Equus More Than Twice As Old As Previously Thought

This is fascinating!  The techniques for analyzing DNA are growing by leaps and bounds even as I type this.  The amount of information that is being revealed by the latest analyses is staggering. 

From Western Digs

700,000-Year-Old Horse Found in Yukon Permafrost Yields Oldest DNA Ever Decoded

Blake de PastinoNov 19,2013

 

The frozen remains of a horse more than half a million years old have reluctantly given up their genetic secrets, providing scientists with the oldest DNA ever sequenced.

The horse was discovered in 2003 in the ancient permafrost of Canada’s west-central Yukon Territory, not far from the Alaskan border.

And although the animal was dated to between 560,000 and 780,000 years old, an international team of researchers was able to use a new combination of techniques to decipher its genetic code.

Among the team’s findings is that the genus Equus — which includes all horses, donkeys, and zebras — dates back more than 4 million years, twice as long ago as scientists had previously believed.

“When we started the project, everyone — including us, to be honest — thought it was impossible,” said Dr. Ludovic Orlando of the University of Copenhagen, who coordinated the research, in a statement to Western Digs.

“And it was to some extent, with the methods available by then. So it’s clearly methodological advances that made this possible.”

Orlando and his colleagues published their findings this summer in the journal Nature; he discussed them today in a lecture at The Royal Society, London.

Previous to this, the oldest genome ever sequenced was of a 120,000-year-old polar bear — no small feat considering that the half-life of a DNA molecule is estimated to be about 521 years. By this reckoning, even under the best conditions, DNA could remain intact for no more than 6.8 million years.

But Orlando’s team was able to make the most of what they had for a number of reasons, he said.

The fact that the remains were frozen helped slow the rate of decay. But they also “targeted specific DNA preservation niches,” he said, like the protein called collagen found in the animal’s bones, which is more DNA-rich than other tissues.

“But also we pioneered the usage of what is called true Single Molecular Sequencing that basically reads through molecules as they stand, without further manipulation,” Orlando added. By tracking a full, single DNA molecule, the team was able to avoid having to “amplify” fragments, which can often introduce errors.

To get a better sense of what this new, ancient genome held, Orlando’s team compared it against that of a 43,000-year-old horse, plus modern domestic horse breeds, and finally the Przewalski’s horse, an equid that makes its home on the Asian steppes and holds the title as the last surviving population of wild horses.

These full-genome comparisons allowed the scientists to construct “a molecular clock” that can reveal benchmarks in the horse’s evolutionary history, Orlando said.

And first among its revelations is that the shared ancestor of all horses, donkeys, and zebras lived more than 4 million years ago.

“So basically we know that members of the genus Equus are at least twice as old as previously believed,” he said.

The comparisons also shed light on genetic variations, and therefore population size, over time, Orlando noted, revealing “bursts of expansion” during cooler periods as grasslands grew, and contractions in size during times of warming.

The next, most obvious subject for these DNA-decoding techniques are early human ancestors, he said.

Methods like those used on the ancient horse could be applied to determine, for example, how human species like Homo heidelbergensis may have been related genetically to Homo neandertalensis and modern humans, he said.

“Basically genomes of that age will enable us to test the validity of the many paleontological species in our family tree,” he said, “and to determine how they relate to each other, and whether they exchanged genes or not.”

“It’s not the future,” he said of whether this technology is in reach. “It’s basically already there.”

The Sheep and the Horses

Chess - oh yeah, that game with the little horseheads...

This is very cool!  One of the few words I recognized in the audio was "ekwhos" (horse/horses; L: equus; OHG: hros) -- but it is not spelled in the English transcription ("akvams," "akvasas, "a vavakat") anything like it sounds in the audio or as I've seen it traditionally transcribed in P-I-E.

Side note: From Wikipedia regarding Sanskrit word for "horse:"

Aśvaḥ (अश्व) [Ashvah] is the Sanskrit word for a horse, one of the significant animals finding references in the Vedas as well as later Hindu scriptures. The corresponding Avestan term is aspa. The word is cognate to Latin equus, Greek ίππος (hippos), Germanic *ehwaz and Baltic *ašvā all from PIE *hek'wos.

I found the English transcription (below) undecipherable as I tried to link the words I was reading on the page to what I was hearing on the audio.  Fortunately, the article does provide a pronunciation guide at the end that appears in the format with which I am more familiar, so I was able to match up some of the words I was hearing in the audio more easily in the English transliteration of the P-I-E.   

The audio clip is - well, I just find it utterly intriguing. See what you think:

At Archaeology Magazine online
Telling Tales in Proto-Indo-European
By ERIC A. POWELL

By the 19^th century, linguists knew that all modern Indo-European languages descended from a single tongue. Called Proto-Indo-European, or PIE, it was spoken by a people who lived from roughly 4500 to 2500 B.C., and left no written texts. The question became, what did PIE sound like? In 1868, German linguist August Schleicher used reconstructed Proto-Indo-European vocabulary to create a fable in order to hear some approximation of PIE. Called “The Sheep and the Horses,” and also known today as Schleicher’s Fable, the short parable tells the story of a shorn sheep who encounters a group of unpleasant horses. As linguists have continued to discover more about PIE, this sonic experiment continues and the fable is periodically updated to reflect the most current understanding of how this extinct language would have sounded when it was spoken some six thousand years ago. Since there is considerable disagreement among scholars about PIE, no one version can be considered definitive. Here, University of Kentucky linguist Andrew Byrd recites his version of the fable using pronunciation informed by the latest insights into reconstructed PIE.




Schleicher originally rendered the fable like this:

Avis akvāsas ka

Avis, jasmin varnā na ā ast, dadarka akvams, tam, vāgham garum vaghantam, tam, bhāram magham, tam, manum āku bharantam. Avis akvabhjams ā vavakat: kard aghnutai mai vidanti manum akvams agantam. Akvāsas ā vavakant: krudhi avai, kard aghnutai vividvant-svas: manus patis varnām avisāms karnauti svabhjam gharmam vastram avibhjams ka varnā na asti. Tat kukruvants avis agram ā bhugat.

Here is the fable in English translation:

The Sheep and the Horses

A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses." The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool." Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.

And here is the modern reconstruction recited by Andrew Byrd. It is based on recent work done by linguist H. Craig Melchert, and incorporates a number of sounds unknown at the time Schleicher first created the fable:

H₂óu̯is h₁éḱu̯ōs-k^we

h₂áu̯ei̯ h₁i̯osméi̯ h₂u̯l̥h₁náh₂ né h₁ést, só h₁éḱu̯oms derḱt. só g^wr̥h_xúm u̯óǵ^hom u̯eǵ^hed; só méǵh₂m̥ b^hórom; só d^hǵ^hémonm̥ h₂ṓḱu b^hered. h₂óu̯is h₁ék^woi̯b^hi̯os u̯eu̯ked: “d^hǵ^hémonm̥ spéḱi̯oh₂ h₁éḱu̯oms-k^we h₂áǵeti, ḱḗr moi̯ ag^hnutor”. h₁éḱu̯ōs tu u̯eu̯kond: “ḱlud^hí, h₂ou̯ei̯! tód spéḱi̯omes, n̥sméi̯ ag^hnutór ḱḗr: d^hǵ^hémō, pótis, sē h₂áu̯i̯es h₂u̯l̥h₁náh₂ g^whérmom u̯éstrom u̯ept, h₂áu̯ib^hi̯os tu h₂u̯l̥h₁náh₂ né h₁esti. tód ḱeḱluu̯ṓs h₂óu̯is h₂aǵróm b^huged.

Evidence of World's Oldest Horse Domestication?

