The project is assessing the importance of marine life to human societies during the last two millennia, with a focus on understanding the consequences of marine resource exploitation for societal development.

How did marine life affect and alter societies of the past? This is one of the key questions the EU-funded 4-OCEANS project is seeking to answer by investigating the importance of marine life for human societies during the last two millennia, from 100 BCE to 1860 CE.

Bringing together researchers from marine environmental history, climate history, natural history, geography, historical ecology, genomics and zooarchaeology, the project conducts the first-ever global assessment of the role of marine life in societal development and is considering how selected socio-economic, cultural and environmental forces limited as well as enabled marine exploitation.

Ultimately, our discoveries and outputs (including our World Atlas of Historical Marine Exploitation) will influence virtually every humanities and science-based discipline touched by the sea.

We will also inform the UN Decade of Ocean Science. Our results will influence how academics, citizens and stakeholders think about the value and consumption of marine life and about our shared ocean legacy.