About 25 thousand years ago, people began to paint new creatures on the walls of European caves. Among rhinos, wild bulls and other animals, white horses with black spots appeared. Is this a figment of fantasy or the result of observation?
Today such horses are not uncommon. It is generally accepted that they were bred by a man who domesticated this species about five thousand years ago. However, a new study of ancient horse DNA has shown that prehistoric artists did not invent anything.
In total, more than 100 caves have been discovered in Europe, the walls of which bear images of at least four thousand animals. Almost all of them are concentrated in the south of France and the north of Spain. The oldest specimens of rock art are kept in the French Chauvet Cave, they are at least 32 thousand years old. Almost a third of the animals depicted are horses, and almost all horses are colored brown or black, which corresponds to the bay and black color.
But a small number of caves (including Pesche Merle in southern France) boast white horses with black spots. A number of archaeologists claim that this is a figment of the imagination or some kind of symbol. Indeed, in 2009, DNA analysis isolated from the bones of approximately 90 ancient horses that lived from 12 to 1,000 years ago showed that they were of a bay or black color. No trace of mottling.
But now the same group of scientists came to the conclusion that spotted horses did exist. Researchers led by Arne Ludwig of the Berlin Institute for Zoos and Wildlife. Leibniz (Germany) and Michael Hofreyter from York University (UK) conducted a new DNA analysis of 31 prehistoric horses from Siberia, as well as Eastern and Western Europe. The time range is from 20 to 2.2 thousand years ago.
18 were bay, seven were black, and six had the LP genetic variant that makes the horse spotted. Moreover, out of ten Western European horses that lived about 14 thousand years ago, four had this marker, that is, spotted horses were not uncommon during the heyday of cave painting. In other words, no symbolism, one solid naturalism.
But why did this phenotype subsequently become rare? Scientists point out that some modern horse breeds with two copies of the LP gene suffer from night blindness. Their prehistoric ancestors could have been easy targets. The gene may have been useful during the Ice Age (it was easier for the white horse to blend in with the landscape), but then became disadvantageous and rare. It blossomed again only thanks to modern breeders.
science.compulenta.ru
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I wonder, in this regard, from which animals were these three creatures from the cave of Los Cazares (Spain) copied?