This is absolutely fascinating.  Just like no life without wife (Bride and Prejudice), no chess without horse...

25 February 2013 Last updated at 20:59 ET

Desert finds challenge horse taming ideas

By Sylvia Smith
BBC News

Recent archaeological discoveries on the Arabian Peninsula have uncovered evidence of a previously unknown civilisation based in the now arid areas in the middle of the desert.

The artefacts unearthed are providing proof of a civilisation that flourished thousands of years ago and have renewed scientific interest in man and the evolution of his relationship with animals.

The 300-odd stone objects so far found in the remote Al Magar area of Saudi Arabia include traces of stone tools, arrow heads, small scrapers and various animal statues including sheep, goats and ostriches.

But the object that has engendered the most intense interest from within the country and around the world is a large, stone carving of an "equid" - an animal belonging to the horse family.

According to Ali bin Ibrahim Al Ghabban, vice-president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, DNA and carbon-14 (radiocarbon) tests are continuing. But initial evidence suggests that the artefacts date back 9,000 years.

"These discoveries reflect the importance of the site as a centre of civilisation," he told BBC News.

"It could possibly be the birthplace of an advanced prehistoric civilisation that witnessed the domestication of animals, particularly the horse, for the first time during the Neolithic period."

The crucial find is that of a large sculptural fragment that appears to show the head, muzzle, shoulder and withers of an animal that bears a distinct resemblance to a horse.

The piece is unique in terms of its size, weighing more than 135kg.

Moreover, further discoveries on the same site of smaller, horse-like sculptures, also with bands across their shoulders, have opened the possibility that an advanced civilisation here may already have been using the accessories of domestication - tack - in order to control horses.

Question time
While archaeologists and other experts have held that horses were first tamed and exploited by man some 6,000 years ago in west Kazakhstan, experts are now starting to consider whether both location and date should be revised in light of these remarkable finds.

Whether yoking man and animal together in this way is supported by evidence is one of the many questions that face an international scientific team brought together to examine the finds.

Selected from a wide background of specialisations, their unique expertise is expected to paint a picture of life in the area during pre-historic times.

Michael Petraglia, professor of human evolution and prehistory at the University of Oxford has been working on the radiocarbon dating at Al Magar.

He says that the site dates back even further than first thought and can reveal much about the fluctuations between wet and dry periods in the Arabian Peninsula. He adds that the horse fragment dating links with the peninsula going through a wet phase.

"This is a crucial piece of information about an area that is now hyper arid but in the past must have been a lush river valley," he explains. "It confirms that there were savannahs and grassland in the vicinity," he explains.

Traces of other stone tools such as scrapers have been estimated as dating back more than 50,000 years. They were found at the site and suggest that Al Magar was a hospitable place for humans to settle in over thousands of years. In part this is due to its topography, or terrain.

Michael Petraglia says that in the past, the spot must have been a lush river valley: "There is a major valley across the area which once was a river running westward forming waterfalls and taking water to the low fertile lands west of Al-Magar," he explains.

"Al Magar was situated on both banks of the river. Man lived in this area before the last desertification or before the drastic climatic changes ended with the hot dry conditions and development of deserts."

Huge impact
The name Al Magar means gathering or meeting place. Juris Zarins, who worked in the early days of archaeology in Saudi Arabia and found tethering stones dating back to the Neolithic period, claims that the site is within an archaeological hot bed.

"There has not been enough exploration carried out," he says. "Discoveries like this could change things."

And indeed the finds have had a huge impact, sparking intense interest in Arabia's prehistory. Other finds made beyond the large and well-preserved Al Magar dovetail with current Arabian passions. Of particular interest are canine remains that resemble one of the oldest known domesticated dog breeds, the desert saluki, as well as traces of a dagger.

Abdullah Al Sharekh, an archaeologist at King Sa'ud University in Riyadh, and a pioneer of the Al Magar site, found statues within the precinct of a building. This, he says, may reveal vital clues about trade, migration and ritual. "The variety of the finds can tell us about social life and culture," he explains.

"This will take time but all the evidence is here."

The discovery of the large horse sculpture fragment has naturally awakened regional interest. This in turn has compounded curiosity about other important Arabian finds.

"It is an amazing discovery that raises all sorts of questions about when man stopped tracking down wild horses and began taming and exploiting them for transport," Mr Al Ghabban says.

"On this site there are very important symbols of authentic Arabian culture - equestrianism, falconry, the saluki hunting dog and wearing of the dagger."

More excavations are planned of yet other sites which have never been surveyed, and further studies are expected to unveil more important information on the Al Magar civilisation along with its impact on the history of Saudi Arabia.

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I found two other images of possible horses (eqquids) in my stash of images -- don't have dates associated with them and they were stored under horse - Al Maqar (not Al Magar), but since I saved the images there is a post or posts associated with them, of that I'm sure, just too tired to go hunting for those posts tonight. Here are the horseys:

Horse head (?) - Al Maquar

Al Maquar head figurine - horse?

 

It certainly would be interesting if the hypothesis of horse domestication out of Eurasia is challenged by these Saudi Arabia finds!

Excitement about Tal Motza Discoveries

Temple and sacred vessels from Biblical times discovered at Tel Motza

26 Dec 2012

The finds, dated to the early monarchic period and including pottery figurines of men and horses, provide rare testimony of a ritual cult in the Jerusalem region at the beginning of the period of the monarchy. Rare evidence of the religious practices and rituals in the early days of the Kingdom of Judah has recently been discovered at Tel Motza, to the west of Jerusalem. In excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is currently conducting at the Tel Motza archaeological site, prior to work being carried out on the new Highway 1 from Sha'ar HaGai to Jerusalem by the National Roads Company (previously the Public Works Department), a ritual building (a temple) and a cache of sacred vessels some 2,750 years old have been uncovered.  Figurines of a person (Photo: Clara Amit, courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority) According to Anna Eirikh, Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily and Shua Kisilevitz, directors of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, "The ritual building at Tel Motza is an unusual and striking find, in light of the fact that there are hardly any remains of ritual buildings of the period in Judaea at the time of the First Temple. The uniqueness of the structure is even more remarkable because of the vicinity of the site's proximity to the capital city of Jerusalem, which acted as the Kingdom's main sacred center at the time." According to the archaeologists, "Among other finds, the site has yielded pottery figurines of men, one of them bearded, whose significance is still unknown." Tel Motza and the surrounding region are renowned for their prime archaeological importance. Many finds have previously been uncovered at the site, from a variety of different periods. From the 1990's to the beginning of the present millennium, the site was excavated in preparation for the new route taken by Highway 1. At the time, the site's archaeologists proposed once more identifying the site with the Biblical settlement "Mozah" mentioned in the Book of Joshua - a town in the tribal lands of Benjamin bordering on Judaea (Joshua 18: 26). The proposal was based, among other things, on the discovery at the site of a public building, a large structure with storehouses, and a considerable number of silos. At the time, archaeologists identified the site as a storehouse, run by high-ranking officials, for Jerusalem's grain supplies. The current excavations have revealed evidence that provides another aspect to our understanding of the site. According to archaeologists Eirikh, Dr. Khalaily and, Kisilevitz, the current excavation has revealed part of a large structure, from the early days of the monarchic period (Iron Age IIA). The walls of the structure are massive, and it includes a wide, east-facing entrance, conforming to the tradition of temple construction in the ancient Near East: the rays of the sun rising in the east would have illuminated the object placed inside the temple first, symbolizing the divine presence within. A square structure which was probably an altar was exposed in the temple courtyard, and the cache of sacred vessels was found near the structure. The assemblage includes ritual pottery vessels, with fragments of chalices (bowls on a high base which were used in sacred rituals), decorated ritual pedestals, and a number of pottery figurines of two kinds: the first, small heads in human form (anthropomorphic) with a flat headdress and curling hair; the second, figurines of animals (zoomorphic) - mainly of harnessed animals. The archeologists stress that "the find of the sacred structure together with the accompanying cache of sacred vessels, and especially the significant coastal influence evident in the anthropomorphic figurines, still require extensive research." Figurine of a horse (Photo: Clara Amit, courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority) What are those things on the horse's midsection?  Looks like a foot on this side, and on the far side, part of a leg?  Did this horse have a standing rider on it at one point?  Ritual elements in the Kingdom of Judah are recorded in archaeological research, especially from the numerous finds of pottery figurines and other sacred objects found at many sites in Israel, and these are usually attributed to domestic rituals. However, the remains of ritual platforms and temples used for ritual ceremonies have only been found at a few sites of this period. According to the site's directors, "The finds recently discovered at Tel Motza provide rare archaeological evidence for the existence of temples and ritual enclosures in the Kingdom of Judah in general, and in the Jerusalem region in particular, prior to the religious reforms throughout the kingdom at the end of the monarchic period (at the time of Hezekiah and Isaiah), which abolished all ritual sites, concentrating ritual practices solely at the Temple in Jerusalem."

