Mapping the elephants of the 19th century East African ivory trade with a multi-isotope approach
dc.contributor.author | Coutu, Ashley N | en_ZA |
dc.contributor.author | Lee-Thorp, Julia | en_ZA |
dc.contributor.author | Collins, Matthew J | en_ZA |
dc.contributor.author | Lane, Paul J | en_ZA |
dc.date.accessioned | 2016-10-31T07:40:04Z | |
dc.date.available | 2016-10-31T07:40:04Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2016 | en_ZA |
dc.description.abstract | East African elephants have been hunted for their ivory for millennia but the nineteenth century witnessed strongly escalating demand from Europe and North America. It has been suggested that one consequence was that by the 1880s elephant herds along the coast had become scarce, and to meet demand, trade caravans trekked farther into interior regions of East Africa, extending the extraction frontier. The steady decimation of elephant populations coupled with the extension of trade networks have also been claimed to have triggered significant ecological and socio-economic changes that left lasting legacies across the region. To explore the feasibility of using an isotopic approach to uncover a 'moving frontier' of elephant extraction, we constructed a baseline isotope data set (δ 13 C, δ 15 N, δ 18 O and 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) for historic East African elephants known to have come from three distinct regions (coastal, Rift Valley, and inland Lakes). Using the isotope results with other climate data and geographical mapping tools, it was possible to characterise elephants from different habitats across the region. This baseline data set was then used to provenance elephant ivory of unknown geographical provenance that was exported from East Africa during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to determine its likely origin. This produced a better understanding of historic elephant geography in the region, and the data have the potential to be used to provenance older archaeological ivories, and to inform contemporary elephant conservation strategies. | en_ZA |
dc.identifier.apacitation | Coutu, A. N., Lee-Thorp, J., Collins, M. J., & Lane, P. J. (2016). Mapping the elephants of the 19th century East African ivory trade with a multi-isotope approach. <i>PLoS One</i>, http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22368 | en_ZA |
dc.identifier.chicagocitation | Coutu, Ashley N, Julia Lee-Thorp, Matthew J Collins, and Paul J Lane "Mapping the elephants of the 19th century East African ivory trade with a multi-isotope approach." <i>PLoS One</i> (2016) http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22368 | en_ZA |
dc.identifier.citation | Coutu, A. N., Lee-Thorp, J., Collins, M. J., & Lane, P. J. (2016). Mapping the elephants of the 19th century East African ivory trade with a multi-isotope approach. PloS one, 11(10), e0163606. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0163606 | en_ZA |
dc.identifier.ris | TY - Journal Article AU - Coutu, Ashley N AU - Lee-Thorp, Julia AU - Collins, Matthew J AU - Lane, Paul J AB - East African elephants have been hunted for their ivory for millennia but the nineteenth century witnessed strongly escalating demand from Europe and North America. It has been suggested that one consequence was that by the 1880s elephant herds along the coast had become scarce, and to meet demand, trade caravans trekked farther into interior regions of East Africa, extending the extraction frontier. The steady decimation of elephant populations coupled with the extension of trade networks have also been claimed to have triggered significant ecological and socio-economic changes that left lasting legacies across the region. To explore the feasibility of using an isotopic approach to uncover a 'moving frontier' of elephant extraction, we constructed a baseline isotope data set (δ 13 C, δ 15 N, δ 18 O and 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) for historic East African elephants known to have come from three distinct regions (coastal, Rift Valley, and inland Lakes). Using the isotope results with other climate data and geographical mapping tools, it was possible to characterise elephants from different habitats across the region. This baseline data set was then used to provenance elephant ivory of unknown geographical provenance that was exported from East Africa during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to determine its likely origin. This produced a better understanding of historic elephant geography in the region, and the data have the potential to be used to provenance older archaeological ivories, and to inform contemporary elephant conservation strategies. DA - 2016 DB - OpenUCT DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0163606 DP - University of Cape Town J1 - PLoS One LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2016 T1 - Mapping the elephants of the 19th century East African ivory trade with a multi-isotope approach TI - Mapping the elephants of the 19th century East African ivory trade with a multi-isotope approach UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22368 ER - | en_ZA |
dc.identifier.uri | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0163606 | en_ZA |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22368 | |
dc.identifier.vancouvercitation | Coutu AN, Lee-Thorp J, Collins MJ, Lane PJ. Mapping the elephants of the 19th century East African ivory trade with a multi-isotope approach. PLoS One. 2016; http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22368. | en_ZA |
dc.language.iso | eng | en_ZA |
dc.publisher | Public Library of Science | en_ZA |
dc.publisher.department | Department of Archaeology | en_ZA |
dc.publisher.faculty | Faculty of Science | en_ZA |
dc.publisher.institution | University of Cape Town | |
dc.rights | This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. | en_ZA |
dc.rights.holder | © 2016 Coutu et al | en_ZA |
dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 | en_ZA |
dc.source | PLoS One | en_ZA |
dc.source.uri | http://journals.plos.org/plosone | en_ZA |
dc.subject.other | Elephants | en_ZA |
dc.subject.other | Forests | en_ZA |
dc.subject.other | Isotopes | en_ZA |
dc.subject.other | Africa | en_ZA |
dc.subject.other | Geology | en_ZA |
dc.subject.other | Grasslands | en_ZA |
dc.subject.other | Isotope analysis | en_ZA |
dc.subject.other | Tanzania | en_ZA |
dc.title | Mapping the elephants of the 19th century East African ivory trade with a multi-isotope approach | en_ZA |
dc.type | Journal Article | en_ZA |
uct.type.filetype | Text | |
uct.type.filetype | Image | |
uct.type.publication | Research | en_ZA |
uct.type.resource | Article | en_ZA |
Files
Original bundle
1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
- Name:
- Coutu_Mapping_the_Elephants_19th_Century_2016.pdf
- Size:
- 2.67 MB
- Format:
- Adobe Portable Document Format
- Description: