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Further useful information

Posted by dlubell on 27 Jun 2011 at 11:30 GMT

Because edible land snails and other gastropods occur throughout the circum-Mediterranean in archaeological sites dating to the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene, it seems to me entirely possible that the phylogeography of some species could be the result of intentional transport. While I suspect this would be exceedingly difficult to document, it does present some additional research directions.

Documentation for the distribution and occurrence of edible land snails can be found at

http://watarts.uwaterloo....
and
http://watarts.uwaterloo....

In addition, a special issue of Quaternary International on "Gastropods and humans in the Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of the western Mediterranean basin" will be published shortly. Many of the papers included there bear on this topic.

No competing interests declared.