BOLIVIA, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

10,800 Years Ago, Early Humans Planted Forest Islands in Amazonia’s Grasslands

10,800 Years Ago, Early Humans Planted Forest Islands in Amazonia’s Grasslands

Thousands of artificial forest islands were built by Amazon’s earliest human settlers as they tamed wild plants to produce food, a new study reveals.

The discovery of the mounds is the latest evidence to show the extensive impact people had on the area. From their arrival 10,000 years ago they transformed the landscape when they began cultivating manioc and squash.

This led to the creation of 4,700 of the forest islands in what is now Llanos de Moxos in northern Bolivia, the team has found.

10,800 Years Ago, Early Humans Planted Forest Islands in Amazonia's Grasslands
An aerial shot of the Llanos de Moxos region in South America shows the strangely isolated mounds of trees that grow among expansive grasslands. Scientists’ explanation for these islands: Ancient humans planted and cultivated crops, making them some of the oldest domesticated plants in history.

This savannah area floods from December to March and is extremely dry from July to October, but the mounds remain above the water level during the rainy season allowing trees to grow on them.

The mounds promoted landscape diversity, and show that small-scale communities began to shape the Amazon 8,000 years earlier than previously thought.

The research confirms this part of the Amazon is one of the earliest centres of plant domestication in the world.

Using microscopic plant silica bodies, called phytoliths, found well preserved in tropical forests, experts have documented the earliest evidence found in the Amazon of manioc -10,350 years ago, squash — 10,250 years ago, and maize — 6,850 years ago.

The plants grown on the forest islands were chosen because they were carbohydrate-rich and easy to cook, and they probably provided a considerable part of the calories consumed by the first inhabitants of the region, supplemented by fish and some meat.

The study, in the journal Nature, was conducted by Umberto Lombardo and Heinz Veit from the University of Bern, Jose Iriarte and Lautaro Hilbert from the University of Exeter, Javier Ruiz-Pérez from Pompeu Fabra University and José Capriles from Pennsylvania State University.

Umberto Lombardo, from the University of Bern, who is one of the researches involved in the study, sampling sediment cores in the Llanos de Moxos savannah.

The study involved an unprecedented large scale regional analysis of 61 archaeological sites, identified by remote sensing, now patches of forest surrounded by savannah. Samples were retrieved from 30 forest islands and archaeological excavations carried out in four of them.

Dr Lombardo said: “Archaeologists, geographers, and biologists have argued for many years that southwestern Amazonia was a probable centre of early plant domestication because many important cultivars like manioc, squash, peanuts and some varieties of chilli pepper and beans are genetically very close to wild plants living here.

However, until this recent study, the scientist had neither searched for nor excavated, old archaeological sites in this region that might document the pre-Columbian domestication of these globally important crops.”

Professor Iriarte said: “Genetic and archaeological evidence suggests there were at least four areas of the world where humans domesticated plants around 11,000 years ago, two in the Old World and two in the New World. This research helps us to prove South West Amazonia is likely the fifth.

“The evidence we have found shows the earliest inhabitants of the area were not just tropical hunter-gatherers, but colonizers who cultivated plants. This opens the door to suggest that they already ate a mixed diet when they arrived in the region.”

Forest islands are seen from above

Javier Ruiz-Pérez said: “Through an extensive archaeological survey including excavations and after analysing dozens of radiocarbon dates and phytolith samples, we demonstrated that pre-Columbian peoples adapted to and modified the seasonally flooded savannahs of south-western Amazonia by building thousands of mounds where to settle and by cultivating and even domesticating plants since the beginning of the Holocene.”

CANADA, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

12-year-old boy finds 69 million-year-old dinosaur fossil during a hike with his dad

12-year-old boy finds 69 million-year-old dinosaur fossil during a hike with his dad

For as long as he can recall, Nathan Hrushkin had decided to be a palaeontologist, and the 12-year-old had already made a major discovery. When exploring with his dad this summer at a protected site in the Horseshoe Canyon in the Badlands of Alberta, Canada, he uncovered a partly uncovered dinosaur fossil.

12-year-old boy finds 69 million-year-old dinosaur fossil during a hike with his dad
A 12-year-old boy made the discovery of his lifetime when he found a dinosaur skeleton dating back 69 million years.

