El Impacto político, económico y social de la pesca del atún con almadrabas en el levante de la península ibérica

Abstract

Tuna traps are a long history art, being one of the oldest fishing industries of the world. From this object of study we can disaggregate multiple aspects of this activity from different points of view (productive, economical, political and social). This paper focuses on the analysis of tuna traps from the Iberian Peninsula (Valencia and Catalonia) in XVIth and XVIIth centuries. In this chronology, fisheries contributed to the economic and cultural development of the regions that have been studied, but also to the western Mediterranean Sea as a whole. For this reason, it is important to compare these fishing areas with those from the most important fishing regions, especially the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and the south of the Iberian Peninsula. On the other hand, they also have to be related to other regions at an international level, so as to know the impact of these traps in each territory, in addition to the commercial and cultural relations that were designed to take advantage of sea resources. This method is based on the study of primary documentary sources kept in state and private archives of the mentioned regions.