Environmental implications of Ptolemaic Period rodents and shrews from the Sacred Falcon Necropolis at Quesna, Egypt (Mammalia: Muridae and Soricidae)

BMC Ecology and Evolution

Research

Joanne Rowland¹  Salima Ikram²  Neal Woodman³ 

[1] Department of Archaeology, School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland;Department of Sociology, Egyptology, and Anthropology, American University in Cairo, New Cairo, Egypt;Department of Ancient Studies, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa;U.S. Geological Survey, Eastern Ecological Science Center at Patuxent Research Refuge, Laurel, MD, USA;Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA;

关键词: Acomys cahirinus;    Animal mummy;    Arvicanthis niloticus;    Climate change;    Crocidura floweri;    Crocidura olivieri;    Crocidura religiosa;    Gerbillus;    Horus;    Mus musculus;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12862-022-02101-x

 received in 2022-05-25, accepted in 2022-12-12,  发布年份 2022

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAssemblages of mummified and preserved animals in necropoleis of Ptolemaic Period Egypt (ca. 332–30 BC) document some aspects of the ceremonial and religious practices of the ancient Egyptians, but study of these animal remains can also provide insight into the local environments in which the animals and humans lived.ResultsExcavations of the Sacred Falcon Necropolis at Quesna in the Nile Delta have yielded many thousands of animal remains, mostly of raptors, but also of a lesser number of small, wild mammals. Among the latter, we identified four species of murid rodents (Rodentia: Muridae) and five species of shrews (Eulipotyphla: Soricidae). The soricids are of particular interest because they represent a more diverse assemblage of species than occurs in the delta today. They include one species, Crocidura gueldenstaedtii (Pallas, 1811), that no longer occurs in the delta and another, C. fulvastra (Sundevall, 1843), that is now extirpated from Egypt.ConclusionsThe coexistence of this diverse small mammal community suggests that a greater availability and variety of mesic habitats were present during the Ptolemaic Period than occur there now. The local mammal faunas recovered at Quesna and other well-studied ancient Egyptian sites together provide evidence of a richer, more complex regional environment along the Nile Valley. They also provide important insight regarding the biogeography of the individual species comprising the faunas and about the extent of faunal turnover since the Ptolemaic Period.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply 2022

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