1. Mediterranean variations on fishing. The longue durée

The increasing list of marine faunal studies around the Mediterranean, currently scattered in the scientific and grey literature, calls for a common inventorying of this massive dataset that will allow following variations in Mediterranean fisheries over the long term and targeting different research questions within MERMAID. This step is the backbone of the program, as it will produce a detailed database of marine data for the Mediterranean, including both available ancient faunal data from archaeological sites, as well as relevant finds (preserved fishing tackle, pictorial evidence from the same sites). The online Database, called M-ARCHIVES, will both stand individually as the first Database on marine resources and fishing in the Mediterranean past, but also allow create syntheses at various local/regional and temporal scales. Next to the faunal database, we are also creating a database of artefacts related to fishing found in the archaeological sites where fish and invertebrates have been unearthed.

Material/data: zooarchaeological material, scientific and grey literature

Techniques: databasing, GIS, bibliographical assessment, zooarchaeological analysis, X-ray analysis, ZooMs (proteomics), statistics

Participants: Gabriele Carenti, Antoine Pasqualini, Tatiana Theodoropoulou