Perloff 1102
A decade following the opening up of China in 1979, growing demand for freshwater turtles, especially for Chinese medicine, tonics, and food, spiraled out from the country. China is the largest consumer of turtles in the world, and the country’s demands determine the size and dynamics of the international turtle trade. As a result, turtle depletion worldwide grew at an unprecedented scale, marking the beginning of what conservationists termed the Asian Turtle Crisis. Over the years, local and international conservation efforts have been implemented to crackdown on illegal turtle farms, set up preservation zones, pass laws and regulations for turtle protection, and educate the public about alternatives to animals in Chinese medicinal practices. Unfortunately, we continue to see the intensification of the turtle crisis even since the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a zooarchaeologist, I study the various and changing relationships between humans and animals through faunal remains at archaeological sites, with a particular focus on the deep history connecting humans and turtles in ancient China. Zooarchaeological evidence in China suggests that humans exploited turtles beyond subsistence purposes as early as the Paleolithic and the exploitation rapidly increased since the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age over 7000 years ago. However, there is currently a dearth of research and data available to understand human impacts on different turtle populations prior to the 1900s. In this lecture, I explore the interplay between power dynamics, ritual practices, and ecological environment to explain the trajectory of the survival of different turtle populations in ancient China. I place this discussion mainly in the context of the oracle bone ritual, where turtle shells began to be employed as a medium in the practice to prognosticate future events around the 16th century BCE. I argue that zooarchaeology provides valuable data to measure, map, and analyze long-term cumulative impacts of human activities since ancient times, which remains crucial in addressing the current turtle crisis.


Jada Ko, Voss Postdoctoral Research Associate in Environment and Society, Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown University. Jada Ko is an anthropological archaeologist whose research is grounded in ancient Chinese societies. She uses animal remains from the archaeological record to investigate why certain animals are more susceptible to human impacts than others by studying the connections between memory, politics, and the environment. Her current research applies zooarchaeological, historical, ethnographic, and biological data to reconstruct long-term changes in relationships between various species of freshwater turtles and land tortoises and human societies to address present-day turtle conservation issues.

Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies