According to a recent article published in BBC, a Portuguese trading vessel wreck, known as the Bom Jesus, which went missing on its way to India in 1533 and was found by chance in 2008 in a coastal diamond mine, making it the oldest known shipwreck in southern Africa.
Apart from ivory, the archaeologists have also found copper ingots, gold and silver coins, personal effects, and navigation equipment amid the remains of the ship.
Treasure in the shipwreck
- On this single ship, researchers found genetic evidence of 17 distinct herds of the threatened animals.
- Their forensic examination of the 100 tusks pinpointed the devastation caused to the elephant population by centuries of the ivory trade.
- Today, scientists can find only four of those herds surviving in Africa.
- The well-preserved tusks in the cold water of the Namibian coast revealed the elephant’s diet, living place, and the place where they have been hunted.
The team including experts from Namibia, the US, and the UK examined something called mitochondrial DNA. And crucially for this study, the genetic blueprint that makes mitochondria are passed down from mother to offspring. This makes it a particularly revealing piece of code for elephants. Those codes showed that the tusks came from 17 distinct elephant herds, The most up-to-date genetic information about the elephants surviving in that part of Africa today showed that only four of those could be found.
“Elephants live in female-led family groups, and they tend to stay in the same geographic area throughout their lives,” explained Alida de Flamingh from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the study. “We were able to reconstruct complete mitochondrial genomes from these really old samples. [What we found] definitely has conservation implications, We know that a loss of genetic diversity is associated with increased extinction risk.”
Ashley Coutu, an archaeologist from the University of Oxford, who specializes in genetic and chemical analysis of artifacts said, “There are dinner plates, cutlery and trinket boxes, as well as all the copper ingots, coins and ivory in the cargo, It is an incredible find, incredibly well preserved, That was quite shocking – that loss of diversity, Next we’d really like to fill in those gaps in a chronological way. We can look at where these pinch points are in history and create a timeline of exactly how and when the huge trade in ivory had an impact.”
Tusks-Recognition of Elephants
Every tusk is an elephant’s life story. What the animals eat creates a fingerprint in the composition of the tusks as they grow – something that scientists can unpick using a technique called isotope analysis.
This essentially breaks down the chemical make-up of every tusk, and it suggested that these were forest elephants – living in mixed forest habitats.
That was a surprise because by this point in history the Portuguese had established trade with the Kongo Kingdom and communities along the Congo River. So the researchers expected that elephants would be from different regions, especially West and Central Africa.
Leading the Way to Anti-Poaching
The scientists also hope their detailed examination of this ancient ivory could help inform anti-poaching efforts today. While the data showing the poaching has declined but the animals are still being poached at unsustainable rates and the trade is a threat to their survival.
When large-scale confiscations of illegal ivory take place, people analyze the DNA to find out where the elephants were killed in Africa.
“Our evidence provides a reference to compare that with, so its origin can be confirmed, And once you know where the ivory is from you can develop targeted anti-poaching strategies for those locations.” said Dr.de Flamingh.
Dr.Coutu said, “We’re really going to be able to use this historic data to answer modern conservation questions.”
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Source: BBC
