial scale and organization of the Danish pulse seine eel fishery in the Limfjord before the advent of modern offshore fisheries. A fishery for the impoverished few, we profile the typical fishermen and suggests the overall conditions for eel to be in decline

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents the Danish pulse seine eel fishery in the Limfjord as another European fishery operating on a commercial scale and organisation before the advent of modern offshore fisheries. Although not previously recognised in the international literature, the Limfjord eel fishery has a Danish language historiography with a prominent narrative: Every summer hundreds of fishermen from the adjacent North Sea coast migrated to the Limfjord to catch eels.

Partly, for environmental concerns, the pulse seine fishery was tightly regulated, with every seine having to be checked and certified by the local district bailiff at the shores where the fisheries set off each night. Here we present the first in-depth analysis of all preserved certificates for the 18th-19th century pulse seines, totalling over 2,100. This allows for a substantial revision: Over a 100-year period of study, we find a gradual shift towards pulse seine fisheries by resident Limfjord fishermen and farmers. Consequently, the presence of migrant fishermen diminished accordingly.

Combining the fishing licenses with a demographic database and a GIS-based database for the migrant fishermen’s home parishes we find that the migrant fishermen came from only a select few impoverished settlements in the dunes next to the North Sea. In the other coastal settlements of the parishes, most household had access to some farmland as well as seasonal fishing and did not fish for eel. Finally, judging from the counterintuitive waning interest from fishermen we suggest that the overall fishing conditions for eel were in decline, 1740-1860.