The gray mouse, one of the most invasive species of mammals, took advantage of the sedentarization of the first human populations 15,000 years ago to conquer the planet, according to a study which shows a concomitance with the first domestic cats. It was in the Middle East that the story of the biological invasion of " Mus musculus ", commonly known as the gray or domestic mouse, began, reveals an international team involving eight countries in the journal Scientific Reports.
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More than 800 bony remains of the small rodent from 43 archaeological sites in the Near East and southeast of Europe, from Iran to Greece, dating back to between 40,000 and 3,000 years ago, have is the subject of morphometric (which allow the shape to be reproduced), genetic and radiocarbon dating analyzes. They show the presence of the gray mouse near humans from the first sedentary human occupations about 15,000 years ago, which created an " enabling environment " for this species of rodent which is today the most invasive, before the rat, explains to the AFP the archaeozoologist Thomas Cucchi, who directed the study.
A cat bringing papyrus and a grilled goose as an offering to a mouse (Ancient Egypt, between - 1295 and -1075 BCE) Brooklyn Museum / Gavin Ashworth
The emergence of agriculture, the cultivation of fields, the increase in the size and density of the villages enabled him to " rapidly spread throughout the Levant, from the West Bank to Anatolia ", he about 12,000 years ago, explains the researcher at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. " Our results show that sedentarization has allowed commensalism ", that is to say a biological interaction where a species lives at the expense of a host species: " The mouse found in the environment the first human sedentary habitats of many advantages compared to its natural environment, such as a constant supply of food and protection against predators and competitors ", develops the researcher, whose work aims to" understand how man has shaped animal biodiversity ".
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But it was with the development of agriculture that the mouse became an invasive species, because the small mammals even followed man to the island of Cyprus, on board ships, as " stowaways ", 10,000 years ago. It was then necessary to wait 5,000 years for the species to invade Europe. This distribution in Europe also coincides with the appearance of the first domestic cats, according to remains found on occupation sites in Cyprus, Greece and eastern Europe. And it was she who would have motivated the domestication of the cat, whose origins are poorly known. " The wild ancestor of the domestic cat would have been attracted to our environment by the mouse, and from there, the man realized how important the predator is to protect his grain reserves ", suggests Thomas Cucchi .
Part of the Near East 15,000 years ago, the gray mouse (Mus Musculus) conquered most of the globe by traveling with man. Wikipedia / Osado
