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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 Similarly, the understudied detailed local historical documents about fish, fisheries, and fishing-related activities of this period deserve to be further explored with both qualitative and quantitative research methods.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.