Holocene underkill

Grayson, Donald K.

doi:10.1073/pnas.0801272105

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…While other explanations have been offered, these archaeological findings are consistent with our hypothesis of ciguatera fish poisoning shaping Polynesian cultures. The colonization of East Polynesia was marked by a rapid decline of terrestrial resources such as bird populations (Steadman, 1989; Steadman & Kirch, 1990; Steadman & Rolett, 1996; Grayson, 2008). Midden records reveal that as terrestrial resources became scarce, coastal people relied more on fishes as their primary protein resource (Broughton, 1994).…”

Section: Evidence Of Cultural Adaptationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Did ciguatera prompt the late Holocene Polynesian voyages of discovery?

Rongo¹,

Bush

Woesik

2009

Journal of Biogeography

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The famous Polynesian voyages characterized an intensive network of cultural exchange and colonization that was particularly active from ad 1000 to 1450. But, why would large groups of people leave their homelands to voyage into the unknown? Oceanic voyages are risky, albeit less so today than in the past. Landfalls were not guaranteed improvements over ports of departure. Taking the Cook Islands as an example, we ask whether harmful algal blooms that result in ciguatera fish poisoning in humans prompted past and present emigration pulses of peoples from within Polynesia. We take a multipronged approach to examine our hypothesis, involving: (1) archaeological evidence, (2) ciguatera fish poisoning reports since the 1940s, and (3) climate and temperature oscillations using palaeodatasets. The archaeological records of fish bones and hooks show abrupt changes in fishing practices in post‐ad 1450 records. Sudden dietary shifts are not linked to overfishing, but may be a sign of ciguatera fish poisoning and adjustment of fishing preference. While fishes form the staple diet of Polynesians, such poisoning renders fishes unusable. We show that ciguatera fish poisoning events coincide with Pacific Decadal Oscillations and suggest that the celebrated Polynesian voyages across the Pacific Ocean may not have been random episodes of discovery to colonize new lands, but rather voyages of necessity. A modern analogue (in the 1990s) was the shift towards processed foods in the Cook Islands during ciguatera fish poisoning events, and mass emigration of islanders to New Zealand and Australia.

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Section: Evidence Of Cultural Adaptationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Did ciguatera prompt the late Holocene Polynesian voyages of discovery?

Rongo¹,

Bush

Woesik

2009

Journal of Biogeography

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“…al., 2008a;Gruhn and Bryan, 2006). Carbon dating and the frequent recovery of material from middens suggest that the latter species was eventually lost to human exploitation, but unlike many other extinct Pleistocene lineages it persisted until as recently as 2,400 years ago (Jones et al, 2008a;Grayson, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mitogenomics supports an unexpected taxonomic relationship for the extinct diving duck Chendytes lawi and definitively places the extinct Labrador Duck

Buckner

Ellingson

Gold

et al. 2018

Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution

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Chendytes lawi, an extinct flightless diving anseriform from coastal California, was traditionally classified as a sea duck, tribe Mergini, based on similarities in osteological characters. We recover and analyze mitochondrial genomes of C. lawi and five additional Mergini species, including the extinct Labrador Duck, Camptorhynchus labradorius. Despite its diving morphology, C. lawi is reconstructed as an ancient relictual lineage basal to the dabbling ducks (tribe Anatini), revealing an additional example of convergent evolution of characters related to feeding behavior among ducks. The Labrador Duck is sister to Steller's Eider which may provide insights into the evolution and ecology of this poorly known extinct species. Our results demonstrate that inclusion of full length mitogenomes, from taxonomically distributed ancient and modern sources can improve phylogeny reconstruction of groups previously assessed with shorter single-gene mitochondrial sequences.

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“…Studies have tended to focus on oceanic island faunas that have experienced elevated levels of species extinction associated with the arrival of humans and commensal mammal predators [ 8 ]. By contrast, there has been little research into continental mammal losses during the Holocene, partly due to the reduced number of global-level continental species extinctions after the Late Pleistocene and before the recent historical era (the so-called ‘Holocene underkill’ [ 33 ]). For example, only one representative of Europe's recent continental large mammal fauna, the aurochs ( Bos primigenius ), has become globally extinct.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Millennial-scale faunal record reveals differential resilience of European large mammals to human impacts across the Holocene

et al. 2016

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The use of short-term indicators for understanding patterns and processes of biodiversity loss can mask longer-term faunal responses to human pressures. We use an extensive database of approximately 18 700 mammalian zooarchaeological records for the last 11 700 years across Europe to reconstruct spatio-temporal dynamics of Holocene range change for 15 large-bodied mammal species. European mammals experienced protracted, non-congruent range losses, with significant declines starting in some species approximately 3000 years ago and continuing to the present, and with the timing, duration and magnitude of declines varying individually between species. Some European mammals became globally extinct during the Holocene, whereas others experienced limited or no significant range change. These findings demonstrate the relatively early onset of prehistoric human impacts on postglacial biodiversity, and mirror species-specific patterns of mammalian extinction during the Late Pleistocene. Herbivores experienced significantly greater declines than carnivores, revealing an important historical extinction filter that informs our understanding of relative resilience and vulnerability to human pressures for different taxa. We highlight the importance of large-scale, long-term datasets for understanding complex protracted extinction processes, although the dynamic pattern of progressive faunal depletion of European mammal assemblages across the Holocene challenges easy identification of ‘static’ past baselines to inform current-day environmental management and restoration.

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Holocene underkill

Cited by 14 publications

References 11 publications

Did ciguatera prompt the late Holocene Polynesian voyages of discovery?

Did ciguatera prompt the late Holocene Polynesian voyages of discovery?

Mitogenomics supports an unexpected taxonomic relationship for the extinct diving duck Chendytes lawi and definitively places the extinct Labrador Duck

Millennial-scale faunal record reveals differential resilience of European large mammals to human impacts across the Holocene

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