Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NorFish (North Atlantic Fisheries: An Environmental History, 1400-1700)

Teaser

NorFish aims to understand the restructuring of the North Atlantic fisheries, fish markets and fishery-dependent communities in the late medieval and early modern world. The project exploits a multi-disciplinary, humanities-led approach to marine environmental history...

Summary

NorFish aims to understand the restructuring of the North Atlantic fisheries, fish markets and fishery-dependent communities in the late medieval and early modern world. The project exploits a multi-disciplinary, humanities-led approach to marine environmental history, assessing and synthesizing the dynamics and significance of the North Atlantic fish revolution, equipped by methodological advances in which the PI has been to the fore in delivering. It establishes a robust quantitative framework of extractions, supplies and prices, while also charting the qualitative preferences and politics that motivated actors of the fish revolution across the North Atlantic.

Fish contributed to environmental and societal change in the North Atlantic for over 300 years, shifting from being a high- priced, limited resource in the late Middle Ages to a low-priced, abundant one by early modern times. Conditioned by market forces, the ‘fish revolution’ of the 1500s and 1600s reshaped alignments in economic power, demography, and politics. With acute consequences in peripheral Atlantic settlements from Newfoundland to Scandinavia, it held strategic importance to all the major western European powers. While the fish revolution catalysed the globalization of the Atlantic world, we lack adequate baselines and trajectories for key questions of natural abundance, supply and demand, cultural preferences, marketing technologies, plus national and regional strategies.

In short, the core questions are what were the natural and economic causes of the fish revolution, how did marginal societies adapt to changing international trade and consumption patterns around the North Atlantic, and how did economic and political actors respond? The answers will help explain the historic role of environment and climate change, how markets impacted marginal communities, and how humans perceived long-term change.

The project will explore three main research questions: (1) what were the natural and economic causes of the fish revolution, (2) how did marginal societies adapt to changes in international trade and consumption patterns around the North Atlantic, and (3) how did consumers, investors, and politics in the major European countries perceive and respond to the fish revolution? Knowing and establishing the answers will help us understand the role of environment and climate change in the past, how markets impacted marginal communities, how humans perceived long-term change. Underscoring all these questions are the methodological implications of NorFish for future research. The final synthesis of the project will bring together the answers to the questions above and consider how the fish revolution impacted the political economies of the late medieval and early modern Atlantic world.

Work performed

Main results achieved so far
Establishment of website: https://www.tcd.ie/history/research/centres/ceh/norfish/
Team established including:
- PI Poul Holm 1 (M)
- Post doc 8; GIS/mapping, climate, ecology, archaeology, cartography, French archival expert, Portuguese archival expert, marine outreach expert, (4 M / 4 F). Team consists of full-time, part-time, and contracted collaborators
- PhD 2 (M)
- Administrator 1 (F)
- Data manager 1 (M)
- Research assistant 1 (M)
- Student assistant 1 (F)
Endnote library with over 5,000 references
Refinement of NORFISH research strategy
Publications: 1 Travis, Charles & Holm, Poul, The digital environmental humanities - what is it and why do we need it? The NorFish Project and SmartCity Lifeworlds. The Digital Arts and Humanities: Neogeography, Social Media and Big Data Integrations and Applications, eds. Charles Travis & Alexander von Lünen (Springer, 2016)
Publications in pipeline: 14
[Suggested targeted journals. Sorted by tentative deadlines for submission]
*Kieran Rankin & Poul Holm, Cartographical Perspectives on the Evolution of Newfoundland’s Grand Banks Fisheries in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Mariner’s Mirror (submitted March 2017)
*Poul Holm: The Scale of the Fisheries of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods, c. 1300-1800. Traded Volumes, Landed Volumes, Total Catches (draft; targeted journal: ICES Journal of Marine Science) – submission Sep 2017
*Poul Holm, The Danish North Sea Coast Fisheries, 1537-1655 (draft; targeted journal: Scandinavian Economic History Review) – submission Sep 2017
*Charles Travis, Francis Ludlow, Robert Legg, Kevin Lougheed, Al Matthews, Kieran Rankin, [??], & Poul Holm, Deep Mapping of the North Atlantic Fisheries Revolution (in prep, target journal: ?) – submission Oct 2017
*Dara Fleming-Farrell & Poul Holm, North Atlantic fisheries settlements, c1400-1700 (in prep., targeted journal: Journal of the North Atlantic [?]) – submission Oct 2017
*Patrick Hayes, Dara Fleming-Farrell, Al Matthews, John Nicholls & Poul Holm, European Naval Diets 1400-1650: A Comparative & Nutritional Analysis (in prep, target journal: Mariner’s Mirror?) – submission Nov 2017 
*Cordula Scherer, Francis Ludlow, Riina Klais, Al Matthews, [??] & Poul Holm, Hindcasting North Atlantic plankton production (in prep., targeted journal: PLoS ONE [?]) – submission Nov 2017
*Francis Ludlow, Andrew Jackson, Al Matthews, Cordula Scherer, [??] & Poul Holm, Volcanic Eruptions as Drivers of Historical North Sea Herring [possibly North Atlantic cod] Abundance (in prep., targeted journal: Nature) – submission Nov 2017
*Poul Holm, North Atlantic fisheries revolution (targeted journal: Quaternary Research) – submission Nov 2017
*Patrick Hayes, Francis Ludlow, Al Matthews & Poul Holm, \'Hazards to Marine Activity: Extreme Weather and Piracy in Irish and Adjacent Waters, 1535-1660\' (in prep., target journal: Journal of the North Atlantic) - submission Jan 2018
*Kieran Rankin & Poul Holm, Cartographical Perspectives on North Sea fisheries in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (in prep, target journal?) – submission Jan 2018
*Cordula Scherer, Francis Ludlow?, Al Matthews?, Patrick Hayes, Paul Tett & Poul Holm, Tracking change across trophic levels in the North Atlantic during the early modern times: Case studies of the North Sea and Grand Banks (suggested paper, target journal?) submission May 2018
*Bernard Allaire, Al Matthews & Poul Holm, Evidence for the Paris fish market in the sixteenth century (target journal?) – submission June 2018
*Cristina Brito & Poul Holm, Evidence for the Portuguese fisheries of the sixteenth century (suggested paper) - – submission June 2018

Dedicated workshops: 4 (Sept 2016, Nov 2016, Mar 2017, April 2017)
Databases have been developed incorporating archaeological and historical data relating to coastal settlements, extractions, and prices.
Research tools have been developed which include excels macr

Final results

A central question asked by NorFish is whether the causes of the fish revolution (1400-1700), and how people understood and responded to the challenges of globalization and climate change, are a distant mirror for the challenges of globalization and climate change today. On a general level, the marine outreach and policy expert has been the project driver behind marine policy and coastal research, grounded in the historical context of small-scale fishing communities, providing contextualised research material to contribute to the NorFish debates around this research question. During this report period the PI has presented early results at several conferences, including the Oceans Past Platform COST Action and the ESSAS (Ecosystems of the Arctic and Subarctic) conference.
Extensive outreach and networking activities have taken place which greatly contribute to the visibility of the NorFish project across fishing industry networks (Irish Islands Marine Resources organisation) and Europe (Low Impact Fishers Europe). The PI is currently chair of the EU SAPEA working group on sustainable food from the ocean.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.tcd.ie/history/research/centres/ceh/norfish/.