Carved Horse Head Discovered in 164 Year Old Collection

From Antiquity, Volume 085, Issue 330, December 2011 (yes, a year behind).  You can get internal links, emails and more photographs at the website. 

What is, I believe, unique about this is that the horse head carving is on a bone from a 15,000 years old or so horse's leg! 

Of course my imagination ran wild with this discovery.  Was the horse perhaps a much loved steed that sometimes allowed itself to be ridden (in the days long before bridles and such)?  Was the horse a wily adversary that deserved to be memorialized in death?  Was the carved bone a talisman? 

Discovery of a horse engraving from Bruniquel, France

Laura M. Kaagan, Paul G. Bahn & Adrian M. Lister

Introduction

There are many examples of Palaeolithic portable engravings that have been discovered, long after their excavation, among the collections stored in museums. For example, a remarkable pair of bear figures was spotted in the mid-1980s on a rib fragment housed with the bone industry from the Magdalenian cave of Isturitz in the western Pyrenees; the rib came from a level excavated by the St Périers in 1931 (Esparza & Mujika 2003). It is far rarer, however, for a new engraving to be found among faunal material curated within a palaeontological collection. We report here the discovery by one of us (LMK) of a horse engraving in the collection of the Palaeontology Department of the Natural History Museum (NHM), London, some 140 years after the excavation and acquisition of the specimen. The new engraving was found among the horse remains from the Late Magdalenian site of Roc du Courbet, Bruniquel, France.

The site

The Roc du Courbet is one of a series of Upper Palaeolithic rockshelters near the village of Bruniquel, in France's Tarn region. Located within the face of a massif or cliff (now known as Courbet), it was first explored by Vicomte de Lastic Saint-Jal in 1863, and then by de Lastic, M. des Serres and R. Owen in 1864 (Owen1869a). It is believed that the majority of the remains recovered were derived from de Lastic's black layer or 'couche noire', which is thought to date to Magdalenian V or VI; however, the provenance of remains within this layer is not clear (Sieveking 1987).

Furthermore, Owen (1869a, 1869b) notes that both human and animal remains were found within not only a black layer ('limon noir'), but also a red layer ('limon rouge') and a breccia deposit. Owen took such an interest in the cave itself, as well as the faunal and artefactual remains which had been recovered from it, that he purchased de Lastic's first collection for the British Museum in 1864 (Cook and Welté 1995).

Faunal remains of horses

The faunal collection is now housed at the NHM, while most of the artefacts are housed at the British Museum (Franks House). According to Owen (1869b) the horse remains acquired by him in 1864 consisted of at least 30 individuals from the limon noir, limon rouge and breccia. LMK has recently examined all available horse specimens (teeth, cranials and postcranials) from Owen's 'de Lastic collection' at the NHM. Many retain the cut marks associated with butchery, especially on the teeth and maxillary/mandibular elements. It is also evident that the remains have been treated with an unknown preservative.

Owen (1869b) designated the Courbet horses taxonomically as Equus spelaeus, determining by detailed comparison that they were caballine horses rather than zebras or asses. He considered, based on the size of third molars, that two types or varieties were present. Nowadays the remains are referred to E. ferus and biometric analysis is consistent with the presence of a single species (Kaagan 2000).

Dating

Radiocarbon dating of artefactual remains in the British Museum collection was undertaken at the Gif laboratory—this yielded two dates for the 'limon rouge' and one for the 'limon noir', all of which are equivalent at 1s and lie within the range 13 380–13 490 BP (uncalibrated median values), within the early part of the Late Glacial (Cattelain 2005). Radiocarbon dating of purified collagen from a lower P3 of horse (NHM Palaeontology Department no. 39325) from the faunal collection yielded a date of 13 230±90 BP (OxA-6667), consistent with the dates obtained previously.

The new figure

Many art objects (engravings or drawings) have been found at Courbet, utilising bones of deer, birds and other animals. These include a bird bone and deer rib, both with engraved reindeer, figured by Owen (1869a), and a bone fragment bearing three horse heads on one side and two on the other (Sieveking 1987: pl. 68; here Figure 1).

Owen (1869b) had taken a particular interest in the horse remains from Courbet, and expended considerable effort on cataloguing and interpreting the collection. However, the fresh study of this material by LMK (Kaagan 2000) led to the discovery of a previously unnoticed engraving on a horse's right fourth metatarsal (no. 38475). This unusual choice of material is the delicate 'splint bone' that in life lies lateral to the cannon bone (third metatarsal) of the hind leg; the bone is complete and is 15.9cm long.

The engraving (Figures 2–4) depicts a horse's head in left profile located on the bone's dorsal surface at the proximal end. The image was partly obscured by the specimen identification sticker, confirming that it had not been noticed by previous workers. It is a good example of a 'naturalistic' depiction, in typical Magdalenian style, of a Late Pleistocene wild horse. Engraved lines above the ear suggest that these animals had a forelock. This is a common trait in domestic horses, but many wild Przewalski's horses also grow a forelock before their mid-summer moult, especially in old age or due to lack of fitness (Mohr 1971). Compared to other Palaeolithic depictions of horses, the muzzle in the Courbet engraving is unusually square in shape; other horse-heads from the site seem to share this trait, albeit to a lesser degree.

The horse is the most important animal in Ice Age iconography, and past studies expended a great deal of effort in the attempt to establish which 'races' were depicted—some scholars even claiming up to 37 varieties (see Bahn & Vertut 1997: 141). However, all such exercises were eventually abandoned, being based primarily on the shape and size of the figures, their manes, and the colour and pattern of their coats, all of which could have been subject to artistic whim. All that can be stated with confidence is that most depictions of Late Pleistocene horses strongly indicate that the wild (Przewalski's) horse is their closest modern analogue (Mohr 1971), although even the latter has been under human selection for 'primitive' appearance (M. Bower, pers. comm. 2010). Genetic data have indicated that Przewalski's horse is closely related to, but was not the direct ancestor of, modern breeds; they derived from a common ancestor which is no longer living (Lau et al. 2009).

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Marion Duffin for drawing Figure 4, Kevin Webb for photography (Figures 2 & 3), and Jill Cook for discussion.

