Chap. 28
Cat and mice: commensalism and shifting of continental connectivity
Le chat et les souris : commensalisme et évolution des connexions avec le continent
p. 467-476
Résumés
This chapter analyses the 41 bone and tooth rodent remains together with the only cat bone found in Klimonas. Gnowing marks studies and contextual analyses clearly show that mice were living in the village as commensals. Their remains were especially concentrated in the packed earth floor of the three main successive Communal buildings, suggesting that the latter was the main crop storage area, like in PPNA sites in the Euphrates Valley. One first lower molar was identified as mus m. domesticus via geometric morphometric analysis, indicating that the house mouse had already been introduced to Cyprus at the beginning of the 9th millennium cal BC. One cat phalanx strongly suggests that Felis s. lybica was also introduced with early cultivation, “pre-domestic” cereals and mice, as part of the “PPNA package”. The morphometric study of dental shape similarities among PPN populations of house mice from Cyprus and the nearby continent suggests that m. m. domesticus was introduced from Anatolia, but that the continental source of house mouse dispersal had shifted to the Northern Levant during the PPNB, then to the Southern Levant during the PPNC and Pottery Neolithic. These observations support and clarify our current understanding of Cyprus PPN connectivity with the continent based on cultural studies.
Ce chapitre analyse les 41 restes d’os et de dents de rongeurs ainsi que le seul os de chat trouvés à Klimonas grâce au tamisage à l’eau sur maille fine et au tri de presque 2000 litres de sédiments. Les analyses tracéologiques mettent en évidence la présence d’un petit nombre d’ossements de grands mammifères porteurs de traces de dents de rongeurs, aussi bien dans le Bâtiment communautaire que dans les contextes résidentiels du Secteur B. Les ossements de muridés n’ont été trouvés que dans 36 % des contextes ayant fait l’objet d’un tamisage sur maille fine. La grande majorité d’entre eux provient du Bâtiment communautaire, plus particulièrement des trois sols aménagés successivement dans cette structure monumentale de terre crue (St 10). Ces observations suggèrent que de nombreux muridés, dont les 41 restes ne représentent sans doute qu’une maigre relique de l’abondance originelle, vivaient dans le village en tant que commensaux attirés par le stockage des produits de l’agriculture et ses déchets. Leur concentration dans les phases successives du Bâtiment communautaire étaye l’hypothèse que ce dernier pouvait servir de lieu privilégié de stockage des récoltes, comme cela a été proposé pour les bâtiments communautaires de grands sites PPNA de la vallée de l’Euphrate. L’identification spécifique de la seule mandibule murine disponible a été réalisée grâce à une analyse de morphométrie géométrique comparée à un très large corpus de populations de référence actuelles. Elle renvoie sans ambiguïté non pas à l’espèce endémique autochtone semi-commensale de Chypre mus cypriacus, mais à la souris grise commensale continentale mus musculus domesticus. Elle indique que cette espèce, déjà attestée durant le Cypro-PPNB ancien à mylouthkhia, à la fin du 9e millénaire av. n. è., avait été introduite à Chypre dès le PPNA, au début de ce même millénaire. L’identification d’une phalange de chat (Felis s. lybica) à Klimonas atteste de la présence de ce petit félidé à Chypre avant les plus anciennes attestations connues jusqu’à présent, datées du Cypro-PPNB ancien. Le cortège commensal souris-chat lié à l’agriculture naissante était donc présent à Chypre dès le PPNA. Le chat commensal a été introduit en même temps que les premières cultures, que les céréales « pré-domestiques » et que les souris dans le cadre de ce que l’on pourrait qualifier de « paquetage » PPNA. En s’appuyant sur le concept de métapopulations insulaires, l’analyse des similarités et dissimilarités des formes dentaires entre les populations PPN de souris commensales de Chypre et du continent, permet d’aborder avec une bonne précision géographique la question de la connectivité entre l’île de Chypre et le continent au cours de cette période. Les résultats suggèrent que la souris commensale du PPNA chypriote venait vraisemblablement d’Anatolie, mais que la source continentale de dispersion de souris commensales vers l’île s’est déplacée vers le Levant Nord pendant le PPNB, puis vers le Levant Sud pendant le PPNC et le Néolithique à poterie. Ces résultats viennent corroborer et préciser notre compréhension des relations entre l’île et le continent, établies à partir des données de la culture matérielle.