It’s incredible to find something that’s real, like the real discovery of a fossil, like an actual dinosaur discovery,” “It’s kind of been my dream for a while.”

Nathan is a seventh-grader in Calgary, which is about an hour-and-a-half away. The fossil was a humerus bone from the arm of a juvenile hadrosaur — a duck-billed dinosaur that lived about 69 million years ago, according to a news release from the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

Nathan and his dad, Dion, had found bone fragments in the area on a previous hike and thought that they might have washed down from farther up the hill.

They were just finishing lunch when Nathan climbed up the hill to take a look.

“He called down to me, he’s like, ‘Dad, you need to get up here,’ and as soon as he said that I could tell by the tone in his voice that he found something,” Dion Hrushkin said.

“They looked like bones made of stone – you could not mistake them for anything else,” his father, Dion Hrushkin, said.

Nathan said the fossil was very obvious and it looked like “a scene on a TV show or a cartoon or something.”

They sent pictures of the bone to the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, which identified the fossil and sent a team of palaeontologists to the site.

Fossils are protected by law in Alberta, and the NCC said that it is important that people don’t disturb any fossils they may find.
The crew has been working at the site for about two months and uncovered between 30 and 50 bones that came from a single young hadrosaur that was about three or four years old, according to the statement.

Hadrosaur bones are the most common fossils found in Alberta’s badlands, but few juvenile skeletons have been found, the statement said. It was also found in a layer of rock that rarely preserves fossils.

“This young hadrosaur is a very important discovery because it comes from a time interval for which we know very little about what kind of dinosaurs or animals lived in Alberta,” François Therrien, the Royal Tyrrell Museum’s curator of dinosaur palaeoecology, said in the statement. “Nathan and Dion’s find will help us fill this big gap in our knowledge of dinosaur evolution.”

The fossils were very close together, so the palaeontologists removed large pieces of the surrounding rock from the canyon walls.

The bones were then covered in a protective jacket of burlap and plaster, so they could be taken to the museum for cleanup and further study.

One of the fossil-rich slabs weighed about 1,000 pounds and was more than four feet wide, according to Carys Richards, a communications manager with the NCC.

Nathan had heard of the hadrosaur before his big find but said it wasn’t the most well-known dinosaur. It’s probably his favourite now — beating out the wildly popular Tyrannosaurus rex.

Nathan and his dad have come to watch the dig several times since the discovery and were there on Thursday when the team was hauling out the last specimens.

“It was pretty fun to be there and watch them do their things,” Nathan said.

CANADA, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

57,000-Year-Old Wolf Pup Mummy Uncovered in Canadian Permafrost

57,000-Year-Old Wolf Pup Mummy Uncovered in Canadian Permafrost

In Yukon, Canada, a perfectly preserved wolf puppy, hidden away for 57,000 years in permafrost and identified by researchers as “the oldest, most complete wolf,” has been discovered in Yukon, Canada.

At the Klondike goldfields, near Dawson City, a miner had seen something in the frozen mud wall, and he had to blast through it to get to it to see what it was. He found a creature that was named the Zhùr by the local Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation people.

Julie Meachen, an associate professor of anatomy at Des Moines University in Iowa, told CNN, “This mummy is so complete, she has basically got all her skin, most of her fur … all her soft tissues present, and she’s 56,000 years old.

57,000-Year-Old Wolf Pup Mummy Uncovered in Canadian Permafrost
This photo shows a closeup of the wolf pup’s head, showing her teeth.

The female pup, according to Meachen, is “the oldest, most complete wolf that’s ever been found,” allowing researchers to delve deeper into what her life would have looked like.

Using X-ray techniques, experts determined that the puppy, which had been preserved in permafrost, died at 6 or 7 weeks old.

Meanwhile, a technique called stable isotope analysis revealed that the animal lived during a time when glaciers had receded.

This photo shows an x-ray view of the wolf pup.

“There weren’t quite as many glaciers around, which means there was a lot more freshwater,” she said. “There were a lot of streams, a lot of rivers flowing, and probably a lot of other animals around. She lived in a lush time.”