References

• BAHN, P.G. & J. VERTUT. 1997. Journey through the Ice Age. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.
• CATTELAIN, P. 2005. Propulseurs magdaléniens: marqueurs culturels régionaux? in V. Dujardin (ed.) Industrie osseuse et parures du Solutréen au Magdalénien en Europe (Mémoire 39 de la société préhistorique française): 301–317. Paris: Société préhistorique française.
• COOK, J. & A.-C. WELTÉ. 1995. La Grotte du Courbet (Tarn): sa contribution dans l'histoire de l'homme fossile et de l'art paléolithique. Bulletin de la Société. Préhistorique Ariège-Pyrénées 50: 85–96.
• ESPARZA SAN JUAN, X. & J.A. MUJIKA ALUSTIZA. 2003. Aportación a las representaciones de úrsidos en el arte mobiliar magdaleniense. Veleia 20: 151–56.
• KAAGAN, L.M. 2000. The horse in Late Pleistocene and Holocene Britain. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University College London.
• LAU, A.N., L. PENG, H. GOTO, L. CHEMNICK, O.A. RYDER & K.D. MAKOVA. 2009. Horse domestication and conservation genetics of Przewalski's Horse inferred from sex chromosomal and autosomal sequences. Molecular Biology and Evolution 26: 199–208.
• MOHR, E. 1971. The Asiatic Wild Horse. London: J.A. Allen and Co. Ltd.
• OWEN, R. 1869a. Description of the Cavern of Bruniquel, and its organic contents. Part I. Human remains. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 159: 517–33.
  - 1869b. Description of the Cavern of Bruniquel, and its organic contents. Part II. Equine remains. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 15: 535–57.
• SIEVEKING, A. 1987. A catalogue of Palaeolithic art in the British Museum. London: British Museum Press.

Authors

*Author for correspondence

• Laura M. Kaagan
  Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
• Paul G. Bahn
  428 Anlaby Road, Hull HU3 6QP, UK
    Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK
• Adrian M. Lister* Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK

7100 Year Old Turkish Site Threatened by Dam

Güvercinkaya excavation site sheds light on Anatolian life

AKSARAY - Anatolia News Agency

The latest excavation at the 7,000 year old Güvercinkaya tumulus in Aksaray Province has discovered the fossilized remains of such animals as lions and panthers

An excavation at the 7,000 year old Güvercinkaya tumulus in Aksaray Province has discovered the fossilized remains of such animals as lions, panthers and two species of horses, indicating that these species once lived in Cappadocia. [When???]

Güvercinkaya tumulus was discovered near the planned site of the Mamasun Dam when surface research for the dam was underway in 1993, said Dr. Sevil Gülçur, who heads the Güvercinkaya excavation and is the head of the archaeology department at Istanbul University. Because the tumulus was located near the dam, the excavation was begun urgently. “In order to save the area, we started excavation work in 1996 and excavated the damaged areas firstly,” Gülçur said.

“We worked on an area 3,000 meters square, found some very significant structures at the peak of the tumulus. The use of the tumulus dates back approximately 5,220 to 4,750 B.C. We came across the gate of a castle, which is probably it is the oldest example of its kind in Anatolia,” Gülçur said, “The tumulus is divided into two fragments, an upper settlement and a lower settlement. The whole architecture was developed by design. It is not a random settlement; they designed the settlement to comply with the natural structure of the rocks. The one-roomed houses have storage and furnaces.
Their means of livelihood was based on agriculture and livestock.”

Food remains at the site have revealed a great deal of information about ancient Cappadocia, including the fact that two species of horses once existed there.

“Two [species of] horse existed; one of them is bigger than the other. When the Persians invaded Anatolia, they saw the great number of horses and called the land ‘Cappadocia’ which means ‘land of beautiful horses,’ and the Romans continued to use the name. In addition to horses, there were a lot of deer in the region. We also detected the presence of some predators, including lions and panthers. The Cappadocia region had the raw material prehistoric humans needed to survive. For example, we found a leg bone and claw that belonged to a lioness. It is hard to say whether people in those times ate lion meat, but they did benefit from lions’ bones and skins.”

Excavation site threatened by dam

The excavation work continues to try to save the area from possible damage created by the dam, Gülçur said. “A very frightening thing happened in Güvercinkaya when the level of the water in the dam rose and covered the whole area in 2011. The dam damaged the areas we had excavated, and now we are working to reach the old layer and clean the excavation site. This year we are determined to find older layers and document the layers and structures we have already excavated with photos, in order not lose the information if the water rises again,” she said.

August/13/2012

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I am interested in knowing exactly how old these horse fossils are.  Were the horses hunted for food?  Has any evidence been uncovered that might suggest domestication of the horses and if so, at what date?  Were these horses indigenous to Anatolia, different from other species of equine beyond the Caucasus Mountains in the steppe regions to the northeast and the regions to the south where, at an early date, the Sumerians had onagers pulling wagons? 

Thracian Horseman Statute Donated by ...

...a local "businessman" who just happened to discover it in "pieces" in a "house he inherited."  Hmmmm, what is that scent I smell?  Could that possibily be bullshit?

Article is at Novinite - don't try to copy it!  I took a "snip" of the main body of the text but there are a few more paragraphs that are not included in the snip since I cannot scroll down when doing a "snip" to capture material.

Here is an image of the "Heros" -- is it just me -- or does this look like a really poorly faked antiquity???  See, for comparison, this specimen at Wikipedia.  More information on the Thracian "heros."

Bulgarian Archaeology Museum Gets Unique Thracian Statue
May 7, 2012

Domestication of the Horse Solved! Mares Were "Loose"...

From Sciencedaily.com
Mystery of the Domestication of the Horse Solved: Competing Theories Reconciled

ScienceDaily (May 7, 2012) — New research indicates that domestic horses originated in the steppes of modern-day Ukraine, southwest Russia and west Kazakhstan, mixing with local wild stocks as they spread throughout Europe and Asia.

The research was published 07 May, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For several decades scientists puzzled over the origin of domesticated horses. Based on archaeological evidence, it had long been thought that horse domestication originated in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe (Ukraine, southwest Russia and west Kazakhstan); however, a single origin in a geographically restricted area appeared at odds with the large number of female lineages in the domestic horse gene pool, commonly thought to reflect multiple domestication "events" across a wide geographic area.

In order to solve the perplexing history of the domestic horse, scientists from the University of Cambridge used a genetic database of more than 300 horses sampled from across the Eurasian Steppe to run a number of different modelling scenarios.

Their research shows that the extinct wild ancestor of domestic horses, Equus ferus, expanded out of East Asia approximately 160,000 years ago. They were also able to demonstrate that Equus ferus was domesticated in the western Eurasian Steppe, and that herds were repeatedly restocked with wild horses as they spread across Eurasia.

Dr Vera Warmuth, from the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology, said: "Our research clearly shows that the original founder population of domestic horses was established in the western Eurasian Steppe, an area where the earliest archaeological evidence for domesticated horses has been found. The spread of horse domestication differed from that of many other domestic animal species, in that spreading herds were augmented with local wild horses on an unprecedented scale. If these restocking events involved mainly wild mares, we can explain the large number of female lineages in the domestic horse gene pool without having to invoke multiple domestication origins."

The researchers provide the first genetic evidence for a geographically restricted domestication origin in the Eurasian Steppe, as suggested by archaeology, and show that the tremendous female diversity is the result of later introductions of local wild mares into domestic herds, thus reconciling evidence which had previously given rise to conflicting scenarios.

The research was funded by the BBSRC, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Leverhulme Trust.

Earliest Known Bit Associated with an...

ancient Canaanite donkey?  DONKEY?  Oh my!