Remerciements
K. P. was funded by a grant from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche under the LabEx ANR-10-LABX-0003-BCDiv, as part of the programme “Investissements d’avenir” ANR-11-IDEX-0004-02, and by the malcolm H. Wiener Laboratory (ASCSA, Athens). We are grateful to Isabelle Carrère, Nicolas Delsol, Andrea Parès and m. Tengberg who contributed to the fine-mesh sieving of the sediments and the sorting of sieve residues in search of small vertebrate bones.
Texte intégral
Introduction
1Together with pygmy hippopotami (Phanourios minor), elephants (Elephas cypriotes) and the Cypriot endemic genet (Genetta plesictoides), mice were one of four mammal species already present in Cyprus during the Late Pleistocene (Bate 1903). This is shown in several paleontological sites (Boekshoten and Sondaar 1972, Reese 1995), especially in the lower layer of Akrotiri-Aetokremnos, dated to the 12–11th millennia cal BC (Simmons 1999, Zazzo et al. 2015). The Late Pleistocene mouse species has been described as a new endemic mouse species still living on the island today as a semi-commensal rodent, mus cypriacus (Cucchi et al. 2006).
2Today, this Cypriot mouse shares anthropogenic ecosystems with the house mouse, mus musculus domesticus, which is one of the three house mouse subspecies to invade four of the five continents during the Holocene, following human dispersal. Together with Acomys nesiotes and Rattus rattus (both introduced during historical times), the Cypriot and house mice are the only rodent taxa present today on the island. Recent large-scale studies integrating morphometrics, paleogenetics and direct radiocarbon dating of mus specimens from archaeological contexts in South-western Asia and South-eastern Europe confirmed that the house mouse first extended its distribution area from the Iranian Plateau to the mesopotamian Basin after the Last Glacial maximum, then invaded a large part of the Levant during the first Natufian wave of proto-sedentism, c. 12,500 cal BC (Weissbrod et al. 2017, Cucchi et al. 2020). The species is well attested in numerous PPNA and PPNB Southwest Asian sites (Cucchi et al. 2020), where several pieces of evidence indicate that early cultivator villagers had already developed special systems, including sophisticated granaries, for protecting crops from this invasive commensal (Kuijt and Finlayson 2009). The pull of wild cats towards the ecological niche of the village can be interpreted as a reaction to the swarms of mice attracted by crops (Vigne 2019).
3Cyprus was included in this early house mouse dispersal wave on the basis of solid evidence found in the deep deposits of Early PPNB water wells at Kissonerga-Mylouthkia c. 8300 cal BC (Cucchi et al. 2002). Cats were also attested at the same time in the early phase A of Shillourokambos (Vigne 2011), then in several Cypriot sites throughout the 8th and 7th millennia cal BC, including the domestic specimen found in the human burial from the late 8th millennium at Shillourokambos (Vigne et al. 2004, Vigne 2011, 2019, 2021). Cyprus has produced the earliest evidence for the concomitant anthropogenic dispersal of house mice and cats (Cucchi et al. 2020).
4However, until the first seasons of excavation at the Late PPNA village of Klimonas, we knew nothing about the history of the Cypriot mouse before the mid-9th millennium, except that m. cypriacus was the only species present in the small Epipaleolithic sample found at Aetokremnos (Simmons 1999, Cucchi et al. 2006). Were commensal mice already living in buildings during the early 9th millennium, attracted by the incipient processing and storage of cereal crops (chap. 23), as observed on the continent since the Natufian (Cucchi et al. 2020)? If so, was m. cypriacus the only commensal mouse or had m. m. domesticus already been introduced to Cyprus at that time, and, if so, where did these commensal mice come from? Were they already dominant in the anthropogenic niche? had the cat already been introduced to Cyprus at that time to control populations of commensal mice? In this chapter, we examine the archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence in order to address these questions and to significantly contribute to the understanding of connectivity between Cyprus and the Southwest Asian continent during the PPN. Indeed, the intimate connections between human movements and the colonisation history of the house mouse (Pocock et al. 2005) also provide a relevant commensal bio-proxy to elucidate human migrations, trade links and colonisation events through phylogeographic studies, mainly from Antiquity to the European colonialism of the modern era (Searle et al. 2009, Gabriel et al. 2010, 2011, Jones et al. 2012, 2013). The zooarchaeological studies of ancient populations of the house mouse have also proven useful to explore travel and trade links of Neolithic and Bronze Age mediterranean societies (Vigne and Cucchi 2005, Cucchi 2008, Vigne et al. 2014), as well as potential Neolithic dispersal routes outside the Near Eastern cradle in Transcaucasia (Cucchi et al. 2013). Here we use the phylogenetic signal of dental remains (Caumul and Polly 2005, Cucchi et al. 2017, Hulme-Beaman et al. 2018) to explore the origin and changes in continental sources of house mouse dispersal towards Cyprus during the PPN and to discuss its relevance for our understanding of the cultural evolution of the Cypriot Neolithic.
