Origins of house mice in ecological niches created by settled hunter-gatherers in the Levant 15,000 y ago
Abstract
Reductions in hunter-gatherer mobility during the Late Pleistocene
influenced settlement ecologies, altered human relations with
animal communities, and played a pivotal role in domestication.
The influence of variability in human mobility on selection dynamics
and ecological interactions in human settlements has not been
extensively explored, however. This study of mice in modern African
villages and changingmicemolar shapes in a 200,000-y-long sequence
from the Levant demonstrates competitive advantages for commensal
mice in long-term settlements. Mice from African pastoral
households provide a referential model for habitat partitioning
among mice taxa in settlements of varying durations. The data
reveal the earliest known commensal niche for house mice in longterm
forager settlements 15,000 y ago. Competitive dynamics and
the presence and abundance of mice continued to fluctuate with
human mobility through the terminal Pleistocene. At the Natufian
site of Ain Mallaha, house mice displaced less commensal wild mice
during periods of heavy occupational pressure but were outcompeted
when mobility increased. Changing food webs and ecological
dynamics in long-term settlements allowed house mice to establish
durable commensal populations that expanded with human societies.
This study demonstrates the changing magnitude of cultural niche
construction with varying human mobility and the extent of environmental
influence before the advent of farming.
Origin : Publisher files allowed on an open archive
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