But - we know that the earliest people living in ancient Egypt and the Near Middle East (including the Sumerians and Babylonians) did not have horses.  What they had were donkeys and onagers. It was the people known as the Hyksos (I think they may also have been called the Horse People) who invaded Lower Egypt (northern Egypt) and established their dynastic presence in that ancient land for about 100 years beginning in circa 1650 BCE that fueled the explosion of horses being brought into the ancient Near Middle East and Egypt in an explosion.  Before then, horses were a relatively rare and exotic commodity. The ancient Hurrians were "horse masters" and their claim to fame was sending trainers far away into foreign lands with the priceless horses, to teach the foreigners how to breed, raise and, most importantly, train these invaluable animals to pull chariots for the elite.  I believe that this was done at the time mostly through royal marriages, and Hurrian horse masters with the horses (originally brought in from the steppes and then tamed and bred) were part of precious royal doweries.

It was in about 1800 BCE, more or less, that the light-weight but extremely strong eight-spoked chariot wheel had been invented in the area of the world we now call Armenia, and this new invention spread like lightning through the known world at the time.  It was about 150 years later, more or less, that the Hyksos first roared into ancient Egypt to conquer Lower Egypt (north Egypt) and then spread their influence up the Nile River.  They were known as horse masters and has flash-fast war chariots driven by one or two expert charioteers in feather-weight and yet strong chariots with eight-spoked wheels...

They were the advanced war weapon of the day.

Without bits, of course, the ability to control a horse (or any equine), particularly at high speeds, would have been a hit-or-miss proposition...

Where's the bit?  Didn't see a photograph of it in the article.

Archaeologists discover earliest known metal bit

By Horsetalk.co.nz on Mar 20, 2012

The earliest known metal equestrian bit has been unearthed by archaeologists in Israel. The bit was discovered in an equid burial site at Tel-Haror, and had probably been used on a donkey.

Archaeologists led by Professor Eliezer Oren, from Ben Gurion University, made the discovery in a layer of material dating from 1750 BC to 1650 BC, known as the Middle Bronze IIB Period. It is among a growing number of sites in the Near East yielding the remains of horses and donkeys.

Dr Joel Klenck, a Harvard University-educated archaeologist and president of the Paleontological Research Corporation, led analysis of the remains in the Tel-Haror site.  He said the burial site is at the base of a dome-shaped structure. The southeastern wall of the burial edifice was overlaid by a thick mudbrick partition that surrounded a nearby temple complex.

Klenck, an archaeologist specialising in the analysis of animal remains, noted the animal was a donkey, as evidenced by foot bone measurements and traits on the grinding surfaces of its teeth.

Klenck said the site yielded the earliest direct evidence of a metal equestrian bit.

“Until the excavation at Tel Haror, archaeologists had only indirect evidence for the use of bits,” he said. “An example of this indirect evidence is wear marks on equid teeth at the fortress of Buhen in contexts dating to the 20th century BC.  At Tel Haror, we retrieved the actual metal device.”

Round plates on either end of the ancient bit feature triangular spikes that pressured the lips of the equid if the reins were pulled from one direction.

He said the discovery provided important insights into ancient equestrian practices and methods of transportation in Near East.

Other discoveries in recent years in the Near East have painted a picture revealing the extensive use of donkeys and horses in ancient cultures.

The Vulture Stele, in Mesopotamia, dating to 2600BC to 2350BC, known as the Early Dynastic III period, portrays an equid pulling a chariot-like vehicle.  Various Mesopotamian manuscripts dating to this period mention the horse, donkey, hemione and hybrids such as the mule.

From Sumeria, terracotta reliefs from the early second millennium BC show equids pulling a chariot and a human riding horseback.

Hittite art from the 13th century BC, in modern Turkey, show a larger species of equid, perhaps a horse, pulling a chariot with three soldiers, in contrast to smaller equids in Egyptian murals pulling chariots with only two men.

Horse bones were found at Tell el-’Ajjul, in Israel, in contexts dated to around 3400BC and [WOW!], in Turkey, at Bogazkoy, from the 17th century BC.

Archaeologists excavated donkey remains at Tell Brak in Mesopotamia dating between 2580BC and 2455BC.

Egyptian donkey burials dating to 2000 BC to 1550 BC, known as the Middle Bronze II periods, include those found at Inshas, Tell el-Farasha, Tell el-Maskhuta, and Tell el-Dab’a.

From similar time periods in the Levant – the area including most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories – archaeologists have excavated donkeys at Tell el-’Ajjul and Jericho.

Oh Them Spotted Horses, Oh, Them Spotted Horses...

aint no figure of my
Imagination!
No No No!  OH!

Are they real?  Or are they figments created in dark caves by torchlight, 25,000 years ago?

How arrogant for any modern-day person to assume that what those fantastic artists of 25,000 to 11,000 years ago were recording animals that didn't really exist - what baloney!  Now they're finally admitting that, yeah, those people were recording what they actually saw.  Holy Goddess!  Hmmm, some people just deserve a big Goddess slap up alongside the head, please...

The image of the beautifully rendered spotted horses, above, is from the website for the Peche Merle (Cave) Prehistory Center (scroll down to point 12).  The description:  The dotted horses about 25,000 BP (radiocarbon dated) (M+F). Right-hand horse : his small head is drawn in the natural cut of the rock, resembling a horse's head. On his back : a large red fish (it seems to be a pike) (M+F). Six stencilled black hands all around the horses. Black dots inside and outside. Red dots. Left-hand horse, in red : 7 hook-like signs (M).  The horses are interposed over the image of a bison, lower right, also taking advantage of the curve in the cave wall to render a three-dimensional effect!

Here's a modern spotted horse, image by Thomas Hackmann, 2011, from The New York Times article:

There were news stories before this one, but I chose this one from The New York Times:

Spotted Horses in Cave Art Weren’t Just a Figment, DNA Shows
By HILLARY ROSNER
Published: November 7, 2011

Roughly 25,000 years ago in what is now southwestern France, human beings walked deep into a cave and left their enduring marks. Using materials like sticks, charcoal and iron oxides, they painted images of animals on the cave walls and ceilings — lions and mammoths and spotted horses, walking and grazing and congregating in herds.       

Today, the art at the Pech-Merle cave, and in hundreds of others across Europe, is a striking testimony to human creativity well before modern times.

But what were these cave paintings, exactly? Were prehistoric artists simply sketching what they saw each day on the landscape? Or were the images more symbolic, diverging from reality or representing rare or even mystical creatures? Such questions have divided archaeologists for years.

Now, a group of researchers has used distinctly modern techniques to help decipher the mystery, at least in the case of Pech-Merle’s famous spotted horses. By comparing the DNA of modern horses and those that lived during the Stone Age, scientists have determined that these drawings are a realistic depiction of an animal that coexisted with the artists.

The research, published online on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, grew out of an effort to discern the coat colors of ancient horses to help figure out when the animals were domesticated, a pivotal moment in the development of human societies. In general, domesticated species exist in a far greater variety of colors than wild ones, so understanding color variation in fossil animals can help pinpoint the timing.

Previous research on DNA from the bones and teeth of horses that lived 7,000 to 20,000 years ago showed that those animals were either black or bay (a brown coat with a black mane and tail). That work was published in the journal Science in 2009. Since then, geneticists have deciphered the underlying code for the spotted pattern, known as leopard, in modern horses. So the scientists went back to their samples, looking for the leopard sequence in horses that lived in Europe 11,000 to 15,000 years ago.

