SEARCH: SEaweeds in ARCHaeology to promote sustainable consumption

Current global concerns about food security and the impacts of climate change on our existing food systems require innovative and sustainable solutions. Seaweeds are poised to become a sustainable food of the future and will be central to solving impending food crises, mitigating effects of global climate change, and re-invigorating human-ocean relationships. However, a significant barrier to successful uptake of the seaweed industry in Europe is a lack of cultural awareness on local seaweed consumption in human foodways. Human relationships with seaweed and aquatic coastal plants (e.g., seagrass) are historically understudied in archaeology and underappreciated culturally despite the likelihood that these relationships have been central components for past coastal societies, as evidenced by historic and ethnographic research. Understanding past human-algae/plant relationships and cultivation strategies provides key frameworks for contemporary and future strategies involving coastal plant and seaweed foraging, cultivation, and consumption. Such frameworks are urgently needed to build ecologically and culturally sound strategies and to prevent problematic over exploitation of these resources and damage to ecological systems. This project will provide important global advances in environmental archaeology by investigating archaeological seaweed residues and retrieve critical data at a local scale for the future of Northern Europe's seaweed and coastal industries. Past human relationships with seaweeds and coastal plants will be investigated using innovative archaeological science approaches that target microbotanical and micro-algae residues. Through accessing these microremains this project will compile paleoecological data to create a scientifically informed environmental baseline and trace ancient human-plant/algae relationships in northern Europe.