• Research Question 3 

What were the consequences of marine exploitation for societal development and the oceans?

8. The long-term success of marine resource use depended on how societies consumed, traded, and socially metabolized marine wealth.

• Marine pathways conditioned societies in distinct ways. They might create deep linkages between coast and hinterland, conditioned path dependencies, and broke such dependencies across the transects and taxa.

• Marine resources were socially metabolized for multiple purposes such as food, clothing and energy;

• And might involve socioecological teleconnections.

9. Marine wealth was much more widely distributed than landed wealth

• Whereas agricultural estates and mineral wealth tended to be concentrated in the hands of an elite and left conspicuous testimony of consumption, marine wealth was likely to be distributed in a wide network of middling merchants and investors.

10.  Sudden peaks and troughs of marine resource availabilities might cause profound economic, social, cultural and political impacts.

11. The impacts of marine extraction not only drove the global economy but played a major role in politics and society.

• Ocean resources generated immense geopolitical interest, and conflicts over access and domination left a deep and conflicted legacy.

12. The extraction of marine wealth, from artisanal to large-scale, concurrently impacted the resource base itself.

• Fisheries and Naval Warfare

Fisheries served as naval training centres for Britain, France, and the rebellious Continental Congress in North America. North Atlantic Fisheries were transformed into theatres of battle in Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713), the Seven Year’s War (1657–1763), and the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).

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