1. Inventory and location of rodent remains and gnawing marks
1.1. Recovery methods
5Most of the sediment excavated between 2011 and 2016 at Klimonas was water-sieved through 5 and 3 mm meshes. Subsamples of sediments from the richest faunal units were water-sieved using a 2 mm mesh (with 10% of it sieved through 1 mm). They represent a total of 6600 litres of sediment (see chap. 24) from 34 stratigraphic units (SU), with 1 to 12 bags of 20 litres of sediments per SU. Only some of the residues were sorted under a lens or a stereomicroscope, and the sorting of sterile samples was rapidly stopped. The total volume sieved using a fine mesh and actually sorted can be estimated at around 97 bags of 20 litres each, i.e., 1940 litres of sediment.
1.2. main characteristics of the rodent bones
6We retrieved a total of 41 rodent bones or teeth (appendix 28-1), i.e., one for every 47 litres, on average. None came from modern contaminations because they all bear a dark patina, are sometimes burnt and, except on very small islands, mice never dig burrows (Niethammer and Krapp 1978). They can all be considered as PPNA specimens. Even though one specimen (lower incisor) shows clear digestion marks (dog?), the low density of rodent bones indicates that they were not accumulated on the site by predators, such as birds of prey (Andrews 1990). They probably come from commensal individuals that died on the site.
7Table 28-1 shows that all body parts are present (skull, vertebrae, anterior and posterior limbs). The lower incisors, easily identified by the excavators, were the most numerous, and indicate a minimum number of six individuals. About one third of the specimens can by identified as muridae, according to the criteria of Vigne (1995). One-third of the remains are diaphyses of unidentified rodent long bones, suggesting that this set of specimens only represents a small fraction of the original number of dead mice on the site.
8In Sector B, five of the more than 3000 large mammal bones bear clear rodent-gnawing marks (rib, long bone, metacarpus, phalanx; fig. 28-1). These are often highly eroded due to the poor preservation of the bone surface. Here again, this very small number of marks are probably the only remains of many others destroyed by taphonomic processes. Four of these marks came from the primary fills deposited together with domestic middens in Buildings B08 and B17, just after their abandonment (SU 678-3, 6078, 6080, St 6709). Despite their scarcity, these gnawing marks clearly indicate that mice lived in the settlement and foraged the middens.
1.3. Spatial distribution of rodent bones
9As already pointed out in chap. 24, the spatial distribution of the 41 rodent remains across the different excavation sectors is far from even. Of course, their absence in the most eroded zone (Sector F), where we did not massively wet sieve with a fine mesh because of the very low density found in the test samples, cannot be considered to signify the absence of rodent bones in this area. However, in the Central and B Sectors, the 41 rodent bones came from only 36% of the 97 sediment samples sieved with a fine mesh and then sorted. In addition, 70% of the rodent specimens came from the Communal building, versus 30% from the domestic areas of Sector B (fig. 28-2, A). This disparate distribution can be seen in the Communal building itself, where 66% of the rodent specimens came from only three of the six sieved stratigraphic units, SU 10.3, 10.4 and 10.8. However, the high rate for SU 10.3, results from the important number of sediment samples that were sieved and sorted (13 bags, i.e., c. 260 litres). Conversely, only one sediment sample was sieved with a fine mesh for SU 10.4 and 10.8. Finally, when we divide the NISP by the volume of sediment sieved for each SU (fig. 28-2, B), we observe that 89% of the total came from only three SU: 10.4, 10.8 and 10.44.
