Early reliable evidence of the Etruscan shrew (Suncus etruscus) in southwestern Europe...

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Quaternary Science Reviews 250 (2020) 106690

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Quaternary Science Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quascirev

Early reliable evidence of the Etruscan shrew (Suncus etruscus) in southwestern Europe during ancient times. Reconstructing its dispersal process along the Mediterranean Basin sar Laplana b, Paloma Sevilla a Angel C. Domínguez García a, *, Ce mica, Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias Geolo gicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Jos Departamento de Geodina e Antonio Novais, 12, 28040, Madrid, Spain b de Henares, Spain gico Regional de la Comunidad de Madrid, Plaza de las Bernardas, s/n, 28801, Alcala Museo Arqueolo a

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Article history: Received 29 April 2020 Received in revised form 6 October 2020 Accepted 28 October 2020 Available online xxx

This paper reports a new and well dated record of the Etruscan shrew (Suncus etruscus), which is the smallest extant terrestrial mammal, and provides a comprehensive review of the fossil record of this species. Three remains were found in the small vertebrate assemblage of the Estrecho Cave (Cuenca, Spain), which dates from 2310e2290 and 2272e2149 years cal BP. The morphometric analysis performed provided unequivocal traits of this species. We analyse this new record of the Etruscan shrew together with a review of its fossil records along the Mediterranean Basin. Because of the scarcity of reliable records of this species, its origin and palaeobiogeographical history remain still unclear. According to available data, the Etruscan shrew populations that colonised Europe were most probably originated in Asia, where it was present at least since the Middle Pleistocene. Its dispersal process across the Mediterranean Basin shows a pattern in which it progressively extended its distribution towards the west from mid-4th millennium BP onwards. This process most certainly involved the accidental translocation of the species by humans across the Mediterranean through navigation routes, resulting in its introduction into most of the large Mediterranean islands, besides the mainland of Europe and North Africa. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Pigmy white-toothed shrew Holocene Estrecho cave Colonisation Ancient navigation

Credit author statement Angel C. Domínguez García: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft, Visualiza sar Laplana: Conceptualization, Validation, Formal analysis, tion. Ce Investigation, Writing- Review & Editing, Supervision. Paloma Sevilla: Conceptualization, Validation, Writing- Review & Editing, Supervision. 1. Introduction The pigmy white-toothed shrew or Etruscan shrew, Suncus etruscus (Savi, 1822) (Eulipotyphla, Soricidae), is one of the smallest pez-Fuster, 2007; living mammals with 1.2e2.7 g of weight (Lo Burgin and He, 2018). It has one of the largest distribution ranges

* Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: angelcdo@ucm.es (A.C. Domínguez García), cesar.laplana@ gmail.com (C. Laplana), psevilla@ucm.es (P. Sevilla). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106690 0277-3791/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

among “insectivore” mammals, being widespread but scattered from Southern Europe and North Africa to Southeast Asia. It is also present in Madagascar and in the island of Tenerife. In Europe, it is restrained to the Mediterranean climate zone including most pezMediterranean islands (Blanco, 1998; Spitzenberger, 1990; Lo Fuster, 2007; Aulagnier et al., 2017; Burgin and He, 2018). The genus Suncus belongs to the subfamily Crocidurinae and comprises 19 species inhabiting Eurasia and Africa (Burgin and He, 2018). It is mainly an Indomalayan genus, and therefore probably originated in southern Asia, where it subsequently diversified and spread into Africa and Europe (Heim de Balsac and Lamotte, 1957; Butler et al., 1989; Butler, 1998; Jenkins et al., 1998; Burgin and He, 2018), although some studies suggest an African origin for the rouil et al., 2001). The genus (Meester, 1953; McLellan, 1994; Que fossil record seemingly supports an African origin, due to the higher number of species in this continent and the abundance of fossil occurrences (Butler, 1998). However, a recent study describes the oldest known member of the genus in the Siwalik deposits of the Potwar Plateu, Pakistan, at 10.5 Ma (Flynn et al., 2020). Multiple efforts to clarify the systematics and phylogeography of


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