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Equus (History)
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Mick Harper
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In response to a post from Dan asking how does the "domesticated animals are smaller than their wild cousins" rule of thumb come about, I've never really thought about it in detail but the thought process was thus

1. Every time I read about domestication, it was stated that the domesticate was smaller than the wild version.

2. Indeed, I seem to remember that there is even some rule of thumb, academic principle, or suchlike...anyway it's an orthodox assumption.

3. I read, to paraphrase, "At this time (12,000BP) in the Americas, many of the large species disappeared entirely including various "giant species" being replaced by their normal-sized cousins. The bison in its larger guise (Latin name follows) was entirely supplanted by today's somewhat smaller bison.

4. In other words this was a clear anomaly, but also a case of "careful ignoral" since
a) the bison, alone of the large American herbivores (at any rate in the central band of North America) was not made extinct
b) it did not have a giant form that was replaced by a smaller "cousin"
c) nobody was commenting on this curiosity so
d) it was the key to the Radical Revision of the whole picture.

5. When this sequence of events happens in circumstances that we know involve domestication eg the aurochs being replaced by the cow, the wild boar being replaced by the pig, the mountain sheep/goat being replaced by the sheep/goat, we assume it to be because of domestication.

6. Therefore on AE grounds, the bison was domesticated around 12000 BP in North America.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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6. Therefore on AE grounds, the bison was domesticated around 12000 BP in North America.

About the same as the horse. I think the wild-bigger-than-domesticated rule works here, too, but I can't find it spelled out plainly. The mtDNA study says modern, domestic horses are less different than expected from their wild ancestors because the samples of frozen feet ranging from 28,000 to 12,000 BP must include some domestic ancestors.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Take a look at this article:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa027&articleID=8BC32BC7-E7F2-99DF-33BAB01C6B5B7E79

Horsemen of the Steppes: Ancient Corrals Found in Kazakhstan
At least 5,600 years ago the Botai people that inhabited what is modern day Kazakhstan used horses--both wild and apparently domestic--as the basis of their lifestyle. With no evidence for agriculture or other domesticated animals, these people of the ancient steppes seem to have raised, rode and ate horses to survive.

'Course, when it says

Because of the impermanence of leather, little survives of the implements that would be used to ride a horse, such as a bit or bridle,

it seems to forget that horses can be ridden without accoutrement -- which means the "best evidence" so far, wear on the teeth caused by bits, is pretty well useless as evidence of domestication.

and domestication induced few morphological changes in the horse.

i.e. they are floundering about with hardly any evidence to provide a foothold... but that doesn't stop them "knowing" when this evidence-free domestication took place!

But new research in the ancient Botai village of Krasnyi Yar seems to have turned up some ancient corrals--and pushed proof of horse domestication further back in time.

As long as it's not too far back, they're happy.
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Komorikid


In: Gold Coast, Australia
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The secret to the American horse is their COLOURING. If the American horse is just a wild breed created from runaway Spanish stock then it is impossible to get the predominant patterning that is synonymous with this breed. The Spanish horses that were taken to the New World were all of Andalusian stock, which were selectively bred from Arabic stock to be pure bloodstock. They were ONE colour only mainly black, dun and roan. The Arabs and their Moorish counterparts were fanatical about pure bloodstock (they still are today). If the only horses breeding (wild or otherwise) in the New World were pure blood Arabic/Andalucian it is impossible to get the wide variety of patterned coat common on American horses of the Great Plains. You just can't get that much genetic mutation in two hundred years when there was over a thousand years of selective breeding to get to the horses that were with the Spanish.
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DPCrisp


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The secret to the American horse is their COLOURING.

It must be time for a trip to the library to find "My First Big Book of Horses". Is the whole history of the domestic horse lying in plain sight?

If the only horses breeding in the New World were pure blood Arabic/Andalucian it is impossible to get the wide variety of patterned coat common on American horses of the Great Plains.

Wikipedia has a couple of pages on horse colouring, but I'm none the wiser. Except that black results from a dominant gene (I think). That means other varieties are suppressed and can reappear. (They say feral cats are always tabby after a few generations.) On the other hand, if it's the dominant colour, three-quarters of American horses would be black... unless they were selected out: is a considerable brake on the expansion that orthodoxy supposes was so rapid.

There seems to be a lot of genetic testing on horses and academe loves a statistical argument, so one decent review of the literature should blow the whole thing out of the water. Go to it, KomoriDude!

You just can't get that much genetic mutation in two hundred years when there was over a thousand years of selective breeding to get to the horses that were with the Spanish.

But when you write your paper, Komori, please don't include woolly bits like this. It's not like a hundred generations makes black horses more black, the genes more dominant or recessive or the breed harder to mongrelise. (And after all this fanatical effort, they still had at least 3 types?)
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Komorikid


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But when you write your paper, Komori, please don't include woolly bits like this. It's not like a hundred generations makes black horses more black, the genes more dominant or recessive or the breed harder to mongrelise. (And after all this fanatical effort, they still had at least 3 types?)