10Mice died in greater numbers in these places. These three stratigraphic units are closely connected with the packed earth floors of the three main successive reconstruction phases of the Communal building (chap. 5):
- SU 10.44 represents the thin packed earth floor of the primary building, located near the entrance (D34 square meter). SU 10.46, which provided the complete hemimandible, is very similar to SU 10.44; only 2 m2 of this floor was visible because it was either eroded or not excavated beneath the earth benches. It is therefore impossible to surmise about the horizontal density distribution of the rodent bones in this floor;
- SU 10.8 is a vast and complex stratigraphic unit deriving from the dismantling of the walls and benches of the first building. It was used both as a backfill for building the second Communal building on the primary one and, in the south half, as the soil of the second Communal building, replacing the packed floor SU 10.6, which appeared to be poor in rodent bones. Here again, it is impossible to say more about the distribution of rodent bones in this vast SU because all the sampled sediment comes from the same square metre, F35, located near the entrance. It is only possible to observe that mouse remains were more numerous in the southern part (SU 10.8) than in the northern section of the floor in this second building;
- SU 10.4 corresponds to the extension in the northwest area (ZY36-ZZ37) of the packed floor of the third reconstruction phase of the Communal building (Building 3). Again, it is impossible to determine whether these rodent bones are representative of a high density throughout the floor of this third building, or whether they represent a local concentration, as the other lateral developments of this floor (SU 10.2 and 10.5) were not sampled for small vertebrates. Only one sample was taken for the whole floor, in SU 10.4 (square metre ZZ36, against the earth wall).
11Even though we cannot emit any hypotheses regarding the horizontal distribution of rodent bones in the Communal building, it is clear that their main concentrations on the site were in the three main successive reconstruction phases of this special building, and in different spots for each phase. murid rodents were present from the earliest to the latest settlement phases of the Communal building, which also correspond to the total duration of the whole village (chap. 10). Their close association with the (packed) soils of these buildings (fig. 28-3) indicates that these bones did not come from building earth material (where they would probably have been totally destroyed during the construction process). mice most likely lived and died in the building. This suggests that, like some other PPNA communal buildings on the continent (Stordeur and Abbès 2002, Stordeur 2015), the Communal buildings of Klimonas played a major role in the storage of cultivation products. At the same time, this strengthens our aforementioned suggestion that these murids were highly commensal.
1.4. First conclusions
12The 41 rodent bones uncovered at Klimonas represent at least six individuals. However, these are probably just a few eroded remains of the many mice that lived in the village as commensal rodents, as evidenced by gnawing marks on larger mammal bones (fig. 28-1). The mice died in situ and cannot be associated with any accumulation agent such as the hawk or small carnivores. Interestingly, the concentration of these bones in three clusters corresponds to the packed circulation floors of the three successive reconstruction phases of the Communal building. This confirms that many commensal mice were attracted to the village by grain storage and suggests that crops were mostly stored in the Communal building, as was also the case in some of the communal buildings of the continental PPNA, such as Jerf el-Ahmar.
2. Taxonomic identification of the rodent
2.1. method and material
13The different mediterranean mice of the genus mus are twin species (Gerasimov et al. 1990). Given the absence of ancient DNA or of complete skulls from the archaeological deposits, their identification to species and subspecies taxonomic level can be achieved through a geometric morphometric (GMM) approach (Cucchi et al. 2002, 2012). This is especially true when distinguishing the Cypriot endemic mouse from the commensal grey mouse (Cucchi et al. 2002, 2006). We identified the species present in the village using a 2D GMM analysis of the first lower molar (M/1) occlusal view following Cucchi et al. (2020).
14Only one first mandibular molar was suitable for GMM (fig. 28-4). In order to obtain valid results, we decided to compare it to an extensive dataset of potential sympatric wild and commensal subspecies from the mediterranean Basin, both modern (N = 513) and archaeological (N = 716, extending from the Natufian to the Late Bronze Age; Cucchi et al. 2020). The fossils m. cypriacus and m. m. domesticus from Cyprus, namely from mylouthkhia, Khirokitia and Cape Andreas (Cucchi et al. 2002, 2006), are included in this dataset.
2.2. Results and conclusion
15When we plot together the dental shape of the archaeological and modern mus of Southwest Asia and Europe, the m/1 of Klimonas clusters within the m. m. domesticus group (fig. 28-5). This is also confirmed by machine learning prediction (k-NN, appendix 28-2). This is the only identifiable specimen from Klimonas that can be attributed without any doubt to m. m. domesticus. It is also the earliest evidence of a house mouse stowaway transported onto an island, 300 to 500 years before the earliest known introduction of the commensal house mouse to Cyprus (Cucchi et al. 2002).
