Code   .  2023.06860.CEECIND
Start   .   2024
Duration   .  72 months
Principal Investigator   .   Ana Catarina Garcia

Institutions

Funding Entity

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

Research Unit

CHAM — Centre for the Humanities

Coordinating Institution

Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas / Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Focusing on an Atlantic geography (Lisbon, Angra and Funchal, Portugal, counterpointing with Cartagena de Las Indias, Colombia, and Santa Cruz, Mexico), TRASH is an interdisciplinary approach between history (mining and analyzing documentary and cartographic sources) and archeology (analyzing wreck remains and environmental samples) methods. The growth of towns and harbor villages, the construction of embankments on the riversides, and the establishment of manufactures such as metal foundries, shipyards, tanneries, fisheries, and other activities brought an increase of toxicity in the surroundings, and the increase in urban sewage and debris from ships on call posed a threat to navigation. At the same time, for the first time in history, nearshore shipwrecks and consequent debris, such as cargoes, ropes, timbers, metals, animal and human bodies introduced a large amount of heavy metals and nutrients into the aquatic environment, leading to eutrophication of the waters. Marine pollution is a global environmental and societal problem that impacts current and future generations and the planet. Marine litter can affect all societies and therefore concerns a large scientific community and other stakeholders involved in the aquatic environment. The biggest concerns today are solid waste such as plastics, including marine litter and microplastics, but the practices can be traced back in time. Regardless of current definitions of marine pollution, the dumping of waste into the sea has been existed since prehistoric times, which may have influenced human habits and perceptions on the impact of that practices in land and in the water ocean. Thus, TRASH will also pretend to contribute to the study of the ocean from the viewpoint of the humanities as well as to regional and global ocean literacy.

Objectives

Through a transdisciplinary approach, between history, archaeology and environmental history, we aim to understand how modern Iberian societies viewed marine litter. In the context of a local administration characterised by municipal control, we seek to understand how disorders in the marine environment or discharges of waste into the riverside were considered, if it was or not a problem and how it was managed. By analysing local sources, cross- referenced with the cross-cutting standards for environmental health issues, we aim to identify the different types of waste and their environmental effects. Using archaeological data, the goal is to assess which types of waste may have been responsible for contaminating the bodies of water around the port cities, leading to increased toxicity and eutrophication of aquatic environments.