How AI revealed 400 years of seafaring history
University of SouthamptonHistorians have uncovered 461 years of Britain's maritime past using AI.
The study involved training AI to process about 100,000 pages of handwritten records, a task that would have taken years if done manually.
The University of Southampton project revealed how Britain grew into an Empire through its links with Europe, using data spanning from the Elizabethan Era in the 16th Century, to just before the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century.
Researchers found that key goods Britons traded included coal and ale, followed by children's toys from China, sheep guts and Venice treacle, a herbal medicine that was believed to cure almost any illness.
Historian and lead researcher Professor Craig Lambert said compiling the data, which was taken from leather-bound parchment books at the National Archives in Kew, was a "massive task" but AI "sped up the process enormously".
The AI learned how to read and recognise the historical handwriting belonging to early-modern seafarers to learn details about "who was trading what, with whom, when and where," researchers said.
University of SouthamptonIt also gave insights into the maritime landscape of the past. Researchers said that Europe was once a more crucial trading partner than might have previously been thought.
The project found that even as the British Empire was expanding, between 1696–97 "European markets accounted for around 80 percent of the recorded value of England's overseas trade".
Lost towns were also discovered, along with their vanished ports.
Ravenspurn in East Yorkshire, a once-thriving trading hub, completely sunk in the North Sea after severe coastal erosion.
The project is supported by a team of specialists in maritime history, global history and computer science.
Researchers said it has mapped the development of England's trade routes and global impact over two centuries in detail for the first time.
An interactive map has been developed out of the research to help people navigate and explore the extensive data for themselves.
