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 | | From: | I.E_Johansson | | Subject: | Horse | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 17:05:15 GMT |
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 | I was watching Discovery Civilisation earlier today. Time team's 'usual'
archaeologists, historians and geophysians together with specialists of many
different diciplines such as insects, trees and ancient animals were working
together to find the shores of a riverbank 200000 BP. Most of the findings
from excavations and collected samples weren't a surprise. One item made me
a bit surprised and that was the bone from a horse. This is the reason for
following questions:
How far back can the horse be traced in the English Isles, in Europe and
other continents?
and
is there any form of consensus for when humans began to use horses? Not
necessarily as domestic animals but at least a bit towards that.
Thanks in advance.
Inger E
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| | From: | Daryl Krupa | | Subject: | Re: Horse | | Date: | 23 Jan 2005 21:17:52 -0800 |
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| "The Earliest direct Evidence for Horse Domestication
The earliest unambiguous dateable textual and artistic evidence
for horse domestication probably only dates back to the end of
the third millennium BC. Evidence of horses in graves, accompanied
by artifacts unambiguously associated with riding or traction is
even more recent, dating, so far, only to the beginning of the
2nd millennium BC ... The horses from the Sintashta chariot burials
(on the south Ural steppe), dated to circa 2000 BC, are the earliest
known domestic horses".
http://www2.vet.upenn.edu/labs/equinebehavior/hvnwkshp/hv02/levine.htm
"There are a number of theories regarding the domestication of the
horse. Although horses began appearing in cave art as early as 30,000
BCE, these were truly wild horses, and were probably hunted for meat;
how and when they became domesticated is less clear."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_of_the_horse
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| | From: | Daryl Krupa | | Subject: | Re: Horse | | Date: | 23 Jan 2005 20:58:58 -0800 |
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| "Equus. The horses and asses appear to have evolved from the
hippotrigrine zebras
reputedly in Eurasia. However, there was a migration of these more
modern forms
back into North America. A tundra race of the tarpan (Equus ferus
alaskae) entered
Alaska more recently in the Upper Pleistocene."
"Asinus/Hemionus. The earliest wild ass (Equus stehlini) dates to 1.5
million years B.P.
in Northern Italy. The onagers seem to have become separated from the
African asses
more than 1/ million years ago. Onagers and asses (e.g. Equus
conversidens) also are
known from deposits in the United States and Canada (Kurten and
Anderson 1980)."
http://www.deer.rr.ualberta.ca/library/phylogeny/Phylogeny.html
"The genus Anchitherium is the best-known member of thesubfamily
Anchitheriinae.
It has its first occurrence in the fossil record in the Late Ramblian
(Early Miocene) of
Wintershof-West (Germany) (Bruijn et al. 1992) and Chilleurs and
Neuville (France)
(Abusch-Siewert 1983), both in the zoneMN 3 (Early Miocene, 20 Ma)."
http://app.pan.pl/acta49/app49-189.pdf
"Horses
The earliest horses appeared during the lower Eocene in Europe and
North America."
""Evolution of the horse
The evolutionary lineage of the horse is among the best-documented in
all paleontology.
The history of the horse family, Equidae, began during the Eocene
Epoch, which lasted
from about 54,000,000 to 38,000,000 years ago."
- Encyclopaedia Britannica
[veddy, veddy English-English]
20 ka BP is in the very, very latest part of the history of horses in
Europe.
Daryl Krupa
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| | From: | grapheus | | Subject: | Re: Horse | | Date: | 24 Jan 2005 00:35:48 -0800 |
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Daryl Krupa wrote:
> "The Earliest direct Evidence for Horse Domestication
>
> The earliest unambiguous dateable textual and artistic evidence
> for horse domestication probably only dates back to the end of
> the third millennium BC. Evidence of horses in graves, accompanied
> by artifacts unambiguously associated with riding or traction is
> even more recent, dating, so far, only to the beginning of the
> 2nd millennium BC ... The horses from the Sintashta chariot burials
> (on the south Ural steppe), dated to circa 2000 BC, are the earliest
> known domestic horses".
>
>
http://www2.vet.upenn.edu/labs/equinebehavior/hvnwkshp/hv02/levine.htm
>
>
> "There are a number of theories regarding the domestication of the
> horse. Although horses began appearing in cave art as early as 30,000
> BCE, these were truly wild horses, and were probably hunted for meat;
> how and when they became domesticated is less clear."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_of_the_horse
Excellent answers by Daryl Krupa !
The Natural History of the Horse is similar to the one of the "Homo",
with extinction of some "races" (Australopithecus, Homo Neanderthalis,
etc. in the case of the Homo) and apparition of new ones. After
covering Eurasia and America during several million years, all "Wild
horses" have disappeared, one by one. The last one in Europe was the
"Przewalski's Horse" , which has been represented by our anscestors on
caves' walls from c.30,000 to 10,000 BC. The last one;, living in
Poland, was killed about 400 years ago, so that today only "Domestic
Horses" do exist, a new kind which has appeared less than 4,000 years
ago.
The horse's bones found c.200,000 years must belong, I guess, to the
Przewalski's horse, which was, at that time, the only survivor of the
"Wild Horses".
Best regards
grapheus
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