Program in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town 7700, South Africa; Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PP, UK; BioArCh, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK.
Curr Biol. 2021 Feb 8;31(3):621-628.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.10.086. Epub 2020 Dec 17.
The oldest known shipwreck in southern Africa was found in Namibia in 2008. 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. The cargo included >100 elephant tusks, 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 (δC and δN) 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 and accord with the locations of major historic Portuguese trading ports. West African forest elephants currently range into savanna habitats; our findings suggest that this was not consequent to regional decimation of savanna elephants for their ivory in the 19 and 20 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.
2008 年，在纳米比亚发现了南非最古老的沉船。40 吨货物，包括金币和银币，帮助确定这艘船是邦耶稣号（Bom Jesus），一艘 1533 年在前往印度的途中失踪的葡萄牙帆船。货物中包括>100 根象牙，我们使用古基因组学和稳定同位素分析对其进行了研究。核 DNA 确定象牙的来源是非洲森林象（Loxodonta cyclotis），而不是草原象（Loxodonta africana）。线粒体序列将它们追溯到西非而不是中非，来自至少 17 个具有不同单倍型的牛群。其中 4 个单倍型来自现代种群；其他的可能是由于后来为了象牙而猎杀大象而消失的。稳定同位素分析（δC 和 δN）表明，这些大象不是来自深林，而是来自草原和混合栖息地。这些栖息地环绕着西非的几内亚森林区，与历史上主要的葡萄牙贸易港口的位置相符。目前，西非森林象的活动范围已经进入草原栖息地；我们的发现表明，这并不是由于 19 世纪和 20 世纪为了象牙而对草原象进行区域性屠杀的结果。在邦耶稣号时期，象牙是连接欧洲、非洲和亚洲的海上贸易体系形成的主要驱动力。我们将古基因组学、考古学和历史学方法结合起来分析邦耶稣号象牙，为研究世界各地沉船和其他背景下的大量考古象牙藏品提供了一个框架。
