Eric Conte

Archaeological Investigations in the Mangareva Islands (Gambier Archjpelago), French Po!ynesia

by Patrick Kirch, Eric Conte, Marshall Weisler, and Atholl Anderson

Archaeological investigations were conducted in 2001 and 2003 at several sites on Mangareva, Tara... more

$exception of historically introduced taxa (such as Bradybaena similaris or Subulina octona)\—none of the endemic taxa are represented by living specimens. With the exception of a very few British Museum specimens dating to collections made by Lesson in 1842 (Bouchet and Abdou 2003:169), all of this material consists of sub- fossil specimens, much of it obtained from re- cent sedimentary deposits. As Solem noted of the 1934 Mangarevan Expedition collections, “no living material of endodontids was obtained, but specimens proved to be quite abundant in sev- eral cave deposits or road cuts” (1983:280; see also Kondo and Clench 1952:18). All of the en- demic species of terrestrial gastropods formerly present in the Mangareva Islands are thus thought to be extinct, the result of an “environmental crisis that has affected the native land snail fauna of this island group” (Bouchet and Abdou 2003:169). The question arises as to the timing and causes of this “environmental crisis,’ and here the recovery of land snail shells in datable ey ee Sy Mec a ee a ay a Care ey (an$

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