Ecological globalisation, serial depletion and the medieval trade of walrus rostra

James H. Barrett,Sanne Boessenkool,Catherine J. Kneale,Tamsin C. O’Connell,Bastiaan Star

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.106122

James H. Barrett, Sanne Boessenkool + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.106122

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Abstract

The impacts of early ecological globalisation may have had profound economic and environmental consequences for human settlements and animal populations. Here, we review the extent of such historical impacts by investigating the medieval trade of walrus (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus) ivory. We use an interdisciplinary approach including chaîne opératoire, ancient DNA (aDNA), stable isotope and zooarchaeological analysis of walrus rostra (skull sections) to identify their biological source and subsequent trade through Indigenous and urban networks. This approach complements and improves the spatial resolution of earlier aDNA observations, and we conclude that almost all medieval European finds of walrus rostra likely derived from Greenland. We further find that shifting urban nodes redistributed the traded ivory and that the latest medieval rostra finds were from smaller, often female, walruses of a distinctive DNA clade, which is especially prevalent in northern Greenland. Our results suggest that more and smaller animals were targeted at increasingly untenable distances, which reflects a classic pattern of resource depletion. We consider how the trade of walrus and elephant ivory intersected, and evaluate the extent to which emergent globalisation and the “resource curse” contributed to the abandonment of Norse Greenland.

Highlights

Ecological globalisation, the spatial displacement of our interface with nature, creates interdependencies between rural or hunter/gatherer communities and distant centres of consumption
We consider the impacts of ecological globalisation by investigating the medieval trade in walrus ivory through a unique combination of interdisciplinary methods e using chaîne operatoire, ancient DNA, stable isotope and zooarchaeological analysis e of modified walrus skulls in which tusks were often traded as pairs
Two distinct phylogenetic clades are observed within Atlantic walrus (Star et al, 2018) with specific geographical distributions; one clade is restricted to the Canadian Arctic and western Greenland, whereas the other clade is found over the entire range of the Atlantic walrus (Andersen et al, 1998, 2017; Born et al, 2001; Lindqvist et al, 2016; Star et al, 2018)

Summary

Introduction

Ecological globalisation, the spatial displacement of our interface with nature, creates interdependencies between rural or hunter/gatherer communities and distant centres of consumption It can impact flora and fauna through the serial depletion of wildlife and the search for new hunting or fishing grounds (Richards, 2003; Pitcher and Lam, 2015) which may further lead to expanding colonisation (Barbier, 2011). We build on recent aDNA evidence for a temporal shift between two distinct mitochondrial genetic clades among traded, medieval European finds of walrus rostra (Star et al, 2018) These clades have specific geographic distributions, whereby a western clade is only present in populations from western Greenland and Arctic Canada. The methods associated with each aspect of the study are provided at the start of the relevant subsections

Current and past distribution of the atlantic walrus

Modified walrus rostra: a chaîne operatoire

Dating and the chronology of the chaîne operatoire

Typology

Ancient DNA clade determination and the chaîne operatoire

Genetic and osteometric sexing

Stable isotope analysis

Integrating the stable isotope and aDNA results

Serial depletion of walruses

Discussion and conclusions

Findings

Declaration of competing interest