“There is a striking correspondence between the coat-color patterns of horses painted in Paleolithic caves of France with what geneticists found in the genotypes” — the specific genetic sequences — “of color genes,” said Hopi E. Hoekstra, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard who studies pigmentation. Dr. Hoekstra was not involved in the study but called it “very convincing.”

An author of the study, Michael Hofreiter, an evolutionary biologist at the University of York in England, said: “Why they took the effort making these beautiful paintings will always remain a miracle to us.

“It’s an enigma, but it’s also nice to see that if we go back 25,000 years, people didn’t have much technology and life was probably hard, but nevertheless they already endeavored in producing art. It tells us a lot about ourselves as a species.”

Extracting DNA from such old material is a complex process, and the potential for contamination is huge. Early studies of Neanderthal DNA were marred by contamination from humans, and led to skepticism about the field’s future.

Since then, researchers have adopted strict procedures to ensure they are not contaminating ancient samples with modern-day DNA. The procedures include analyzing ancient and contemporary material in physically separate facilities and replicating results multiple times.

“This is a whole different level of clean,” said Jessica L. Metcalf, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado who also works with the Australian Center for Ancient DNA in Adelaide, where the labs that work on ancient and modern DNA are more than half a mile apart.

“We have sealed rooms with HEPA filter air flow, UV lights that sterilize when you come in,” she said. “We spend over half our time cleaning. We use a lot of bleach. You’re in this ridiculous-looking clean suit with a face shield on.”

In fact, Dr. Hofreiter said, researchers who work with ancient horse genes should not even go horseback riding. “Traces of DNA,” she said, “they just stick to people.”

Dr. Hofreiter, 38, began his career working with a pioneer of ancient DNA research, Svante Paabo. Though he intended to study taxonomy, he was so intrigued by the idea of extracting DNA from ancient material that he switched his focus. “You have this 30,000-year-old piece of feces in your hand,” he said, adding: “Well, you should wear gloves. And you can actually get to the genetic code from the animal. And I thought, this is so fascinating.”

He and his colleagues did not set out to study cave art. They were simply continuing their work on coat color in prehistoric horses. Only after they found the spotted horse gene in their ancient samples did they realize they could say something about archaeology.       

“What we found is that there were really only these three color patterns — spotted or dappled; blackish ones; and brown ones,” he said. “These are the three phenotypes we find in the wild populations. And then we realized these phenotypes are exactly the ones you see in cave paintings.”       

Terry O’Connor, an archaeologist at the University of York who collaborated on the study, said spotted horses in particular had been used to argue that cave art was more symbolic than realistic, and that as a result the finding could cause a stir. But now it is clear that some horses had a gene for that coat color. “People drew spotty horses,” he said, “because they saw spotty horses.”   

Last summer, exploring a cave in the Dordogne region, Dr. O’Connor said he became transfixed by a series of line drawings of mammoths. “They were absolutely superb, some using contours of the cave itself, capturing the size and shape and movement,” he said. “You look at that and say, ‘These guys know what the animals looked like, and they can draw.’ ” 

As techniques for working with ancient DNA have matured, scientists are now using it to answer an increasing variety of questions about the past — from what happened to a species’ genetic variation as its environment changed to how humans recolonized Europe after the last ice age to what type of microbes lived in the guts of people and animals thousands of years ago.       

“One of the things that most pleases me about this paper as a piece of ancient DNA science,” Dr. O’Connor said, “is it kind of begins with a question. These spotty horses, were they magical or real? And then science answers that. It’s not just, ‘Let’s rip the DNA out of ancient bones and see what it tells us.’ ”            

Evidence of Horse Domestication in Saudi Arabia

From the BBC Online:

24 August 2011 Last updated at 18:19 ET
Saudis 'find evidence of early horse domestication'
Saudi officials say archaeologists have begun excavating a site that suggests horses were domesticated 9,000 years ago in the Arabian Peninsula.

The vice-president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities said the discovery at al-Maqar challenged the theory it first took place 5,500 years ago in Central Asia. Ali al-Ghabban said it also changed what was known about the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period.

A number of artefacts were also found.  They included arrowheads, scrapers, grain grinders, tools for spinning and weaving, and other tools that showed the inhabitants were skilled at handicrafts. Mr. Ghabban said carbon-14 tests on the artefacts, as well as DNA tests on human remains also found there, dated them to about 7,000 BC.

"This discovery will change our knowledge concerning the domestication of horses and the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period," he told a news conference in Jeddah, according to the Reuters news agency. "The al-Maqar civilisation is a very advanced civilization of the Neolithic period. This site shows us clearly, the roots of the domestication of horses 9,000 years ago," he added.

Although humans came into contact with horses about 50,000 years ago, they were originally herded for meat, skins, and possibly for milk.  The first undisputed evidence for their domestication dates back to 2,000 BC, when horses were buried with chariots. By 1,000 BC, domestication had spread through Europe, Asia and North Africa.

However, researchers have found evidence suggesting that the animals were used by the Botai culture in northern Kazakhstan 5,500 years ago.

******************************************************************

The BBC did not contain photographs of some of the spectacular horse-related artifacts recovered at the site!  The following are from an article on the discovery at Past Horizons:

From Far Horizons, one of the horse figurines recovered at the Al Maqar site projected over an image of the site.

Another horse figurine, Al Maqar site, Saudi Arabia.

Neighhhhhh! Do these remind you of any chess pieces with which you may be familiar???

According to this article at The Daily Star (Lebanon):


“This discovery will change our knowledge concerning the domestication of horses and the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period,” said Ali al-Ghabban, vice president of Antiquities and Museums at the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities in Jeddah. “The Maqar Civilization is a very advanced civilization of the Neolithic period. This site shows us clearly, the roots of the domestication of horses 9,000 years ago.”

The remains of the civilization were found close to Abha, in southwestern Asir province, an area known to antiquity as Arabia Felix.

The civilization, Ghabban added, used “methods of embalming that are totally different to known processes.”

Among the remains found at the site are statues of animals such as goats, dogs, hawks, and a meter-tall bust of a horse, the official said: “A statue of an animal of this dimension, dating back to that time, has never been found anywhere in the world.”

Study of Horse Domestication Focuses on Y Chromosome

Interesting press release - but please, give it to me in "layman's English" next time, heh?

Public release date: 23-Aug-2011
Contact: David Garner
University of York

Ancient wild horses help unlock past

An international team of researchers has used ancient DNA to produce compelling evidence that the lack of genetic diversity in modern stallions is the result of the domestication process.

The team, which was led by Professor Michi Hofreiter from the University of York, UK, has carried out the first study on Y chromosomal DNA sequences from extinct ancient wild horses and found an abundance of diversity.

The results, which are published in Nature Communications, suggest the almost complete absence of genetic diversity in modern male horses is not based on properties intrinsic to wild horses, but on the domestication process itself.

Professor Hofreiter said: "Unlike modern female domestic horses where there is plenty of diversity, genetic diversity in male horses is practically zero.

"One hypothesis to explain this suggests modern horses have little Y chromosome diversity because the wild horses from which they were domesticated were also not diverse, due in part to the harem mating system in horses, implying skewed reproductive success of males. Our results reject this hypothesis as the Y chromosome diversity in ancient wild horses is high. Instead our results suggest that the lack of genetic diversity in modern horses is a direct consequence of the domestication process itself."

The Y chromosome is a valuable tool in population genetics, providing a means of directly assessing evolutionary processes that only affect the paternal lineage. So far mitochondrial DNA studies have failed to discover the origin of domestic horses. However, these new Y chromosomal markers now open the possibility of solving this issue in detail.

