Cave painters did see spotty horses, not just in dreams

Stone Age cave paintings of white horses with black spots may have depicted real animals, rather than spirit horses, as sometimes assumed.

Some archaeologists argue that no horses with "leopard" patterns had evolved 25,000 years ago. So spotted horses in cave murals from that time at Pech-Merle in France must be symbolic or shamanistic.

Now Arne Ludwig of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, Germany, and colleagues have analysed DNA extracted from the remains of ancient horses in Siberia, eastern and western Europe. Six had variants of the pigment genes that produce the spotted-coat pattern. Four were from western Europe where the Pech-Merle cave is situated and the other two were found in eastern Europe.

The researchers say that their findings do not necessarily exclude religious explanations for why the spotty horses were painted. "In my opinion, a high level of natural realism in the paintings doesn't exclude a spiritual or religious dimension to them," Ludwig says.

The researchers point out that the leopard pattern probably carried an evolutionary penalty, because modern day horses with two copies of the gene variant have a pigment abnormality impairing their night vision.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1108982108

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