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Sourcing Elephant Ivory from a Sixteenth-Century Portuguese Shipwreck

2020; Elsevier BV; Volume: 31; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.cub.2020.10.086

1879-0445

Alida de Flamingh, Ashley N. Coutu, Judith Sealy, Shadreck Chirikure, Armanda D. S. Bastos, Nzila M. Libanda-Mubusisi, Ripan S. Malhi, Alfred L. Roca,

Law, logistics, and international trade

The oldest known shipwreck in southern Africa was found in Namibia in 2008. 1 Chirikure S. Sinamai A. Goagoses E. Mubusisi M. Ndoro W. Maritime archaeology and trans-oceanic trade: a case study of the Oranjemund shipwreck cargo, Namibia. J. Marit. Archaeol. 2010; 5: 37-55 Crossref Scopus (11) Google Scholar , 2 Hauptmann A. Schneider G. Bartels C. The shipwreck of Bom Jesus, AD 1533: fugger copper in Namibia. J. Afr. Archaeol. 2016; 14: 184-207 Crossref Scopus (6) Google Scholar , 3 Mowa E. Nkengbeza D. Kangumu B. Oranjemund shipwreck ivory: a historical analysis on the prospective geographic origin. Glob. J. Arts Human. Soc. Sci. 2018; 6: 48-69 Google Scholar , 4 Werz B.E.J.S. Sub-Saharan Africa's oldest shipwreck: historical-archeological research of an early modern-era Portuguese merchantman on the Namibian coast. Mar. Mirror. 2010; 96: 430-442 Crossref Scopus (6) Google Scholar Forty tons of cargo, including gold and silver coins, helped identify the ship as the Bom Jesus, a Portuguese nau (trading vessel) lost in 1533 while headed to India. 4 Werz B.E.J.S. Sub-Saharan Africa's oldest shipwreck: historical-archeological research of an early modern-era Portuguese merchantman on the Namibian coast. Mar. Mirror. 2010; 96: 430-442 Crossref Scopus (6) Google Scholar , 5 Xavier M. Relações da Carreira da Índia. Biblioteca da Expansão Portuguesa, 1989 Google Scholar , 6 Academia das Ciências de LisboaMemoria das Armadas Que de Portugal Passaram à India. Academia Das Ciências, 1979 Google Scholar The cargo included >100 elephant tusks, 7 Alves F.J.S. The 16th Century Portuguese Shipwreck of Oranjemund, Namibia. Report on the Missions Carried out by the Portuguese Team in 2008 and 2009. Trabalhos da DANS, 45. DANS, 2011 Google Scholar which we examined using paleogenomic and stable isotope analyses. Nuclear DNA identified the ivory source as African forest (Loxodonta cyclotis) rather than savanna (Loxodonta africana) elephants. Mitochondrial sequences traced them to West and not Central Africa and from ≥17 herds with distinct haplotypes. Four of the haplotypes are known from modern populations; others were potentially lost to subsequent hunting of elephants for ivory. Stable isotope analyses (δ13C and δ15N) indicated that the elephants were not from deep rainforests but from savanna and mixed habitats. Such habitats surround the Guinean forest block of West Africa 8 White F. The Vegetation of Africa: A Descriptive Memoir to Accompany the UNESCO/AETFAT/UNSO Vegetation Map of Africa. UNESCO, 1983 Google Scholar and accord with the locations of major historic Portuguese trading ports. 9 Fritze R.H. New Worlds: The Great Voyages of Discovery, 1400-1600. Praeger Publishers, 2002 Google Scholar ,10 Blake J.W. Europeans in West Africa 1450-1560. Volume I. The Hakluyt Society, 1942 Google Scholar West African forest elephants currently range into savanna habitats; 11 Grubb P. Groves C.P. Dudley J.P. Shoshani J. Living African elephants belong to two species: Loxodonta africana (Blumenbach, 1797) and Loxodonta cyclotis (Matschie, 1900). Elephant. 2000; 2: 1-4 Crossref Google Scholar , 12 Groves C.P. Grubb P. Do Loxodonta cyclotis and L. africana interbreed?. Elephant. 2000; 2: 4-7 Crossref Google Scholar , 13 Mondol S. Moltke I. Hart J. Keigwin M. Brown L. Stephens M. Wasser S.K. New evidence for hybrid zones of forest and savanna elephants in Central and West Africa. Mol. Ecol. 2015; 24: 6134-6147 Crossref PubMed Scopus (31) Google Scholar our findings suggest that this was not consequent to regional decimation of savanna elephants for their ivory in the 19th and 20th centuries. During the time of the Bom Jesus, ivory was a central driver in the formation of maritime trading systems connecting Europe, Africa, and Asia. Our integration of paleogenomic, archeological, and historical methods to analyze the Bom Jesus ivory provides a framework for examining vast collections of archaeological ivories around the world, in shipwrecks and other contexts.