The upshot is that the funny
looking horses did exist at the time that they were painted by Paleolithic man. So much for theories of an early abstract
sensibility. Perhaps we can breed them
back.
It is good to see DNA work
marching fully into the world of archeology where there is plenty of
interesting questions.
The next decade will be the
heyday of this methodology as we test everything sitting in a museum. We may even be able to sort out a few
dinosaur fossils while we are at it.
Observe we can identify the leopard spot gene in horse DNA that is say
20,000 plus years old.
Capturing genetic information
from ancient burial sites is clearly superior to attempting to interpret bone
evidence which is assuredly variable.
Ancient DNA provides new insights into cave paintings of horses
A dotted horse cave painting from 25,000 BC in Pech-Merle , France .
Monday, November 07, 2011
By Spero News
An international team of researchers has used ancient DNA to shed new
light on the realism of horses depicted in prehistoric cave paintings.
The team, which includes researchers from the University of York ,
has found that all the colour variations seen in Paleolithic cave
paintings -- including distinctive 'leopard' spotting - existed in pre-domestic
horse populations, lending weight to the argument that the artists were
reflecting their natural environment.
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences (PNAS) today, is also the first to produce evidence for white
spotted phenotypes in pre-domestic horses. Previous ancient DNA studies have
only produced evidence for bay and black horses.
Archaeologists have long debated whether works of art from the
Paleolithic period, particularly cave paintings, are reflections of the natural
environment or have deeper abstract or symbolic meanings.
This is particularly true of the cave painting "The Dappled Horses
of Pech-Merle" in France, which dates back more than 25,000 years and
clearly depicts white horses with dark spots.
The dappled horses' spotted coat pattern bears a strong resemblance to
a pattern known as 'leopard' in modern horses. However, as some researchers
believed a spotted coat phenotype unlikely at this time, pre-historians have
often argued for more complex explanations, suggesting the spotted pattern was
in some way symbolic or abstract.
Researchers from the UK, Germany, USA, Spain, Russia and Mexico genotyped and analysed nine coat-colour loci
in 31 pre-domestic horses dating back as far as 35,000 years ago from Siberia,
Eastern and Western Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. This
involved analysing bones and teeth specimens from 15 locations.
They found that four Pleistocene and two Copper Age samples from
Western and Eastern Europe shared a
gene associated with leopard spotting, providing the first evidence that
spotted horses existed at this time.
In addition, 18 horses had a bay coat colour and seven were
black, meaning that all colour phenotypes distinguishable in cave
paintings -- bay, black and spotted -- existed in pre-domestic horse
populations.
Professor Michi Hofreiter, from the Department of Biology at
the University of
York , said: "Our
results suggest that, at least for wild horses, Paleolithic cave paintings,
including the remarkable depictions of spotted horses, were closely rooted in
the real-life appearance of animals.
"While previous DNA studies have produced evidence for bay and
black horses, our study has demonstrated that the leopard complex spotting
phenotype was also already present in ancient horses and was accurately
depicted by their human contemporaries nearly 25,000 years ago.
"Our findings lend support to hypotheses that argue that cave
paintings constitute reflections of the natural environment of humans at the
time and may contain less of a symbolic or transcendental connotation than
often assumed."
The data and laboratory work were led by Dr Melanie Pruvost, from
the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Leibniz Institute for
Zoo and Wildlife Research and the Department of Natural Sciences at the
German Archaeological Institute, both in Berlin. The results were
replicated in laboratories at the University
of York .
Dr Pruvost said: "We are just starting to have the genetic
tools to access the appearance of past animals and there are still a lot of
question marks and phenotypes for which the genetic process has not yet been
described. However, we can already see that this kind of study will greatly
improve our knowledge about the past. Knowing that leopard spotting horses were
present during the Pleistocene in Europe
provides new arguments or insights for archaeologists to interpret
cave arts."
Dr Arne Ludwig, from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and
Wildlife Research in Berlin, added: "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 colours may also
have been depicted with deliberate naturalism, emphasizing colours or
patterns that characterised contemporary horses."
Exact numbers of Upper Paleolithic sites with animal depictions are
uncertain because of ongoing debates about the taxonomic identification of some
images and dating. However, art of this period has been identified in at least
40 sites in the Dordogne-P--gord region, a similar number in coastalCantabria and
around a dozen sites in both the Ard--e and Ari-- regions.
Where animal species can be confidently identified, horses are depicted
at the majority of these sites.
Professor Terry O'Connor from the University of York 's
Department of Archaeology was involved in the interpretation of the
results. He said: "Representations of animals from the Paleolithic period
have the potential to provide first-hand insights into the physical environment
that humans encountered thousands of years ago. However, the motivation behind,
and therefore the degree of realism in these depictions is hotly debated.
"The depictions of horses at Pech-Merle in particular
have generated a great deal of debate. The spotted horses are featured in a
frieze which includes hand outlines and abstract patterns of spots. The
juxtaposition of elements has raised the question of whether the spotted
pattern is in some way symbolic or abstract, especially since many researchers
considered a spotted coat phenotype unlikely for Paleolithic horses.
"However, our research removes the need for any symbolic
explanation of the horses. People drew what they saw, and that gives us greater
confidence in understanding Paleolithic depictions of other species as
naturalistic illustrations."
Leopard complex spotting in modern horses is characterised by
white spotting patterns that range from horses having a few white spots on the
rump to horses that are almost completely white. The white area of these horses
can also have pigmented oval spots known as 'leopard spots'.
Dr. Monika Reissmann, from Humboldt University's Department for
Crop and Animal Sciences, explained: "This phenotype was in great demand
during the Baroque Age. But in the following centuries the leopard complex
phenotype went out of fashion and became very rare. Today leopard complex is a
popular phenotype in several horse breeds including Knabstrupper,
Appaloosa and Noriker and breeding efforts have intensified again
because there is a growing interest in the restoration of these horses."
The fact that four out of 10 of the Western European horses from the
Pleistocene had a genotype indicative of the leopard complex phenotype,
suggests that this phenotype was not rare in Western Europe during this period.
However, bay seems to have been the most
common colour phenotype in pre-domestic times with 18 out of the 31
samples having bay genotypes. This is also the most commonly painted phenotype
in the Paeolithic period.
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