3. PPN house mouse in Cyprus and connectivity with the mainland
3.1. mainland-Island metapopulation concept and bio-proxy of connectivity
16The ecological concept of metapopulations considers that a cluster of populations from the same spatially and temporally separated species are still interconnected through dispersal. The “mainland-island” metapopulation model (MacArthur and Wilson 1967) suggests that mainland populations act as a source for smaller insular populations, the sustainability of which is mostly dependent on migration flow. Following this “mainland-island” model, we used the phenotypic relationship between the PPN m. m. domesticus populations from Cyprus, and three potential mainland departure regions (Anatolia, Northern Euphrates and Southern Levant) for maritime routes towards Cyprus from the surrounding continent (Peltenburg et al. 2000), as proxies to elucidate the connectivity between Cyprus and the mainland during the PPN. This approach is relevant if we take into consideration (1) the current genetic differentiation of domesticus populations in three mitochondrial haplogroups (Turkey, northern Near East and southern Near East) in this region (Bonhomme et al. 2011) and (2) the phylogenetic signals encapsulated in the shape of mammal molars (Caumul and Polly 2005, Cucchi et al. 2017, Hulme-Beaman et al. 2018), supporting the use of dental shape as a phylogenetic proxy when aDNA preservation is missing. One could argue that our PPN mainland dataset does not sample PPN m. m. domesticus populations from the coasts where maritime routes should have originated. Instead, we have assumed that the house mice translocated to Cyprus were part of an economic package that colonized Cyprus after crossing long distances via the leapfrog dispersal model (Anthony 1997). In this latter model, source populations come from densely populated settlements located inland. Conversely, the dispersal pathway would have followed the known routes of more mobile PPN communities, which have left no trace between the putative area of origin and Cyprus (Peltenburg et al. 2001).
3.2. Shifting connectivity between Cyprus and the continental cultural sphere during the PPN
17Molar shape diversity in the PPN m. m. domesticus metapopulations (fig. 28-6, A) from the PPNA of Klimonas and Early and Late PPNB mylouthkia samples (1A and 2B, respectively) are closely related but significantly different (MANOVA: Pillai < 0.0001). The divergence of the Aceramic Neolithic Cape Andreas, and especially the Khirokitia samples of the 7th millennium cal BC, confirms a lack of homogeneity among these metapopulations throughout time. By dividing the continental Natufian and PPN domesticus samples into three geographic morphogroups (Anatolia, Northern Levant and Southern Levant) and investigating their input into the diversity of the PPN domesticus of Cyprus (see method in Cucchi et al. 2020), we found that these continental sources contributed differently over time to the phylogeographic signal of the Cypriot PPN m. m. domesticus (fig. 28-6, B).
18The sole PPNA specimen from Klimonas is related to the Central Anatolian PPNB morphotypes, as defined by the numerous Catalhöyük specimens (N = 105), though 3000 years later than Klimonas. This result is equivocal, since a single specimen cannot be considered as an overall representative of a population, because we only have one location in Central Anatolia and because we do not know what the phenotypic variation of the Central Anatolian mouse populations was at the time of the Klimonas occupation. On the other hand, the pattern of continental influence on the Early and middle PPNB mylouthkia specimens shows a main input from the Northern Levant, while the Khirokitia and Cape Andreas specimens (Khirokitia culture, contemporaneous with the South Levant PPNC) indicate a clear Southern Levantine prevalence. These results suggest that maritime connections between Cyprus and the different continental PPN cultural spheres changed over time: initially an Anatolian connection during the PPNA, then a North Levantine connection during the PPNB colonisation event(s) (8500–7500 cal BC), followed by a widening to the Southern Levantine connection during the PPNC/early Pottery Neolithic after 7000 cal BC.
3.3. PPN of Cyprus: shifting continental connectivity
19In Cyprus, the presence of the endemic mouse mus cypriacus in Epipaleolithic Akrotiri-Aetokremnos, and the occurrence of m. m. domesticus in the PPNA village of Klimonas, both on the southern coast, suggest that the spread of the house mouse occurred during the PPNA colonisation of the island. The hypothesis that the house mouse could have taken advantage of regular introductions of cultivated cereals from the continent is supported by the presence of macro remains of spikelet base awns and glums of emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides), and maybe einkorn (T. monococcum aegilopoides), introduced from the continent, as well as chaff in building material (chap. 23).
