RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Reappraisal of the extinction of Canariomys bravoi, the giant rat from Tenerife (Canary Islands)
A1 Rando Reyes, Juan Carlos
A1 Antoni Alcover, Josep
A1 Galván Santos, Bertila Cándida M. C.
A1 Navarro Mederos, Juan Francisco
K1 Aboriginal settlement
K1 Canariomys bravoi
K1 Insular rodent
K1 Quaternary extinctions
K1 Radiocarbon dating
AB All the Quaternary endemic rodents of the Canary Islands are currently extinct. The Lava Mouse Malpaisomys insularis inhabited the easternmost islands, whereas the giant rats Canariomys bravoi andCanariomys tamarani lived in the central islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, respectively. Bones ofC. bravoi have appeared in archaeological sites together with shellfish and butchery remains. Traditionally, they have been considered as an evidence of the sporadic consumption of C. bravoi by theaboriginal people, in some instances as recently as the time of the first European contact (14th centuryAD). Accordingly, the extinction of C. bravoi has been linked to the European colonization of Tenerife. Theplausibility of this extinction date has been explored through new radiocarbon dates obtained onselected C. bravoi bones and through a reappraisal of the published dates. Our analysis allowed us toestablish an earlier last documented occurrence age for C. bravoi, prior to the third century cal BC, muchearlier than previously assumed. The analysis of formerly published 14C dates of archaeological remainsfrom Tenerife shows that samples with confidence intervals (95.54%) that are older or overlap with thelast documented record of C. bravoi were performed on materials with large sources of error (such aswood, charcoal or bulk ash-sediments). Conversely, the new radiocarbon dates and analyses presentedherein are in agreement with the occurrence of an earlier rapid extinction linked to the first humanpresence on the island.
SN 0277-3791
YR 2014
FD 2014
LK http://riull.ull.es/xmlui/handle/915/35280
UL http://riull.ull.es/xmlui/handle/915/35280
LA en
DS Repositorio institucional de la Universidad de La Laguna
RD 22-nov-2024