NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.
Saturday, March 7, 2020
GENETIC MARKERS FOUND FOR THE COLORATION OF HORSES PAINTED IN EUROPEAN CAVES:
Horses, Lascaux, France.
Internet photo, Public domain.
Students of
rock art have learned to always be on the lookout for representations of rare
or extinct animals as a guide to their actual appearance. This is a case of a
cave painting of animals that were for some time thought to be imaginary or
symbolic, and now have been proven to be real. On January 18, 2020, I revisited
the question of the authenticity of the spotted horses of Pech-Merle Cave in
France. Genetic analysis of ancient horse fossils has provided markers that can
be used to identify the color of the animal when it was alive. Not only has the
existence of spotted horses been proven by genetic analysis, but genetic
studies have also given us information on the color and confirmation of other
Paleolithic wild horses - Equus ferus ferus.
Horse, Lascaux, France.
Internet photo, Public domain.
"Prehistoric representations of
animals have the potential to provide first-hand insights into the physical
environment that humans encountered thousands of years ago and the phenotypic appearance
of the animals depicted. However, the motivation behind, and therefore the
degree of realism in, these depictions is hotly debated and it has yet to be
shown to what extent they have been executed in a naturalistic manner.
Neuropsychological explanations
include 'hyperimagery,' in which an internally generated image is perceived in
external space, whereas others have argued for shamanistic significance or
simply art for art's sake. Some paleontologists argue that cave paintings are a
reflection of the natural environment of humans at the time, but not all
researchers agree with this opinion." (Pruvost et.al. 2011:1)
Horses, Chauvet Cave, France. www.bradshawfoundation.com
In a
nutshell, the argument has been whether the animal depictions represent the
appearance of real animals, or whether they represent "spirit
animals" of some sort. As "spirit animals" their overall
appearance (shape, coat color, conformation, etc.) need not be considered as
representative of a real horse.
Prewalski horses from
Chauvette Cave, France.
www.haut-thorenc.com
"Where animal species can be
confidently identified, horses are depicted at the majority of these sites.
With more than 1,250 documented depictions (~30% of all animal illustrations)
ranging from the Early Aurignacien of Chauvet to the Late Magdalenian (several
post-12-kyBP sites in France and Spain), and from the Iberian Peninsula to the
Ural mountains, horses are the most frequent of the more than 30 mammal species
depicted in European Upper Paleolithic cave art. Depictions are commonly in a
caricature form that slightly exaggerates the most typical 'horsey' features.
Although taken as a whole, images of
horses are often quite rudimentary in their execution, some detailed
representations, from both Western Europe and the Ural mountains, are realistic
enough to at least potentially represent the actual appearance of the animals
when alive. In these cases, attributes of coat color may also have been
depicted with deliberate naturalism, emphasizing colors and patterns that
characterized contemporary horses. For example, the brown and black horses
dominant at Lascaux and Chauvet, France, phenotypically match the extant coat
colors bay and black. (Pruvost
et.al. 2011:2-3)
Przewalskis horse,
Wikipedia.
"In a 2009 analysis of DNA from
the bones of nearly 90 ancient horses dated from about 12,000 to 1000 years
ago, researchers found genetic evidence for bay and black horse colors." (Balter 2011)
Wild horse reconstructions.
Wikipedia
"The researchers, led by
geneticists Arne Ludwig of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research
in Berlin and Michael Hofreiter of the University of York in the United
Kingdom, analyzed DNA from an older sample of 31 prehistoric horses from
Siberia as well as Eastern and Western Europe ranging from about 20,000 to 2200
years ago. They found that 18 of the horses were bay, seven were black, but six
had a genetic variant - called LP - that corresponds to leopardlike spotting in
modern horses. Moreover, out of 10 Western European horses estimated to be
about 14,000 years old, four had the LP genetic marker, suggesting that spotted
horses were not uncommon during the heyday of cave painting." (Balter 2011)
So, genetic
confirmation of not only bay coloration, but black horses as well was found, as
well as the final proof of spotted horses in the Paleolithic era, reinforcing
the idea that cave art can indeed give us valuable insights into the extant
animal life of prehistoric times.
NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.
NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
Balter,
Michael,
2011 Was the
Spotted Horse an Imaginary Creature?, November 7, 2011, Science Magazine,
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/11/was-spotted-horse-imaginary-creature
Pruvost,
Melanie, Rebecca Bellone, Norbert Benecke, Edson Sandoval-Castellanos, Michael
Cieslak, Tatyana Kuznetsove, Arturo Morales-Muniz, Terry O'Connor, Monica
Reissmann, Machael Hofreiter, and Arne Ludwig,
2011 Genotypes
of Predomestic Horses Match Phenotypes Painted in Paleolithic Works of Cave Art,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, Nov. 15,
2011
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