The wolf cub’s diet, researchers found, was influenced by her proximity to water: Isotope analysis revealed “she and her mom were eating mostly aquatic resources — things like salmon, maybe some shorebirds,” Meachen said.

DNA analysis revealed the pup is descended from ancient wolves — the ancestors of modern wolves — from Russia, Siberia and Alaska.

This photo shows the wolf pup as she was found

“It’s not a surprise — she is related to the things that were there at the time,” she explained. “But the cool thing about that, that most people might not know, is that wolves in the ice age were only distantly related to wolves that are around today.

“They are still the same species, but they are very different, for being in the same species. Their genetics have changed quite a bit over time — the diversity of wolf has been diminished over time, and again, expanded.

“She is truly an ancient wolf, and she was related to all the wolves around her at the time,” Meachen said.

It takes very specific circumstances to create a permafrost mummy, the researchers said, although several well-preserved wolf cubs have been retrieved from Siberia. However, this cub, found in North America, was particularly rare.”It’s rare to find these mummies in the Yukon.

The animal has to die in a permafrost location, where the ground is frozen all the time, and they have to get buried very quickly, like any other fossilization process,” Meachen said in a statement. “If it lays out on the frozen tundra too long it’ll decompose or get eaten.”

Because of her “pristine” condition, experts think that the wolf cub died instantaneously, perhaps when her den collapsed, as data showed she didn’t starve.

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

66 Roman Army Campsites Identified in Spain

66 Roman Army Campsites Identified in Spain

According to a statement released by the University of Exeter, more than 60 Roman Army camps have been identified on the Iberian Peninsula, where Roman soldiers battled local peoples in the first century B.C.

While seeking to expand their empire and procure natural resources such as tin and gold. Researchers based in Spain and the United Kingdom spotted the sites through the use of airborne laser scanning, aerial photography, and satellite images. 

Analysis of the 66 camps shows the Roman army had a larger presence in the region than previously thought during the 200-year battle to conquer the Iberian Peninsula.

66 Roman Army Campsites Identified in Spain
Roman military presence in Castile.

The discovery of camps of different sizes – used for training and shelter – has allowed experts to map how soldiers attacked indigenous groups from different directions and to learn more about the footprint of the Roman military presence in the northern fringe of the River Duero basin – the León, Palencia, Burgos and Cantabria provinces.

Experts analysed aerial photography and satellite images, created three-dimensional models of the terrain from LiDAR data and used drones to create detailed maps of the sites. This included resources from the Spanish National Geographic Institute (IGN) and geoportals such as Google Earth or Bing Maps. Pinpointing locations allowed fieldwork to then take place.

Aerial photographs of the canteen of Tintolondro (black) (A), Roman Road (white) and Canti (black) are in Quintanilla di Riofresno

These temporary occupations usually left fragile and subtle traces on the surface. The ditches or the earth and stone ramparts protecting these fortifications have been filled in and flattened. Combining different remote sensing images and fieldwork shows the perimeter shape of the temporary Roman military camps, often a rectangle like a playing card.

These new sites are located at the foothills of the Cantabrian Mountains, where the conflict between Romans and natives was focused at the end of the 1st century BC. This suggests soldiers crossed between lowlands and uplands, using ridges in the mountains to stay out of site and give themselves more protection.

The fact there were so many army camps in the region shows the immense logistical support which allowed soldiers to conquer the area. Sites were used to aid movement to remote locations and to help soldiers stay in the area over the cold winter months. Some of the camps may have housed soldiers for weeks or months, and overs overnight.

The aim of the occupation was to expand the empire and to be able to exploit natural resources such as tin and gold.

The research, published in the journal Geosciences, was carried out by Andrés Menéndez Blanco, Jesús García Sánchez from the Archaeology Institute of Mérida, José Manuel Costa-García and Víctor Vicente García from the University of Santiago de Compostela, João Fonte from the University of Exeter and David González-Álvarez from the Institute of Heritage Sciences, Spanish National Research Council.

Dr Fonte said: “We have identified so many sites because we used different types of remote sensing. Airborne laser scanning gave good results for some sites in more remote places because it showed earthworks really well. Aerial photography worked better in lowland areas for the detection of cropmarks.”

