Ancient artists spot on

Ancient cave paintings probably give an accurate portrayal of the horses that roamed the earth at the time, according to new research.

For years, archaeologists have debated whether cave paintings were intended as a realistic portrayal of life as seen by the artist, or whether they were a flight of fancy, having symbolic significance. The latter view was fuelled by the fact that, although genes for bay and black hair colour had been identified in ancient DNA, the gene for spotted coat colouring had not been found.

Now a multicentre research project has found the gene responsible for leopard spotted coat colouration in DNA from prehistoric horses.

The international team of researchers has found that all the colour variations seen in Palaeolithic 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.

Professor Michi Hofreiter, from the Department of Biology at the University of York, said “...our results suggest that, at least for wild horses, Palaeolithic 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.”

Read more at equinescienceupdate.com