The implementation of the project was based on zooarchaeological and isotopic analysis of archaeological fish remains and modern reference specimens (WP1). Carbon and nitrogen bulk collagen stable isotope analyses and compound-specific stable isotope analysis (CSIA) of collagen amino acids have been performed to trace long-term impacts of human activities and environmental changes (WP 2, 5, 6, 7). Some of the analyses are still in progress, still the data is allowing to differentiate oceanographical stocks of hake and reconstruct ancient rudimentary foodwebs. The integration of isotopic and the total length mean is revealing impacts that might be related with fishing technology and intensive marine exploitation. The disemination of results have been preliminary presented on 3 international conferences and 3 seminars, their publication in scientific journals being in preparation for submission.
Additionally, the project has explored the development of Iberian commercial fisheries with a particular focus on hake. This way, it has been provided an updated catalogue of sites with hake evaluating its contribution through time. This study, carried out in collaboration, brings to light that the species was one of the major fishing items previous to AD 18th.
Finally, collagen samples from hake, conger eel, sardine, salmon, brown trout, sea trout and plaice have been sequenced and analysed for peptide fingerprinting, a protein-barcoding identification technique which uses mass spectrometry: ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry) (WP3).
