Walruses on the Dnieper: new evidence for the intercontinental trade of Greenlandic ivory in the Middle Ages
Mediaeval walrus hunting in Iceland and Greenland—driven by Western European demand for ivory and walrus hide ropes—has been identified as an important pre-modern example of ecological globalization. By contrast, the main origin of walrus ivory destined for eastern European markets, and then onward...
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Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8984804/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35382600 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2773 |
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:8984804 2023-05-15T15:07:48+02:00 Walruses on the Dnieper: new evidence for the intercontinental trade of Greenlandic ivory in the Middle Ages Barrett, James H. Khamaiko, Natalia Ferrari, Giada Cuevas, Angélica Kneale, Catherine Hufthammer, Anne Karin Pálsdóttir, Albína Hulda Star, Bastiaan 2022-04-13 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8984804/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35382600 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2773 en eng The Royal Society http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8984804/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35382600 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2773 © 2022 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Proc Biol Sci Palaeobiology Text 2022 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2773 2022-04-24T00:30:49Z Mediaeval walrus hunting in Iceland and Greenland—driven by Western European demand for ivory and walrus hide ropes—has been identified as an important pre-modern example of ecological globalization. By contrast, the main origin of walrus ivory destined for eastern European markets, and then onward trade to Asia, is assumed to have been Arctic Russia. Here, we investigate the geographical origin of nine twelfth-century CE walrus specimens discovered in Kyiv, Ukraine—combining archaeological typology (based on chaîne opératoire assessment), ancient DNA (aDNA) and stable isotope analysis. We show that five of seven specimens tested using aDNA can be genetically assigned to a western Greenland origin. Moreover, six of the Kyiv rostra had been sculpted in a way typical of Greenlandic imports to Western Europe, and seven are tentatively consistent with a Greenland origin based on stable isotope analysis. Our results suggest that demand for the products of Norse Greenland's walrus hunt stretched not only to Western Europe but included Ukraine and, by implication given linked trade routes, also Russia, Byzantium and Asia. These observations illuminate the surprising scale of mediaeval ecological globalization and help explain the pressure this process exerted on distant wildlife populations and those who harvested them. Text Arctic Greenland greenlandic Iceland walrus* PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Greenland Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 289 1972 |
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PubMed Central (PMC) |
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language |
English |
topic |
Palaeobiology |
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Palaeobiology Barrett, James H. Khamaiko, Natalia Ferrari, Giada Cuevas, Angélica Kneale, Catherine Hufthammer, Anne Karin Pálsdóttir, Albína Hulda Star, Bastiaan Walruses on the Dnieper: new evidence for the intercontinental trade of Greenlandic ivory in the Middle Ages |
topic_facet |
Palaeobiology |
description |
Mediaeval walrus hunting in Iceland and Greenland—driven by Western European demand for ivory and walrus hide ropes—has been identified as an important pre-modern example of ecological globalization. By contrast, the main origin of walrus ivory destined for eastern European markets, and then onward trade to Asia, is assumed to have been Arctic Russia. Here, we investigate the geographical origin of nine twelfth-century CE walrus specimens discovered in Kyiv, Ukraine—combining archaeological typology (based on chaîne opératoire assessment), ancient DNA (aDNA) and stable isotope analysis. We show that five of seven specimens tested using aDNA can be genetically assigned to a western Greenland origin. Moreover, six of the Kyiv rostra had been sculpted in a way typical of Greenlandic imports to Western Europe, and seven are tentatively consistent with a Greenland origin based on stable isotope analysis. Our results suggest that demand for the products of Norse Greenland's walrus hunt stretched not only to Western Europe but included Ukraine and, by implication given linked trade routes, also Russia, Byzantium and Asia. These observations illuminate the surprising scale of mediaeval ecological globalization and help explain the pressure this process exerted on distant wildlife populations and those who harvested them. |
format |
Text |
author |
Barrett, James H. Khamaiko, Natalia Ferrari, Giada Cuevas, Angélica Kneale, Catherine Hufthammer, Anne Karin Pálsdóttir, Albína Hulda Star, Bastiaan |
author_facet |
Barrett, James H. Khamaiko, Natalia Ferrari, Giada Cuevas, Angélica Kneale, Catherine Hufthammer, Anne Karin Pálsdóttir, Albína Hulda Star, Bastiaan |
author_sort |
Barrett, James H. |
title |
Walruses on the Dnieper: new evidence for the intercontinental trade of Greenlandic ivory in the Middle Ages |
title_short |
Walruses on the Dnieper: new evidence for the intercontinental trade of Greenlandic ivory in the Middle Ages |
title_full |
Walruses on the Dnieper: new evidence for the intercontinental trade of Greenlandic ivory in the Middle Ages |
title_fullStr |
Walruses on the Dnieper: new evidence for the intercontinental trade of Greenlandic ivory in the Middle Ages |
title_full_unstemmed |
Walruses on the Dnieper: new evidence for the intercontinental trade of Greenlandic ivory in the Middle Ages |
title_sort |
walruses on the dnieper: new evidence for the intercontinental trade of greenlandic ivory in the middle ages |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8984804/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35382600 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2773 |
geographic |
Arctic Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Greenland |
genre |
Arctic Greenland greenlandic Iceland walrus* |
genre_facet |
Arctic Greenland greenlandic Iceland walrus* |
op_source |
Proc Biol Sci |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8984804/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35382600 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2773 |
op_rights |
© 2022 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2773 |
container_title |
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
container_volume |
289 |
container_issue |
1972 |
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1766339230285430784 |