Objective One main issue facing fisheries management is uncertainty regarding how fish populations will respond to changes in fishers’ behaviour or the environment. With fish resources under increasing pressure, accurate, cumulative histories of anthropogenic and environmental change are a key tool in developing effective management policies. Archaeology can help overcome this issue by providing detailed, long-range histories of local inshore fisheries and their exploitation by humans, but only if techniques for the identification and analysis of fishbone are refined. Fishbones are underrepresented in the archaeological literature because they are less stable than other taxa. Identification to species is often difficult or impossible. During my MSc I developed an identification system for fishbone: ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry), based upon protein barcoding. As proteins can be cleaved enzymatically and analyzed by mass spectrometry in a repeatable way, protein barcoding is used widely for quick and inexpensive protein identification. Mass spectra reflect the differences in protein sequence and can therefore be reproducibly linked to a particular protein or fragment. Since I left the lab, this method for fish identification has stalled, despite earnest requests from the community for a robust method. ZooMS uses peptide fingerprinting of collagen as a method for rapid identification of archaeological bone. Identifying masses to peptides of known sequence is required. For mammals, sufficient sequence information is available, but, for freshwater fish, species are highly diverse and few sequences are available. This project will develop biomolecular techniques to overcome these hurdles, creating a database of fish collagen sequences and testing the method at several archaeological sites. With these new techniques archaeologists can provide more accurate histories of fisheries. The results will enhance our knowledge of part of our diet inform fisheries management. Fields of science natural sciencesbiological sciencesmarine biologyagricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesfisheriesnatural sciencesbiological sciencesfreshwater biologynatural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changesnatural scienceschemical sciencesanalytical chemistrymass spectrometry Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2014-EF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF) Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2014 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF Coordinator UNIVERSITY OF YORK Net EU contribution € 195 454,80 Address Heslington YO10 5DD York north yorkshire United Kingdom See on map Region Yorkshire and the Humber North Yorkshire York Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
