Search

The article discusses West African religious and cosmological conceptions concerning the Atlantic Ocean, European expansion, and maritime trade. It particularly focuses on the area known as the "Slave Coast," corresponding to the Bight of Benin, which includes modern Togo and the Republic of Bénin. Peoples discussed include the Gbe-speaking peoples the Hueda, Allada, and Anlo, as well as those of the kingdom of Benin and the Yoruba states. The author explores West African conceptions of the ocean as a deity or an object of worship, as a source of wealth, and as a barrier between life and the afterlife.

Since its opening 5.33 million years ago, the Gibraltar Strait has always contributed to the Mediterranean fauna and flora. Despite the increasing importance of the phenomenon, ecological determinants underlying colonization success of Atlantic fishes in the Mediterranean Sea have been poorly investigated. Here we reconstruct the recent historical colonization of the whole Mediterranean Sea by Atlantic fishes and we aim to determine where Atlantic fishes preferentially establish and whether some biological traits and ecological factors can be correlated to the colonization success (climate match, position in the water column, maximum body length, propagules, confamilial resistance, depth). A database on Atlantic fish species records from 1810 to 2006 was built and the colonization rate of each introduced species was estimated. Analysis of Variance, Chi squared test and logistic regression were used to investigate the relationships between ecological variables and colonization success. In addition, an index of asymmetry was used to analyse the relative colonization on the two sides of the Mediterranean Sea. Overall 48.33% of Atlantic species introduced in the Mediterranean Sea succeeded in colonizing eastwards. We found that habitat depth of Atlantic species is significantly related to their colonization success due to the obstacle of the shallow depth of the Gibraltar Strait (300 m). It also appears that despite the cyclonic general water circulation on the North Western basin, the northern side is more colonized than the southern one: 70.40% of the studied species colonize the northern side, while only 29.62% colonize the southern one. Two hypotheses may explain this trend: the bottom-up process that enhances the colonization success of Atlantic fishes along the Spanish coast of Alboran Sea owning to its high productivity and the intensiveness of the scientific explorations along the northern Mediterranean side. We conclude that crossing the Gibraltar Strait does not guarantee the colonization success and that species life-history and functional traits are poor predictors. Instead we suggest that environmental factors may determine favourable locations for invasive species installation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the history of the Atlantic ocean coastline from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Newfoundland from 1500 to 1800. The author states that oceans as a historical subject is of growing interest to historians, yet the sea as a living, dynamic subject has escaped attention. The author focuses on how ecological change impacted human communities, and in turn, how human activity impacted the marine ecosystem and affected how Native Americans and European settlers interacted with the environment.

The article considers the consumption of marine protein by humans. The first stable human isotope indicating acquisition of dietary protein from aquatic life was found in the Spanish Levant at the El Collado site, and dates from the Mesolithic period. Some individuals got up to 25% of their dietary protein from aquatic life. This is particularly common along the Atlantic coast. Consumption of marine food at El Collado was significantly lower than in other regions. The article speculates that a different dietary adaptation may have been prevalent in the Mediterranean, or that the region was not as good a producer of fish as the Atlantic.

The article explores the history of the Atlantic Ocean and discusses the opportunities such a study presents. Atlantic history is a slice of world history. It is a way of looking at global and regional processes within a contained unit. The Atlantic, moreover, is a geographic space that has a limited chronology as a logical unit of historical analysis: it is not a timeless unit. Atlantic history is more than simply the study of a geographic unit; it is also a style of inquiry that reflects the impulse that drew historians in specific fields to Atlantic history in the first place.

This article looks at existing and potential connections between two disparate subfields of historical inquiry: microhistory and Atlantic history. New research in the latter has utilized microlevel sources (those that allow the researcher to track an individual life) to challenge long-accepted generalizations about which kinds of people did what where in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Atlantic. But, the author suggests, such research raises specific methodological challenges and epistemological caveats. The risk is that we may borrow some of the more attractive elements of microhistory—in particular, the chance to tell extraordinary stories about ordinary lives—without addressing the elements of research design that give rigor and weight to the most persuasive microhistorical studies. Can microhistorical evidence from the Atlantic world serve as a basis for explanatory as well as descriptive claims? The article explores this question by discussing the author's own attempts to use microhistorical inquiry to answer macrolevel questions about the origins and breadth of anti-imperialism in the interwar British Caribbean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an astronomically calibrated chronology for the Mediterranean Messinian age based on an integrated high-resolution stratigraphy and tuning of sedimentary cycle patterns to variations in the Earth's orbital parameters. Onset of the Messinian salinity crisis; Isolation from the Atlantic Ocean; Argument in favor of a dominantly tectonic origin for the Messinian salinity crisis.

Points out that geographical materials recording during the closing years of the 18th century and the opening years of the next provide a foundation for a regional reconstruction of the Atlantic seaboard. Viewpoints in historical geography; Inadequacy of geographical materials before the 1790s; Classification of geographical materials into works of organization and sporadic observations.