“The remains are of the temporary camps that the Roman army set up when moving through hostile territory or when carrying out manoeuveres around their permanent bases. They reveal the intense Roman activity at the entrance to the Cantabrian Mountains during the last phase of the Roman conquest of Hispania.”

There is an important concentration of 25 sites along the valleys of northern Palencia and Burgos, as well as southern Cantabria. In the province of León, as many as 41 sites have been documented in different valleys. These range from small forts of a few hundred square meters to large fortified enclosures of 15 hectares.

Most of these Roman military sites were located in close proximity of later important Roman towns. Sasamón, a village in Burgos that was probably where nearby Emperor Augusto established his camp during his presence in the front.

The research will continue so experts can examine the relationships the Romans established with indigenous communities, named Vaccaei, Turmogi, Cantabri, Astures and Callaeci, according to the Greek and Latin sources.

The team is currently developing a project to catalogue and document all the Roman camps in the province of León by means of drones, in order to gain a better understanding of their structures or the evolution of their state of conservation. Work is also continuing in Burgos and in Sasamón, including a study of the Cerro de Castarreño settlement and its conquest in the 1st century BC.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Boudicca revolt: Essex dig reveals ‘evidence of Roman reprisals’

Boudicca revolt: Essex dig reveals ‘evidence of Roman reprisals’

BBC News reports that archaeologists have found a ten-acre settlement made up of 17 roundhouses surrounded by a defensive structure that was burned down and abandoned in the late first century A.D.

Researchers think the residents of this high-status village may have participated in the revolt against the Roman invasion led by Boudicca, the queen of the Iceni tribe.

“The local Trinovantes tribe joined the A.D. 61 rebellion and after Boudicca’s defeat we know the Romans punished everyone involved,” said Andy Greef of Oxford Archaeology East.

“The local Trinovantes tribe joined the AD61 rebellion and after Boudicca’s defeat we know the Romans punished everyone involved,” said Andy Greef.

The excavation by Oxford Archaeology East ahead of a housing development by Countryside Properties began during the first lockdown and lasted eight months.

The four-hectare (10-acre) site had been little disturbed in the centuries since the Iron Age settlement was abandoned
One of the more unusual finds was this copper alloy cockerel, which is believed to have been an offering to the gods

The enclosure was “clearly an important place” with an “avenue-like entrance” and continued to expand after the Roman invasion in AD43, so archaeologists were surprised it was not resettled after its destruction.

Further evidence of the settlement’s abandonment was the complete lack of Roman burials in subsequent centuries, Mr Greef added.

Despite this, the site remained a centre of “votive offerings” – possibly linked to the cult of the Roman god Mercury – until the end of the Roman occupation in the Fourth Century AD.

Other finds included coins, a tankard handle… and more than 100 brooches

Mr Greef said: “More than 100 brooches, 10 Iron Age coins, dozens of Roman coins, hairpins, beads, finger rings and a lovely copper alloy cockerel figurine were discovered.

“It could be there was a shrine on the site that continued to attract people and, as it’s very close to the Roman road Stane Street, it was easy to access.”

The dig also revealed “one of the most significant assemblages of late Iron Age pottery from Essex in recent years”.

Many months of analysis lie ahead, but once completed, it is hoped some of the finds will find homes in Essex museums.

The dig continued throughout lockdown with archaeologists observing social distancing
ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Investigation in Israel Reveals Wide Range of Artifacts

3,800-year-old baby in a jar unearthed in Israel

Live Science reports that recent archaeological investigations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the ancient port city of Jaffa, which is located on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, have uncovered a middle Bronze Age burial, a pit filled with Hellenistic pottery dated from the fourth to first centuries B.C, coins, and pieces of Roman and medieval glass.

Team member Yoav Arbel said the 3,800-year-old skeletal remains of an infant were found in a jar that may have been intended to protect the delicate remains. “

While such burials of babies are not that rare, it is a mystery why the infants were buried this way, said Yoav Arbel, an archaeologist from the Israel Antiquities Authority who was part of the team that discovered the jar.

3,800-year-old baby in a jar unearthed in Israel
Archaeologists found an infant jar burial about 10 feet (3 meters) under street level in Jaffa, which dated to the Middle Bronze Age II.