As part of the study, researchers sequenced Y chromosomal DNA from eight ancient wild horses dating back from around 15,000 to more than 47,000 years and a 2,800-year-old domesticated horse. The results were compared to DNA sequences from Przewalski horses - the only surviving wild horse population – and 52 domestic horses, representing 15 modern breeds, which had been sequenced previously.

Domestication of horses dates back approximately 5,500 years. DNA from the skeletal remains of a 2,800-year-old domesticated stallion from Siberia showed that in contrast to modern horses, Y chromosomal diversity still existed several thousand years after the initial domestication event for horses.

Professor Hofreiter said: "This suggests some level of Y chromosomal diversity still existed in domestic horses several thousand years after domestication, although the lineage identified was closely related to the modern domestic lineage."

The study was carried out in Germany by Sebastian Lippold, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The results were then independently replicated at the Centre for GeoGenetics at Copenhagen University, Denmark.

Sebastian Lippold said: "Working on ancient Y chromosomal DNA was especially challenging but the only opportunity to investigate Y chromosomal diversity in wild horses. For now we have a first idea of ancestral diversity and therefore a better impression of how much diversity has been lost. Basically this was an important first step and points to the potential the Y chromosomal marker could have in order to further investigate domestication history in horses."

Beth Shapiro, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the Pennsylvania State University, USA, carried out the analysis and interpretation.

She said: "Most ancient DNA research until now has focused on a different part of the genome – the mitochondrion – which is much more abundant in cells and therefore much easier to work with when the DNA is degraded. This has been a serious limitation in ancient DNA research, because we generally only have a good idea what happened along the maternal line. Here, we've been able to look at what happened along the paternal lineage, and, probably unsurprisingly, we see something different going on in males than in females.

"This is exciting stuff, and means we can start getting a much better picture of how events like domestication and climate change have shaped the diversity of organisms alive today."

Researchers had found that Przewalski's horse displays DNA haplotypes not present in modern domestic horses, suggesting they are not ancestral to modern domestic horses. However, while the Y chromosome data supported historic isolation, it also suggests a close evolutionary relationship between the domestic horse and the Przewalski's horse, since the Przewalski Y chromosomal haplotype is more similar to the two domestic ones than any of the ancient wild horse haplotypes.

So, does the last sentence indicate that there is or are one or more at present unknown ancestors between the domestic horse and Przewalski's horse? And if that is indeed the case, why didn't they just say so? Perhaps this all make sense to people schooled in the field, but to the average person interested in ancient and not-so-ancient history and other related subjects, it's like trying to read the Cyrillic alphebet (in other words, nearly impossible without a road map and much labor translating from "techno-speak" into plain understandable English words.)

A Horse of a Different Color

Just getting around to this now - Mr. Don sent this to me on July 4th.  He discovered it on one of his biking excursions around Old Montreal, in an area near where the carriage horses are kept.  Love it!  Whoever the artist was who put this together - clever, clever, clever!

Prehistoric "Red Horses" Cave Art Found in Basque Country

Unfortunately, this National Geogrpahic article also gives way too much detail, including a photograph of the entrance to the cave - to alert looters to its exact location. Way to go NG - let the looting begin.

Prehistoric Cave Art Discovered in Basque Country
Posted by Andrew Howley
May 13, 2011 

You can just make out the faint red outline of the horse head to the left of
 the "3M7" marker. Photo courtesy of Diego Garate and Joseba Rios-Garaizar.

In a locally well known cave near an industrial town in Spain, researchers have unexpectedly discovered faint images of horses and hand prints dating back some 25,000 years.

Concerned that activity at a nearby stone quarry had destroyed much of the cave of Askondo, Diego Garate of the Archaeological Museum of Biscay in Bilbao, and Joseba Rios-Garaizar of the Max Planck Institute set out to determine if any archaeological material was still intact. They entered the cave outside the town of Mañaria and searched for bones, stones, and other artifacts. Only on their way out of the cave did they noticed the paintings that they and many others had missed before. “Without a doubt,” says Garate, “[it was] a gift of destiny.”


A tracing helps to reveal a horse on the cave wall with a profile something

like a "duck bill,"  a common feature in European cave art.  Photo courtesy

Diego Garate and  Joseba Rios-Garaizar.

Speleologists had worked in Askondo in the 1970s, and left their mark in the form of a bright red “3M7″ used to catalogue the cave, but they too missed the art just inches away. “They didn’t see the red horse!” says Garate. “Better for us. We will restore the figure.”

I spoke with Diego Garate over email to get more of the story.

How often do people find new paintings in this part of Spain?

The north of Spain is the first European region where caves with paleolithic art were located [in 1879 at Altamira], and for more than a century the findings have followed one another, every time with less frequency. In fact, in the province of Biscay, only four other decorated cavities have been found since 1904, so every new finding is very important.

Do you have any theories about why horses are shown so often in European cave art?

One thing we know is that the Palaeolithic artists did not strictly paint the same animals that they hunted and ate but, for some reason that we can’t understand, they chose other ones. In the north of Spain at the time the horses of Askondo were painted, hind [red deer] was the most represented animal. There are some caves that escape this tendency, perhaps due to regional artistic differences.

How do these compare to the paintings at Altamira or other caves in the area?

The paintings located in the cave of Askondo could be contemporary to the first stage of decoration of Altamira. In Altamira’s “ceiling of the polychromes,” below the famous bison, [older] red figures of horses are detected, very similar to the ones found in [Askondo]. There are other caves in the north of Spain–La Pasiega, La Haza, El Salitre, etc.–with red painted animals near the entrance of the cave, in zones of semi-darkness where still the sunlight arrives. [This contrasts with many of the more famous images from Europe, which are found in the darkest regions of caves. --A.H.]

Are there any ways in which the cave art of Spain as a whole is different from the cave art of France?

For the first periods of artistic activity, [yes]. The advantage of the cave of Askondo is that it is halfway between both territories. This geo-strategic position is reflected in the iconography, with some rather Pyrenean (French) elements like bones fitted into the walls, and some Cantabrian (Spanish) elements like twin outlines, and with others more general elements that appear on a large scale throughout Western Europe like the horses with “duck bills” or the hand stamps.

Do people living in the area now have any special beliefs about the caves?

There is a very ancient mythology in Basque culture related to caves. In fact, there is an old legend for Askondo cave which says that a young boy from the farmhouse near the cave passed close to the cave every day to go to spin wool in another farmhouse. One day the “lamiak” (half women-half duck mythological figure) who lived in the cave told him not to come back near the cave. He didn’t take care and one day he was [attacked] and disappeared in the cave. It is also said that Askondo cave was a witches’ meeting place.

The Basque language is the oldest spoken language in Europe… This ancient heritage makes us proud and aware of the necessity to preserve it in this globalized world.

What will happen next with your work in the cave?

At the moment, we have only done a preliminary study of the paintings. It is necessary to perform a detailed inspection of all the walls in the 300 meters of cave and also to perform some digging tests to know if there is an occupation site contemporary to the paintings. Also a restoration program is planned for the worst-conserved paintings. All these studies will be the object of a monographic publication where all the results of the project will be detailed.

The Horse That Sweat "Blood"

From People's Daily Online
Discovery revives legend of 'blood-sweating' horse
08:25, February 22, 2011

Recently, bones of 80 horses were unearthed from two subordinate tomb pits of Emperor Wudi, who lived more than 2,000 years ago in the Han dynasty. The discovery may rekindle a legend about the "blood-sweating" horse in ancient China, Xinhua reported.

The story of Wudi, "Emperor of the Silk Road," and the "blood-sweating" horse has already become a legend of Chinese culture, and many people are interested in the legendary horse, which disappeared long ago.

