ON THE TRAIL OF IVORY: MAPPING TRADE IN IRON AGE SOUTHERN AFRICA

Summary

Our current knowledge of the pre-colonial ivory trade in southern Africa consists of evidence from a number of archaeological sites dating from the 7-11th centuries AD, such as Schroda, K2, Ndondonwane, and KwaGandaGanda. These sites have yielded large caches of ivory debris, suggesting that these places were centres for ivory carving/production. However, it is unknown whether raw ivory was obtained locally or brought from further afield, whether there was a standardised mode of production, and which markets drove the demand for its manufacture.

In order to investigate these questions, a combination of bioarchaeological techniques has been utilised to determine the species of the ivory (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry), as well as isotope analysis to determine possible source regions. This paper will present the ZooMS and isotope data (δ13C, δ15N, δ18O and 87Sr/86Sr) from the analysis of ivory artefacts and working waste from Iron Age sites in southern Africa. Isotope measurements from the ivory have been mapped onto environmental variables to reconstruct the catchment areas. Ultimately, this data will be combined with evidence for other trade goods (cattle, metal, glass beads) to better understand the movement of commodities across southern Africa from the first millennium AD onwards.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage