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Home/ University of Johannesburg History 2A 2023/ Contents contributed and discussions participated by michaela24

Contents contributed and discussions participated by michaela24

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Pre-colonial ivory trade earlier than thought | UCT News - 1 views

  • The first farmers arrived in KZN CE400, part of a southward expansion from East Africa. They brought with them iron smelting and iron working expertise and were the first societies in South Africa to live in villages.
  • settlements grew and agriculture increased during the Msuluzi phase
  • invested significant energy in obtaining ivory from across the region, suggesting that it was an important commodity at the time.
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  • ivory found at KwaGandaganda, Ndondondwane and Wosi did not come just from local elephants, but from much further afield. Carbon, nitrogen and strontium isotope analysis, reflecting the elephants' diets, indicates that the animals lived in a wide range of environments.
  • This is approximately 200 years earlier than evidence of ivory trade from the Limpopo River Valley, which has long been known to have been part of a trans-Indian Ocean trade network exporting local products including ivory in exchange for glass beads, glazed ceramics and other luxury goods.
  • We suggest at least some of the ivory from the KwaZulu-Natal sites may also have been destined for trans-oceanic trade based on the large quantities of ivory on some KwaZulu-Natal sites and the new evidence reported here that ivory procurement was not merely local but was conducted over considerable distances,
  • sources of ivory.
  • hunted warthogs and hippos
  • ZooArchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) proved vital.
  • The tests determined that all the fragments of ivory shaped by humans were in fact elephant ivory – a surprise given that there were hippo remains on all three sites.
  • as a potent origin symbol, as a marker of royalty, authority, power and procreation.
  • considerable antiquity.
  • Ivory bangles or armlets were the largest, most frequent and standardised type of artefact manufactured from ivory and occur not only in KwaZulu-Natal but also later sites in the Limpopo Valley
  • These sites may have been politically and economically more important than others
  • KwaGandaganda, Wosi and Ndondondwane preserve the earliest evidence for large-scale ivory processing in Southern Africa,
  • suitable winds and ocean currents, and it has long been thought that vessels relying on trade winds to cross the Indian Ocean probably did not make landfall on the African mainland further south than the northern end of the Mozambique Channel;
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Lets talk about the history of the African ivory trade #factfriday - Ubuntu Wildlife Trust - 3 views

  • The growth in the ivory trade meant there was a greater demand for more human porters to transport the ivory from inland to the coastlines
  • Central and East Africa (1700-1990s)
  • vory was sold at a greater price then enslaved people, however traders made huge profits with each sale.
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  • were added to Appendix I of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), therefore meaning participating countries agreed to prevent the trade of Ivory for commercial purposes. By 2000, African elephants in Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, were added to Appendix II, which permits trade in ivory but requires an export permit to legally do so.
  • The ivory trade continues to threaten the survival of this iconic species and their entire ecosystem as well as endangering the lives and livelihoods of local communities and undermines national and regional security
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