Arbel told Live Science, “You might go to the practical thing and say that the bodies were so fragile, [maybe] they felt the need to protect it from the environment, even though it is dead,” Arbel told Live Science.

“But there’s always the interpretation that the jar is almost like a womb, so basically the idea is to return [the] baby back into Mother Earth, or into the symbolic protection of his mother.”

The 4,000-year-old city of Jaffa, where the jar was found, is the older part of Tel Aviv, the second most populated city in Israel after Jerusalem. It was one of the earliest port cities in the world, and has been almost continuously occupied since about 900 B.C., Arbel said

“We’re talking about a city that was ruled by a lot of different people,” Arbel said. “Let’s say that a lot of flags flew from its mast before Israel’s flag of today.”

Despite how strange the baby burial seems to modern eyes, it’s not an unusual find for the region.

“There are different periods when people buried infants in jars in Israel,” Arbel said. “The Bronze Age all the way to less than 100 years ago.” 

The finds were detailed in the 100th issue of the journal Atiqot, which includes more than 50 other studies on archaeology from Jaffa.

A roof tile with a bear stamp found in Jaffa.
A stone with a cross discovered in a Persian period cemetery located in Jaffa.
A stone with a cross discovered in a Persian period cemetery located in Jaffa.
An early Byzantine period mosaic written in Greek from Jaffa saying, in essence, “That’s life!”

Because Jaffa has been almost continuously used for four millennia, the other finds described in the journal span the Hellenistic, Crusader and Ottoman periods.

For instance, at another site, Arbel and his team found a big rubbish pit brimming with pieces of imported amphorae (ceramic vessels) dating to the Hellenistic period, from the fourth to the first centuries B.C.

These roughly 2,300-year-old amphorae, which were used to hold wine, were crafted on various Greek Aegean Islands such as Rhodes and Kos, Arbel said. This one pit provides more evidence that trade routes between Jaffa and Greece were robust, Arbel said.

Archaeologists also found: 30 coins dating to the Hellenistic, Crusader (12th–13th centuries), late Ottoman (late 18th–early 20th centuries) and British Mandate (1942) periods; the remains of at least two horses and pottery dating to the Ottoman Empire; 95 glass vessel fragments from Roman and Crusader times; and 232 seashells, including those from the Mediterranean Sea, land snails and three mother-of-pearl buttons.

There’s also the witty, ancient Greek mosaic discovered near an A.D. fourth- or fifth-century necropolis, saying “Be of good courage, all who are buried here. This is it!”

In essence, it means “this is life!” and that death is everyone’s shared destiny, said Zvi Greenhut, head of the publication department at the IAA, told Live Science.

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Man who died of constipation 1,000 years ago ate grasshoppers for months

Man who died of constipation 1,000 years ago ate grasshoppers for months

One of the worst instances of constipation in the annals of medicine was a native American living in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas between 1,000 and 1,400 years ago. The man’s intestine swelled to six times its usual size due to an inflammation, which made it impossible to digest normal food properly.

Eventually, this horrible illness, known as ‘megacolon‘, caused the man to die. Centuries later,  his remains, mummified by the arid conditions, were found in a rock shelter close to the junction between the Rio Grande and Pecos Rivers in South Texas.

Yet there is a positive side to this tale as well. Scientists also discovered that, after examining the mummy, during the last two or three months of his life, the man ate a diet of grasshoppers whose legs had been removed.

The naturally mummified adult male from the late archaic period of Lower Pecos Canyonlands of South Texas had a hugely inflated colon

Since his condition must have made it almost impossible to walk and procure food for himself, it’s likely that the man was fed by somebody else, perhaps family or other members of his community. It’s one of the earliest bits of evidence of hospice care.

“They were taking off the legs,” said Karl Reinhard, a professor in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. “So they were giving him mostly the fluid-rich body — the squishable part of the grasshopper.

In addition to being high in protein, it was pretty high in moisture. So it would have been easier for him to eat in the early stages of his megacolon experience.”

The Skiles mummy from Texas, named after Guy Skiles, the person who first discovered it in 1937, had been stored in various private and public museums.

