Nonhuman Primate Trade in the Age of Discoveries: European Importation and Its Consequences
The history of interactions between humans and non-human primates is simultaneously complex and fascinating. Since ancient times, human beings have interacted with non-human primates, sometimes shaping the latter populations’ abundance and geographical di
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Nonhuman Primate Trade in the Age of Discoveries: European Importation and Its Consequences C. Veracini
Abstract The history of interactions between humans and non-human primates is simultaneously complex and fascinating. Since ancient times, human beings have interacted with non-human primates, sometimes shaping the latter populations’ abundance and geographical distribution. In the Age of Discovery (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) Europeans came in contact with sub-Saharan African and New World primates for the first time and began the first large-scale trade of these primates. They were introduced to Europe in great number being a significant part of the revenue from the trade in natural products with Africa and the Americas. The current work presents the results of a review of literary and iconographic sources of this period which contain data on African and New World primates. These sources suggest that primates were a constant presence and very sought after animals in all the phases of European expansion. They represented an authentic status symbol for nobles and wealthy citizens who used them to underscored their influence, prestige and social position. This work will also include some considerations on the consequence of this trade on primate populations.
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Introduction: Human and Non-human Primate Interactions in the Western World
The interactions between humans and non-human primates (referred to as “primates” from here onwards) date back to ancient times. Its study is a complex area of research that includes many different disciplines such as history, the history of natural science, primatology, anthropology, archeozoology, ecology and ethnoprimatology. According to recent studies in ethnoprimatology, primate populations have been influenced by or been forced to respond to human activities in their recent or evolutionary histories (Fuentes 2006). Geographical distribution, abundance and
C. Veracini (*) ISCSP–CAPP, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 C. Joanaz de Melo et al. (eds.), Environmental History in the Making, Environmental History 7, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41139-2_9
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interspecies interactions of primate populations are in many cases the result of human pressure and action (Masseti 2010). Moreover, there is an emerging consensus that the interface between human and non-human primates needs to be more documented both in the present and in the past (Fuentes 2007). This is also demonstrated by the recent interest of Early Modern historiography in studies on animals and their meaning in human culture (e.g. Fudge 2002; Cuneo 2014) Since ancient times, primates have always been assigned a distinct place in the human imagination because of their similarities with human beings (Corbey and Theunissen 1995; Groves 2008). They have often played a role in the central debates concerning human nature and human origins, acting as a vehicle of moral and cultural criticism, and being sometime
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