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The Ancient Celts, Barry Cunliffe

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<< News >> Prehistoric man brought Ireland its tiny shrew

Submitted by Baz on Tuesday, 30 December 2003  Page Views: 17461

EnvironmentIrelnd's smallest mammal, the pygmy shrew, originated in Andorra, scientists believe. A genetic study indicates that the tiny animal — about half the size of a mouse — was introduced to Ireland by humans from southwest Europe in the Mesolithic.

The creature probably arrived here as an accidental passenger on boats and not from Britain by means of natural colonisation, as previously thought.

The finding supports the theory that many of Ireland’s animals were originally transported here by prehistoric man. It is also the latest research to show a genetic link between northern Spain and Ireland.

Biologists at the University of York conducted a genetic study of the species, comparing specimens from Ireland, Britain, and the continent as far east as Turkey and Russia. It found the Irish pygmy shrews were nothing like British and other northern Europe specimens but were closely related to those in Andorra, a tiny principality in the Pyrenees between France and Spain.

“During the process of human colonization of Ireland in the Mesolithic (part of the Stone Age), or as a result of subsequent trading links, humans could have accidentally or deliberately transported a variety of species between these two areas,” the report concluded. “The findings would clearly be of great interest to archaeologists as the continental source area of Irish pygmy shrews may also represent the continental source area of Irish people or at least somewhere from where people embarked to trade with Ireland.”

Silvia Mascheretti, one of the authors of the study published in Proceedings: Biological Sciences, said: “There was a rather unexpected finding that the animals in Ireland were related to individuals from Andorra.

“This similarity suggests that the colonisation was through humans, probably by boat. Very few individuals survived this journey by boat which explains the great similarity of all the Irish individuals.”

At around 60mm in length, the pygmy shrew is Ireland’s smallest land mammal. It has very poor eyesight, hunting by smell and touch. Because of its high metabolic activity, it must eat at least its own body weight in food each day. Unlike in Britain, it is the only species of shrew found in Ireland.

It has been a long-standing mystery how Ireland got its present fauna after the last ice age. Few mammals, if any, survived the glaciation event when Ireland was under about a kilometre of ice. One theory was that they arrived via a land bridge which may have briefly existed between Ireland and Britain.

The study has ruled out this method for the pygmy shrew, at least, although biologists believe other species may also have been imported. “It does start to get to the data that really answers the question as to where Irish mammals came from,” said Dr Tom Hayden, a biologist at University College Dublin.

“This is a crucial question. This allows us to knock the current thinking of where the source population probably was on the head — that it wasn’t actually Britain.”

Hayden, who gathered the specimens of Irish pygmy shrews for the study, said: “The big problem is exactly where Ireland’s mammals came from. We would expect those in Britain to be most like ours, but that doesn’t seem to be leaping off the data at the moment.

“We tend to forget that the sea routes were less daunting at that time. In retrospect, it may not have been such a big deal to have contacts between southern France or northern Spain by the sea route.”

Dr Dan Bradley, a geneticist at Trinity College, Dublin, said the pygmy shrew data tied in with an aspect of his human genetic findings.

“It is a plausible hypothesis that the bulk of our fauna was introduced — that it didn’t walk here but was brought here on boats. It seems to back up the idea that sea routes were important, not necessarily from Britain.”

Source: The Times On-line August 2003

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"Prehistoric man brought Ireland its tiny shrew" | Login/Create an Account | 7 News and Comments
  
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Re: Prehistoric man brought Ireland its tiny shrew by Andy B on Wednesday, 16 February 2011
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Article with some information about the Orkney vole
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Re: Prehistoric man brought Ireland its tiny shrew by Anonymous on Wednesday, 02 November 2005
science... it's funny...
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Re: Prehistoric man brought Ireland its tiny shrew by Anonymous on Saturday, 28 May 2005
you should put a map of were the least shrews are found
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Re: Prehistoric man brought Ireland its tiny shrew by Anonymous on Sunday, 20 March 2005
Please ignore the question marks as thay are likely from a disgruntled hacker of English descent who cannot accept the fact that some of the darkhaired Spanish being of a Spanish/latin or iberian race speaking Basques infiltrated the Irish Coast 10 000 years ago.
Here are other sites:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12908980&dopt=Abstract

http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/app/home/contribution.asp?wasp=491fef3bcb8346cab77eebe44f65e26b&referrer=parent&backto=issue,8,15;journal,39,185;linkingpublicationresults,1:102024,1