A segment of the man’s colon, which swelled to six times its normal diameter and is described by scientists as a ‘megacolon’
Man who died of constipation 1,000 years ago ate grasshoppers for months
For the last two to three months of his life in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of modern-day Texas

More recently, in 2003, Reinhard and colleagues published a study in which they reported that the mummy contained 1,2 kilograms (2.6 pounds) of faeces in its huge colon, along with a large quantity of unprocessed food.

This led the researchers to conclude that the unfortunate man was infected with the parasite-borne Chagas disease and suffered from severe malnourishment due to the fact that his body was unable to process food.

In their new study, Reinhard’s team revisited the Skiles mummy, this time using scanning electron microscopy, which offered new clues about the man’s diet during his twilight days.

The researchers examined phytoliths, tiny plant tissue structures that remain intact even after the rest of the plant decays and which are so robust they normally survive the rough, bumpy ride through the human intestinal tract. But in the case of this mummy, the researchers were astonished by the phytoliths found inside it.

Microscopy of minuscule plant remnants, pollen and animal remains, including a mammal hair (centre), extracted from the intestinal tract of a mummy found in Arizona’s Ventana Cave

“The phytoliths were split open, crushed. And that means there was incredible pressure that was exerted on a microscopic level in this guy’s intestinal system, which highlights, even more, the pathology that was exhibited here,” Reinhard said. “I think this is unique in the annals of pathology — this level of intestinal blockage and the pressure that’s associated with it.”

This most recent analysis of the Skiles mummy will appear in a forthcoming chapter of “The Handbook of Mummy Studies,” which also includes best practices for preparing and analyzing the contents of mummified intestines.

In the same handbook, Reinhard also described two other mummies who also received special care during their last days.

One of the mummies belongs to a 5 to a 6-year-old child who was buried between 500 and 1,000 years ago in Arizona’s Ventana Cave by the Hohokam people. The third mummy, of an even younger child, was buried roughly 750 years ago in southern Utah.

EUROPE, PORTUGAL, WORLD

16th-Century Shipwreck’s Cargo of Elephant Ivory Analyzed

16th-Century Shipwreck’s Cargo of Elephant Ivory Analyzed

BBC News reports that an international team of researchers led by Alida de Flamingh of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was able to reconstruct complete mitochondrial genomes for 17 distinct elephant herds with samples taken from 100 tusks recovered from the Bom Jesus, a Portuguese trading vessel that sank in 1533 while on a voyage to India.

16th-Century Shipwreck’s Cargo of Elephant Ivory Analyzed
A hundred complete tusks were among the cargo

It was found by chance in 2008 in a coastal diamond mine, making it the oldest known shipwreck in southern Africa. 

The ivory in the cargo hold was just part of a vast haul of precious cargo, including copper ingots and gold and silver coins. Archaeologists have also found personal effects and navigation equipment amid the remains of the ship.

“There are dinner plates, cutlery, and trinket boxes, as well as all the copper ingots, coins, and ivory in the cargo,” explained Ashley Coutu, an archaeologist from the University of Oxford, who specializes in genetic and chemical analysis of artifacts.

“It is an incredible find, incredibly well preserved,” she told BBC News.

Every tusk is an elephant’s life story – a chemical fingerprint laid down throughout its life

That preservation meant that the international team of researchers – including experts from Namibia, the US, and the UK – could unpick exactly how many herds of elephants the tusks came from.

The team examined something called mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria are the power stations of every cell, converting food into fuel. 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.

“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.”

Those completed pieces of genetic code showed that the tusks on this single trading vessel 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.

“That was quite shocking – that loss of diversity,” said Dr. Coutu. “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.”

“[What we found] definitely has conservation implications,” Dr de Flamingh added: “We know that a loss of genetic diversity is associated with increased extinction risk.”

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.

Battling the ivory trade

The scientists also hope their detailed examination of this ancient ivory could help inform anti-poaching efforts today.

The scientists also hope their detailed examination of this ancient ivory could help inform anti-poaching efforts today. While recent analysis shows elephant poaching has declined slightly, conservationists say 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,” said Dr de Flamingh.

“And once you know where the ivory is from you can develop targeted anti-poaching strategies for those locations.”

Dr. Coutu added: “We’re really going to be able to use this historic data to answer modern conservation questions.”

All In One Magazine