IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Booth, V.R.; Cumming, D.H.M. | |
| The development of a recreational hunting industry and its relationship with conservation in Southern Africa | |
| 2009 Book Chapter | |
Modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago. However, the interaction between predatory hominids, such as _Homo erectus_, and large mammals in Africa extends back some two million years or more. There is ample evidence of stone-age cultures existing across southern Africa for tens of thousands of years, followed by iron-age cultures and livestock herding in the region during the last 2,000 years. The rock art of the region extends back to the end of the last ice-age some 12,000 years ago and clearly depicts the hunting of elephant (Loxodonta africana) and lesser quarry. There is some evidence of ivory trade with the east coast from Mapungubwe in the Limpopo valley in about 1,100 ad (Campbell, 1990) and earlier evidence of ivory trade from the east coast of Africa to the Arabian peninsula and India, as part of the age-old dhow trade (Martin & Martin, 1978). Clearly, hunting in Africa has had a long history with the result that the extent of large mammal extinctions in recent times (i.e. the last 12,000 years) were less marked than they were in North and South America where large mammals were exposed, for the first time, to human predation (Lyons et al., 2004). |
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