Michelle LeFebvre
University of Florida, Florida Museum of Natural History, Faculty Member
- Michelle J. LeFebvre (Ph.D., University of Florida) is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Biodiversity Informatics and Envi... moreMichelle J. LeFebvre (Ph.D., University of Florida) is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Biodiversity Informatics and Environmental Archaeology at the Florida Museum, Gainesville. With primary focus in Caribbean and Florida archaeology, she uses zooarchaeological, biochemical, and archaeological datasets to investigate how historical ecological patterns of animal exploitation, manipulation (e.g., translocation, management), and consumption articulated with human interaction, village aggregation, and social hierarchy in the past. She is also focused on the mechanics and facilitation of open access zooarchaeological data, and its integration within open biodiversity networks.edit
Guinea pigs (Cavia spp.) have a long association with humans. From as early as 10,000 years ago they were a wild food source. Later, domesticated Cavia porcellus were dispersed well beyond their native range through pre-Columbian exchange... more
Guinea pigs (Cavia spp.) have a long association with humans. From as early as 10,000 years ago they were a wild food source. Later, domesticated Cavia porcellus were dispersed well beyond their native range through pre-Columbian exchange networks and, more recently, widely across the globe. Here we present 46 complete mitogenomes of archaeological guinea pigs from sites in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, the Caribbean, Belgium and the United States to elucidate their evolutionary history, origins and paths of dispersal. our results indicate an independent centre of domestication of Cavia in the eastern colombian Highlands. We identify a peruvian origin for the initial introduction of domesticated guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) beyond South America into the caribbean. We also demonstrate that peru was the probable source of the earliest known guinea pigs transported, as part of the exotic pet trade, to both Europe and the southeastern United States. Finally, we identify a modern reintroduction of guinea pigs to Puerto Rico, where local inhabitants use them for food. This research demonstrates that the natural and cultural history of guinea pigs is more complex than previously known and has implications for other studies regarding regional to global-scale studies of mammal domestication, translocation, and distribution. The use of ancient DNA (aDNA) in studies of animal domestication and subsequent translocation has radically improved our ability to identify spatially, temporally, and culturally variable processes of domestication and the diversity of social networks behind domestic species distribution (e.g. 1,2). Increasingly, aDNA studies are revising previous assumptions of geographically conscripted animal domestication and dispersal events to reveal multiple centers, timings, and processes of domestication of the world's most prominent domestic animals (e.g. pigs, chickens, cattle, dogs 3-6). Because domestic animals are exemplar proxies for investigating past human migration and interaction, understanding long-term, diachronic patterns of when and where species domestication and
No native species of tortoises (Chelonoidis spp.) live today in the Bahamian (Lucayan) Archipelago (= The Bahamas + The Turks and Caicos Islands), although a number of species inhabited these islands at the first human contact in the... more
No native species of tortoises (Chelonoidis spp.) live today in the Bahamian (Lucayan) Archipelago (= The Bahamas + The Turks and Caicos Islands), although a number of species inhabited these islands at the first human contact in the late-Holocene. Until their extinction, tortoises were the largest terrestrial herbivores in the island group. We report 16 accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon (14C) dates determined directly on individual bones of indigenous, extinct tortoises from the six Bahamian islands (Abaco, Eleuthera, Flamingo Cay, Crooked, Middle Caicos, Grand Turk) on five different carbonate banks. These 16 specimens probably represent six or seven species of tortoises, although only one (Chelonoidis alburyorum on Abaco) has been described thus far. Tortoises seem to have survived on most Bahamian islands for only one or two centuries after initial human settlement, which took place no earlier than AD ~700–1000. The exception is Grand Turk, where we have evidence from the Coralie archeological site that tortoises survived for approximately three centuries after human arrival, based on stratigraphically associated 14C dates from both tortoise bones and wood charcoal. The stable isotope values of carbon (σ13C) and nitrogen (σ15N) of dated tortoise fossils show a NW-to-SE trend in the archipelago that may reflect increasing aridity and more consumption of cactus.