20Following its PPNA introduction, m. m. domesticus is found in the Early, middle and Late PPN and aceramic contexts from the western and southern coast up to the north-eastern tip of the island, implying that stowaway house mice found suitable ecological conditions and settled as large commensal populations in the 9th–7th millennia villages of Cyprus. However, the phenotypic differentiation amongst early Neolithic m. m. domesticus samples of Cyprus suggests that these populations were structured as metapopulations, in agreement with commensal rodent biology (Bonhomme et al. 2011, Combs et al. 2017).
21The phenotypic relationships between the PPN m. m. domesticus metapopulations and the different continental morphogroups that could have acted as potential dispersal sources highlight the extension, or even shifting, of the PPN connectivity of Cyprus towards the south over time. It appears, therefore, that PPN Cyprus was perhaps not a maritime hub like modern Cyprus but an island with changing continental connectivity during the course of the PPN. These phases of colonisation from different continental sources, also observed in the modern genetic diversity of m. m. domesticus populations (Bonhomme et al. 2011, Garcia-Rodriguez et al. 2018), are in agreement with the other archaeozoological and archaeological data (Vigne et al. 2019), providing us with an indirect insight into Cypriot colonisation history and the trajectory of its cultural evolution during the Neolithic.
22The PPNA sample from Klimonas relates to a Central Anatolian morphogroup, indicating that the PPNA hunter-farmers who settled in Cyprus could have originated from Anatolia, following the shortest crossing distance between the Cilician coast and Cyprus (Vigne et al. 2014), relying on seafarers’ knowledge (Peltenburg et al. 2001, Finlayson 2004, Watkins 2004). A hypothetical Anatolian origin of the Cypriot PPNA is not in agreement with a PPNA origin from the middle Euphrates, which is better supported by material culture studies (Briois and Guilaine 2014, Briois and Astruc 2017, Vigne et al. 2017), or the taxonomic evidence of the dispersal of cultivated crops (Colledge et al. 2004). However, since the PPNA of Northern coastal Syria or the Adana Plain in Anatolia have yet to be documented, this PPNA Anatolian connection remains hypothetically plausible.
23Early and middle PPNB samples from Kissonerga-Mylouthkia show that connections shifted towards the Northern Levant and lasted throughout the PPNB. Such connections are in agreement with parallels between PPNB sites in the North Levant and Cyprus (Guilaine et al. 2000, Peltenburg et al. 2001). But by the middle of the 7th millennium BC, the mice from Khirokitia and Cape Andreas-Kastros suggest either a new connection or a shift, this time with the Southern Levant, coinciding with the broad change observed in the lithic industry sequence from Cyprus during this period. Our results suggest that Cyprus remained connected with continental cultural spheres but adjusted to local resources and produced practical responses to the demands and pressures of small-sized agricultural communities (Peltenburg et al. 2001). This change in lithic industry could have been a deliberate expression of local identity (Vigne et al. 2019), despite contacts in a broader cultural setting (Finlayson 2004). The penetration of new cultural ingredients from the Southern Levant could have contributed, by syncretism (Vigne 1997), to the idiosyncratic nature of the Late PPN culture of Cyprus.
4. Cat
24The cat is represented by a single first phalanx found in the floor of the southern half of the second Communal building (KL11, SU 10.6; fig. 28-7). This phalanx cannot be attributed to the two other small carnivores present during the PPN of Cyprus, the Cypriot genet (Genetta plesictoides, Late Glacial) and the fox (Vulpes vulpes, PPNB), because of the following observations (Vigne et al. 2011):
- In ventral view: 1) the proximal dimple overhanging the distal articulation is deep, whereas it is shallow in Genetta; 2) mesial and lateral edges of the proximal phalanx are straight and regularly diverge from each other in a proximal direction, whereas they are rounded and sub-parallel in Genetta;
- In lateral view: 3) the dorsal and ventral sides are sub-parallel, whereas they diverge from each other in a proximal direction in Genetta, so much so that, for the Viverridae, the proximal half of the phalanx is substantially thicker than the distal half; 4) the dorsal margin of the phalanx forms a small spout overhanging the proximal articulation (although less pronounced than in Vulpes), while it is smoother in Genetta;
- In proximal view: 5) the epicondyles of the two mesial and lateral parts of the articular surface present non-coalescing ventral edges (whereas they are coalescing in Genetta); the notch that they determine is semi-square, whereas it is rounded and opens widely towards the plantar direction in the Genetta.
25These five criteria are present in the wild cat (F. s. silvestris) specimens of the comparative anatomy collections of the French National museum of Natural History.
