Archaeological ivory and the impact of the elephant in Mawogola

Abstract

While the devastation of elephants due to the demand for ivory in recent centuries is well known, the use of ivory in earlier times in sub-Saharan Africa as well as the interaction with elephant populations is less well understood. This article considers the use of ivory and the long-term relationship between humans and elephants in one area, Mawogola, in south-western Uganda. Its scope extends from the initial encounters with elephants around 1,000 years ago, including the use of ivory as ornamentation, through the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century engagement of African states with the ivory trade, into colonial times and the end of the elephant in Mawogola in the late 1960s. Humans constructed their relationships with one another in part through the manipulation of ivory and elephants. Consideration is also given to the ecological impact of elephants and to the implications of their demise on the landscape.

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