Listen, Dan, just for fun whip down to the nearest Thoroughbred Stud, peep over the fence and make a list of the number of horses that aren't all-black or all-brown. Now of all the horses on your list count the numbers that aren't one colour. Oh! and don't worry about taking a pad, a Post-It note will suffice.

You can't mongrelise a pure breed. Orthodoxy throws this jewel in because they can't explain the real reason for patterning. "Well just look at cats and dogs... ditto horses." Cats and dogs have hundreds of breeds, horses have only five (four now the Tarpan is extinct) and none of them can cross-breed without producing sterile offspring.

This is the main reason orthodoxy assumes that the American horse went extinct. They assume that Equus scotti (Extinct American horse) and Equus caballus (Modern Arab) are two different breeds and therefore cannot successfully mate. Yet Arabs and Americans can interbreed so they must be just feral stock from the Spanish conquests of North America.

The reason they can mate is because they are the same breed separated by 10,000 years of separate evolution. The scotti evolved with no intervention while the caballus had several thousand years of it via humans.

The other thing worth mentioning is: What types of horses did the Spanish take? This was a military campaign and military horses were usually geldings or mares. Stallions were prized as breeding stock. Conquistadors would be hard put riding around on frisky stallions or pregnant mares in unfamiliar territory.
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DPCrisp


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make a list of the number of horses that aren't all-black or all-brown...

Now that you mention it (again), I suppose a thousand years of selective breeding means any mares that produce their 1 in 4 non-black foals won't be used any more... and even the recessive genes for odd colours can eventually be eliminated altogether. A thorough argument will still be based on actual genetic profiles. Woolliness must be eliminated from the writer and the reader!

You can't mongrelise a pure breed.

More woolliness on my part, probably, but I dunno what Orthodoxy says about other breeds being brought in and when.

Cats and dogs have hundreds of breeds, horses have only five (four now the Tarpan is extinct) and none of them can cross-breed without producing sterile offspring.

Hang on: you've got the woolly hat back. In terms of species and sterile offspring, dogs and cats are reckoned as one species each. Are you talking about breeds of horse or species of equid?

They assume that Equus scotti (Extinct American horse) and Equus caballus (Modern Arab) are two different breeds and therefore cannot successfully mate. Yet Arabs and Americans can interbreed so they must be just feral stock from the Spanish conquests of North America.

i.e. American horses are not Equus scotti. They don't entertain the notion that the reason for that is that Equus scotti doesn't exist.

The scotti evolved with no intervention while the caballus had several thousand years of it via humans.

Mick's argument would be that E. scotti had several thousand years of it via different humans. Do you not agree that a large plank in the orthodox argument is that there are no fossil remains of horses in North America from those 10,000 years? To them it must mean there were no horses at all; while to us it means there were no wild horses at all.

Sometimes absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

What types of horses did the Spanish take? This was a military campaign and military horses were usually geldings or mares.

Attaboy Komori. Sic 'em!
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Komorikid


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Hang on: you've got the woolly hat back. In terms of species and sterile offspring, dogs and cats are reckoned as one species each. Are you talking about breeds of horse or species of equid?

Sorry, I meant species not breeds of horses.

Mick's argument would be that E. scotti had several thousand years of it via different humans.

This may be so but as Mick has also said the philosophy of Eurasians and Plains Indians regarding the use of horses was diametrically opposed. The Indians saw them as a tool for hunting while the Eurasians saw them quite differently. They were status symbols and elitist. The Indians needed only to domesticate them while the Eurasians bred them to be symbols of power and status. The Arabs took this to the nth degree by breeding the fittest and most perfect specimens and that meant all black and all brown. This selective breeding may have predated the Arabs as the Avars and the Mongols were fanatical about their horses.
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Komorikid


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According to orthodoxy there are three horse species

Equus ferus -- Wild Horse which breaks down into the following:
Equus ferus ferus - Tarpan -- now extinct
Equus ferus przewalskii -- only wild species extant closely related to the Fjord Horse of Norway and possibly the Shetland
Equus ferus germanicus -- Ardennais and other heavy draught horses

Equus caballus -- Arabian and other domestic horses

Equus scotti -- American horse (listed only as prehistoric)

There are two subgroups:
Asinus - Ass, Dokey and Onager
Hippotigris - Zebras

What is extremely interesting about the Fjord horse is not only is it of similar dimension of a zebra it also retains primitive markings which include zebra stripes on the legs and a dorsal stripe that runs from the forelock down the neck and back and into the tail. Dark stripes may also be seen over the withers.
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Mick Harper
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Mick's argument would be that E. scotti had several thousand years of it via different humans.

This may be so but as Mick has also said the philosophy of Eurasians and Plains Indians regarding the use of horses was diametrically opposed. The Indians saw them as a tool for hunting while the Eurasians saw them quite differently. They were status symbols and elitist. The Indians needed only to domesticate them while the Eurasians bred them to be symbols of power and status.