26The measurements of this phalanx are as follows (in mm): GL = 17.84; Bp = 8.05; Dp = 4.06; KD = 3.32; Bd = 4.1; Dd = 3.52. They are consistent with the range of variation of F. silvestris and are too big to come from a Khirokitia or Sotira phase contamination – as the cats identified in these periods are significantly smaller than this one (Davis 1984, Croft 1991, 1998, Vigne 2011, 2019, 2021). However, the phalanx is 30% longer than Genetta genetta, so it is too large to fit G. plesictoides, even if it seems slightly larger than the modern species.
27There is no doubt that this is the phalanx of a large PPNA cat, the same size as a Southwest Asian wild cat or the large commensal or domestic cats found in the Cypro-PPNB of Shillourokambos (Vigne 2021).
5. Commensalism in the village of Klimonas
28In spite of water-sieving about 6600 litres of sediment, we did not find any other cat bones or even undifferentiated small carnivores at Klimonas. We cannot rule out the possibility that this phalanx may come from a cat skin brought from the continent. However, considering that the commensal house mouse had already been introduced from the continent at that time, and that both this mouse and the commensal wild cat were living in the village of Shillourokambos between 300 and 500 years after the initial occupation of Klimonas, it seems more rational to interpret this phalanx as evidence of the introduction of the cat from as early as the beginning of the 9th millennium and of its presence as a commensal in Klimonas village. The fact that we found a single cat bone is consistent with the very poor state of preservation of small vertebrate bones on the site. Such scarcity is not surprising with regard to the 41 mouse bones representing only six individuals, i.e., the number of mice that a cat is able to kill in only a couple of days.
29Klimonas provides the earliest evidence for the birth of the commensal niche in Cyprus. This niche was inhabited by mice and cats, which are visible in the faunal record, but it could also have comprised many other insects, or even plants and microorganisms. The classical commensal taxa of reptiles and birds are absent from the Klimonas archaeozoological record (chap. 25 and 26), however, although they are present during the second half of the 8th millennium at Shillourokambos and mylouthkia, in the form of the starred agama (Stellagama cf. stellio, Vigne 2011), Gekkonidae (Bailon in Croft et al. 2017) and Corvidae (Vigne 2021; see also Peltenburgh 2003). The proliferation of foxes during this same second half of the 8th millennium (Vigne 2021) is another manifestation of the development of commensal species communities between the Cypro-PPNA and the Late Cypro-PPNB.
30We can thus consider that cats were introduced to Cyprus together with commensal house mice sometime during the PPNA, at the latest before 8800 cal BC. Contrary to that of the rodent, this introduction must have been intentional, most likely to fight against the proliferation of mice in PPNA villages (Vigne 2019). This suggests a familiarity already experienced on the continent. It is also emblematic of a tightly correlated history of the commensalism of mice and cats starting from Southwest Asia and diffusing across the whole mediterranean area (Cucchi et al. 2020).
Annexe
KLIMONAS-Ch28-A01, https://doi.org/10.34847/nkl.1bd3s187
List of the bones and teeth of rodents found at Klimonas • Liste des ossements de rongeurs trouvés à Klimonas
Jean-Denis VIGNE (CNRS), Thomas CUCCHI (CNRS)
KLIMONAS-Ch28-A02, https://doi.org/10.34847/nkl.d354rqe1
Machine learning prediction (K-NN) of the proximities of the mouse first lower molar of Klimonas with the mice references taken into account in figure 28-5 • Prédiction par apprentissage automatique (K-NN) des proximités de la première molaire inférieure de la souris de Klimonas avec les souris de référence prises en compte dans la figure 28-5
Thomas CUCCHI (CNRS)
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Creative Commons - Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
Les allées sépulcrales du Bassin parisien à la fin du Néolithique
L’exemple de La Chaussée-Tirancourt
Arnaud Blin
2018
Les sépultures individuelles campaniformes en France
Laure Salanova et Yaramila Tcheremissinoff (dir.)
2011
La grotte-abri de Peyrazet (Creysse, Lot, France) au Magdalénien
Originalité fonctionnelle d’un habitat des derniers chasseurs de rennes du Quercy
Mathieu Langlais et Véronique Laroulandie (dir.)
2021
Klimonas
An Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic Village in Cyprus
Jean-Denis Vigne, François Briois et Jean Guilaine (dir.)
2024