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Re: Prehistoric man brought Ireland its tiny shrew by Anonymous on Monday, 21 June 2004
RHESUS- BLOOD AMONG THE IRISH AND SCOTS



The original Europeans who carried the rhesus negative blood factor 35 000 years ago are probably the original Europeans who painted the comic strips and other art in the caves of southern France and northern Spain which includes the Chauvet-Pont-d' Arc cave and the Lascaux cave paintings found in the Pyrennes. The rhesus negative blood factor is a recessive phenotype while the O rhesus positive factor is a dominant phenotype. Black wavy hair, brown eyes, copper to brown tanned oily skin are dominant phenotypes which the men who drew these cave paintings most likely possessed. The women most likely possessed dominant features as well but probably had hazel eyes and slightly lighter skin which may have been less oily. These women were probably the carriers of the O positive blood factor.

35 000 years ago the men of southern France and the Basque region hunted the wild bison, wooly rhinocerus, horse, and mammoth where they lived in tepees with the women and not in the painted caves according to popular belief. The women would have gathered wild fruits, seeds, and berries where they brought them back to thier campsite. They probably spent most of thier time in those dark tepees and only occasionaly did they most likely wander out of thier tepees to collect the fruit of the plains. The reason being for this is that after menstruation and child birth, they needed protection from the cold and other weather elements to raise and feed thier children. This is probably where the women, over thousands of years, obtained the recessive genotypes like lighter skin and hazel eyes, although not necessarily the dominate phenotype of the O+ blood factor which they most likely picked up 5-6000 years earlier when they ventured out of Siberia on thier way to northern and southern Europe. It is positively sure that a few of the O rhesus positive women joined the O rhesus negative tribe, but a lot of the women travelling to southern Europe just below the Swiss alps likely still had the O rhesus negative factor while those travelling north of the glaciated Swiss alps likely had the O rhesus positive factor. This may explain why a lot of Spanish and Italians presently have dark hair as opposed to the Germans and French who have lighter complexions and blond or blonde hair.

Modern humans (H.s.sapiens) were present in western Europe by 35 000 B.C. During the final glaciation they occupied the area south of the major ice sheets, including both Spain and southern Britain. This Late Palaeolithic population is thought to have been relatively open with regard to mating networks, and mutations could have circulated among the founder populations of Spain and the British Isles. Indeed, during the maximum glaciation at around 18 000 BC, south-west Europe may have served as a refuge area for Palaeolithic populations where the shift in the thermal gradient enhanced offshore fishing on the Cantabrian coast. It is about this time that probably some of the big game such as bison, wooly rhinocerus, and mammoth would have been hunted to extinction while the lions who hunted these prey became extinct also. The hunters then probably turned to horses and the giant irish deer for food.


12 000 years ago the giant irish deer which these hunters hunted in southern France were becoming scarce and these hunters knew this. These giant irish riendeer likely stayed close to the ice-capped mountains of the Pyrennes and when the weather got warmer, they headed toward the glaciated mountain caps of the Swiss alps. The warm period came to an end about 11 000 years ago and a mini ice age followed lasting some centuries, during which the still present glaciers recovered some of thier lost ground. The famous Irish archaeologist Michael O'Kelly wrote:

"In the Post-glacial Stage which commenced about 10,300 years ago the climate
again began to improve and thus began the present warm stage' in whic we now


Read the rest of this post...
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Re: Prehistoric man brought Ireland its tiny shrew by howar on Saturday, 03 January 2004
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The situation is the same with regards to the Orkney Vole , a subspecies of the Common Vole otherwise also only found "in South-western Europe (specifically France or Northern Spain)" . This comes from a project funded by the Wellcome Trust and carried out by Drs. K.Dobney of Durham University , J.Searle of York University , S.Haynes of UMIST , and M.Jaarola of Lund University .
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