This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Roots of Sustainability in the Iberian Empires Shipbuilding and Forestry, 14th - 19th Centuries on 2023, available online: https://www.routledge.com/Roots-of-Sustainability-in-the-Iberian-Empires-Shipbuilding-and-Forestry-14th---19th-Centuries/TrapagaMonchet-Aragon-Ruano-JoanazdeMelo/p/book/9781032313375, ForSEAdiscovery is the first project funded by the EU Marie Curie People programme aimed at archaeological and historical research into Iberian shipwrecks. During its first four years, the research carried out has helped us to understand timber provenance and supply for shipbuilding, its trade (based on naval routes and merchant networks), and naval policy. It has also given us an insight into the politicisation and channelling of timber sources and its impact on the development of ship design. In addition to its interdisciplinary and empirical nature, which makes it a decidedly unique and innovative project in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences, the project's interdisciplinary approach allows us to situate the historical and archaeological study of maritime history in its true international scientific context. This essay briefly summarises some of the research problems covered during the past years and sets the tone for the future., The research conducted and presented as part of this project was financed by
the “People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP72007–2013) under REA grant agreement nº
PITN-GA 2013-607545”. Forest Resources for Iberian Empires: Ecology and
Globalization in the Age of Discovery (16th–18th centuries). Acronym: ForSEAdiscovery. Also the research have been benefited from the I-LINK Project
“UnderHERITAGE”, funded by the CSIC (LINKB20042)., Peer reviewed

The case study of the eighteenth-century Spanish frigate Santa Maria Magdalena constitutes one of the opportunities given to the ForSEAdiscovery project team to approach the subject of shipbuilding and timber supply in the Iberian Empires of the early modern age, in an interdisciplinary way, through the combination of efforts of three different disciplines: history, through the research of written sources; archaeology, through the collection and study of the material evidence of ships; and wood science, through the analysis of timber samples from archaeological sites and old living trees., Peer reviewed