A sudden increase in the production of elephant ivory artifacts on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa occurred in the tenth century. Historians explain this increase as the result of an area opening up as a new source of ivory and argue on this basis that the important medieval trade between North Africa and East Africa began at this period.
In East Africa gold coins from Mediterranean North Africa have been found at a tenth-century site but at no earlier sites does not provide some support for the historians' account described above.