Please don't use the term "Eurasian" in this context. What I said originally was that the Plains Indians and the Spanish had these stark differences -- and that therefore it was unlikely that the PI learned their horsey tricks from the S. As far as I know the Mongols have exactly the same cultural attitudes to the horse as the Plains Indians. By the way, we haven't gone into the question of whether or how much or for how long or exactly when or under what circumstances the Plains Indian horses and the Mongol horses were connected.

The Arabs took this to the nth degree by breeding the fittest and most perfect specimens and that meant all black and all brown.

The Arabs of course, by the time we know about their horsey attitudes, are more "Spanish" than "Mongol", ie they had become sedentary empire-builders rather than nomads.

This selective breeding may have predated the Arabs as the Avars and the Mongols were fanatical about their horses.

Actually I am not sure this is true. The Mongols are certainly fanatical horsemen but they are not necessarily fanatical about their horses -- which they seem to treat with workaday disdain. I see very little evidence that they went in much for selective breeding since their "ponies" are always spoken off as ancient/primitive breeds. They appear, for instance, to use the same hoss for cavalry as for pulling carts -- but this may be just a nomad thing (compare reindeer, camels, goats) because, for whatever reason, they seem to prize uniformity and size of herd over quality and specialisation. It is faineant aristos of the English County Set or the Viennese Riding Schools that tend to have the time, money and inclination for "selective breeding".
According to orthodoxy there are three horse species

I found your (presumably accurate) description of orthodoxy's terminology very strange. (I thought you were mixing up breeds and species but didn't like to say for fear of betraying my ignorance, so judge the following by that yard-stick).

To call zebras a "sub-group" cannot be right. Unless you are using sub-group in some technical way. If so, please tell us where the ordinary horse (as we understand the term) comes in -- is it a subgroup? Are you (or orthodoxy) honestly saying that an Arabian stallion and a shire mare cannot produce fertile offspring? And I thought the various pony "species" were endangered precisely because they keep breeding with "horses" ie they must be the same species. What is the difference between an ass and a donkey -- aren't they two words for the same beast? More clarity is needed but from whom I'm not quite sure.
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Komorikid


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A Horse is a Horse. Of course of course
I'm sorry if any of the above was misleading.
Below is the complete family tree of the horse family.
To my knowledge anything within a Subgenus can breed sucessfully but breeding across Subgenii produces sterile offspring.
Mules are sterile offspring of Equus and Asinus


ORDER PERISSODACTYLA
Family Equidae


Genus Equus
Subgenus Equus

* Wild Horse, Equus ferus
---Tarpan, Equus ferus ferus (extinct)
---Przewalski's, Equus ferus przewalskii

* Domestic Horse, Equus caballus
* American Horse, Equus scotti (Prehistoric)

Subgenus Asinus
Donkey, Equus asinus
African Wild Ass, Equus africanus
Nubian Wild Ass, Equus africanus
Somali Wild Ass, Equus africanus somalicus
Onager or Asiatic Ass, Equus hemionus
Mongolian Wild Ass, Equus hemionus hemionus
Syrian Wild Ass, Equus hemionus hemippus (extinct)
Gobi Kulan or Dziggetai , Equus hemionus luteus
Turkmenian Kulan, Equus hemionus kulan
Persian Onager, Equus hemionus onager
Indian Wild Ass or Khur, Equus hemionus khur
Kiang, Equus kiang

Subgenus Dolichohippus
Grevy's Zebra, Equus grevyi

Subgenus Hippotigris
Plains Zebra, Equus quagga
Quagga, Equus quagga quagga (extinct)
Burchell's Zebra, Equus quagga burchellii
Grant's Zebra, Equus quagga boehmi
Selous' zebra, Equus quagga borensis
Chapman's Zebra, Equus quagga chapmani
Crawshay's Zebra, Equus quagga crawshayi
Cape Mountain Zebra, Equus zebra

There is also disagreement about where Equus caballus fits into the Subgenus Equus as it regularly appears as a separate species in some lists and as a member of Wild Horses in others. This would mean that there is only ONE true species of horse.
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Komorikid


In: Gold Coast, Australia
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A Horse is a Horse. Unless it's not.
I found this little gem.

In 1495, the ass first appeared in the New World. The four males and two females brought by Christopher Columbus bred to horses gave birth to the mules which the Conquistadors rode as they explored the Americas. - Wikipedia

If this is true it means the predominant mount of the Conquistadors were sterile mules and not breeding stock.
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Mick Harper
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It would be neat, on "as above, so below" grounds, if the Spanish, finding themselves lumbered with sterile mules, decided to domesticate the local wild mustangs!

However, this leads on to the question of why none of the Meso-Americans (Aztecs, Incas etc) went in for any kind of horse-domestication.
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DPCrisp


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However, this leads on to the question of why none of the Meso-Americans (Aztecs, Incas etc) went in for any kind of horse-domestication.

Where have fossil horses actually been found? Did they simply not have them that far south, the Great Plains having the monopoly? Where they had llamas, they used llamas.
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Martin



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With regard to the premise that:

domesticated animals are smaller than their wild cousins.

The llama and alpaca are interesting as they are conventionally understood to be domesticated vicuna and guanaco. Yet they are bigger than either of their wild cousins.
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