Yang Wuzhan, an archaeologist who took part in the excavation of the mausoleum of Emperor Wudi, said they started excavating the two pits in September 2009 and unearthed 40 bones of horses from each pit.

Each of the two pits has a huge cavern containing 20 caves and each is guarded by two stallions and a terracotta warrior, Yang said.

He said archaeologists have conducted laboratory work on the skeletons and confirmed all were adult male horses. "Scientists will soon carry out DNA tests hoping to determine the genus of the horses."

The finding was likely to rekindle a centuries-old Chinese legend about the mysterious blood-sweating horse from Central Asia, Yang said.

"The legend goes that Emperor Wudi offered a hefty reward for anyone who could find him a mysterious 'blood-sweating' purebred horse that was said to have roamed Central Asia, but was rarely seen in China," he said.

Today, the horse is identified as the Akhal-Teke, one of the world's oldest and most unique breeds.

Wudi left China's earliest written record of the breed, in a poem he composed for his Akhal-Teke mount, describing it as a "heavenly horse."

The horse is known for its speed, endurance and perspiration of a blood-like fluid as it gallops along. It was also believed to be the horse ridden by Genghis Khan (1167-1227).

Wudi was best known for his opening of the Silk Road, an ancient trade route linking Asia and Europe.

Construction of his mausoleum began in 139 BC, a year after he was enthroned at 16 years of age. It took 53 years to build.

The mausoleum had more than 400 sacrificial pits, more than the mausoleum of Qin Shihuang, the "first emperor" of a united China.

China Daily contributed to the story.
By Wang Hanlu, People's Daily Online

*************************************************************************

Here is some information abut the Akhal Teke horse breed from Wikipedia.

The Uffington Horse

Minerva has a feature on the Bronze Age chalk horse figure known as the Uffington Horse, reviewing the recent question of whether it's a representation of a horse - or a dog. 

Image from The Guardian, October 12, 2010 edition.

Is The White Horse of Uffington Really a Dog?

Now that he mentions it...

White Horse of Uffington is a dog, claims vet
Animal expert says 3,000-year-old Oxfordshire landmark may have to be renamed
James Meikle guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday 12 October 2010 13.11 BST



Photo by Alamy.

 It is one of Britain's most-loved ancient hill figures, careering across the downland. Now vets are being urged to question whether the White Horse of Uffington was meant to be a horse at all.

Challenging the traditional description of the Oxfordshire landmark, retired vet Olaf Swarbrick asks whether the "beautiful, stylised" figure might instead be a dog such as a greyhound or wolfhound.

In a letter to the Veterinary Record, his profession's journal, the former cattle and poultry specialist suggests a canine origin for the 110-metre by 38.5-metre animal, which was carefully dug into the downland. He invites alternative theories, too.

Swarbrick says: "Looking at it again, it seems that it is not a horse at all: the tail and head are wrong for a horse and more suggestive of a dog. It appears more like a large hound at full stretch. I thought it may be a greyhound, but an anthropologist suggests it is a wolfhound, which (assuming it is not a horse) makes more sense."

The horse, if it is one, is about 3,000 years old, dating from 1250-850BC if most recent theories are correct. It was earlier believed to have Anglo-Saxon origins, and perhaps to be a memorial to King Alfred's victories over the Danes in the ninth century AD. Doubts over its equine origin have been aired before but written records suggest the hill on whose slopes it gallops has been named after the white horse since at least the 11th century.

Swarbrick told the Guardian: "I was just saying it was not a horse which will perhaps infuriate some archaeologists." If colleagues agreed with him, "quite a lot of people, including the Ordnance Survey, will have to change their terminology".

He added that other horse hill figures in Britain were "quite clearly horses", even if more recent than the Uffington one. And the Long Man of Wilmington in Sussex and Cerne Abbas giant in Dorset were clearly human.

Keith Blaxhall, the National Trust warden for the area, was not convinced. "I think we all think it is a horse," he said, adding that coins from roughly the same period show a similar stylised horse and chariot. "Horses were enormously important. It signified power. You were mobile.

"I have always called it a he, for some reason. There is no 'stallion effect' to it but it is a very proud and powerful symbol on the landscape." There had been claims it might be St George's white charger, he said, but the figure long predated his era. The dog suggestion was new to him. "I have really only heard the theory it is feline because of its sinuous design."

Blaxhall was unworried by the site's equine symbolism being doubted. "It is different things to different people. Who is really to know? It is prehistory. No one wrote anything down. It is just a magical place and people are drawn to it."

Some prior posts here regarding white horses, the first two have photos of other white chalk horses in England:

Synchronicity at Work - The White Horse
White Mares and Crop Circles
Rhiannon: Goddess of Horses

Horse + Rider = Votive (So they say...)

This figure is 99 mm tall.  I had no idea what the heck that meant so I asked Wiki and got the following answer:  Units of Measure question: How many inches is 99 mm? 99 mm = 3.89763 in.

Hmmmm...a nice size for a mounted knight.  Notice the remainder of red paint.  The description did not extend to whether the entire piece might have been painted at one time, or just these red markings were put here and there - for a particular purpose?  Not addressed.  Was red chosen for a reason?  Not addressed.  What was the pigment made from?  Not addressed. 

This figure is identified as 6th-5th century horse and rider figurine from Cyprus (Tel Dor).

More information on the piece from the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery:

Date: c. 600 BCE-475 BCE
Description: Acession number 1982A979. 
Little figures like this were left by worshippers at religious sanctuaries as offerings to the gods. Different types of figures were left at the sanctuaries of the different gods and goddesses.  Horsemen figures first became common on Cyprus during the 700s BC. Owning a horse would have been very expensive and it is probable that this kind of figure was left as an offering by nobles who wanted to emphasise how rich and important they were.

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Hmmm, okay, but how would anyone know that a particular horse or horse/rider offering was actually left by a noble?  I mean, was someone there to watch (and possibly record???) what each person offered?  And if the horseman figure became so popular during the 700s BCE, could anyone have purchased one and offered it?  I mean, this dude on his horse isn't exactly an exquisite work of art.  So - was the purchase of a horse and rider figurine restricted to nobles only?  If not, say Mr. P, the dog-poop scooper-upper, ranked rather low on the totem pole of society back in the day, buys a figurine like this from a tired vendor at the end of a busy temple day at a discount price, sort of under-the-table.  Next day he scrapes the poop off his feet, takes a ritual bath, makes his offering at the temple of "X" god, and then dies of pneumonia a week later because he caught a draft in the bath, only the second time he was ever in a pool of water (the first time was in mother's womb).  Does Mr. P get into Heaven?  And if he does, is it the same Heaven that the nobles go to? 

Hmmm, I guess I don't buy the official supposition about the little horse and rider being a "nobles" thing --

Actually, it makes more sense to me that this was a game piece, offered up ritually at the conclusion of the game or a ritualized and much-shortened form of a game, perhaps to denote a "passage" to Heaven, i.e., the Land of the Gods.  I mean, we really don't know, do we, because perhaps we haven't been asking the right questions...  But we do know, for instance, that the ancient Egyptian game of Senet was a game of passage and that the pieces that managed to make it all the way to the end of the game and literally jumped off the board jumped into - yep - Heaven - became Imperishable Stars.  That concept was woven into just about all of Egypt's religious and symbolic art, from pre-dynastic right down to the 5th century CE, when the last Egyptian temples were forcibly closed by the Byzantine "christians" and the religious mystery schools were born, as the "pagans" went underground, so to speak.

There may be a reason that the shape of a "pawn" game piece hasn't changed very much over 5,000 years or so - from Sumer, to Egypt, to Staunton.