Small Mammal Fossil Assemblages as Indicators of Environmental Change in Northern Corsica during the Last 2500 Years

Holocene environmental history of a small Mediterranean island in response to sea-level changes, climate and human impact

“…1; Burjachs et al, 1994;Yll et al, 1997) but also on Corsica since 2600 B.P. (Reille, 1975(Reille, , 1984(Reille, , 1992aVigne and Valladas, 1996), with an increase of fire episodes between 2000 and 1600 B.P. (Carcaillet et al, 1997).…”

“…As suggested by Agostini (1978), the strategic location of Cavallo Island is probably at the origin of the first Roman settlement, haven or look-out post surveying the Strait of Bonifacio. Exploitation of the San Baïnzu quarry starting at the end of the 1st century A.D. onward (from which granite was largely commercialized even to Rome), attest to the Roman expansion in southern Corsica and northern Sardinia (Agostini, 1978(Agostini, , 1985(Agostini, -1986Vigne et al, 1994;Vigne and Valladas, 1996). Such an 'industrial' activity implied the presence of many workers and habitations, and certainly played a significant role in the installation of the current open thermo-Mediterranean vegetation.…”

Domestication and early agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin: Origins, diffusion, and impact

“…(87). All of these smaller endemics, however, were extripated sometime between the Late Roman period and the early Middle Ages, probably through combined pressures associated with the introduction of Rattus rattus during the Early Roman colonization of the island and subsequent episodes of deforestation and agricultural intensification (75,88).…”

Biogeographic variations in wood mice: testing for the role of morphological variation as a line of least resistance to evolution

“…In most of these cases, these islands are densely populated, for some of them since antiquity (Vigne and Valladas 1996), and the frequency of human travels might have promoted exchanges among wood mice populations and dampen phenotypic divergence.…”