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0270 Explorations in Turkestan : Expedition of 1904 : vol.2
Explorations in Turkestan : Expedition of 1904 : vol.2 / Page 270 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000178
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430   THE HORSE OIS ANAU IN ITS VARIOUS RELATIONS.

Here we are enlightened by our thesis 3, which points out the close family connection with the horse of Anau. The horse of the bronze age and iron age of Europe must have been imported directly or indirectly from Anau. Interesting and confirmatory is the appearance of the shepherd-dog, Canis mairts optimce, in the finds of the same ages in Bohemia and of Europe in general—the dog of whose occurrence in Anau we have spoken in an earlier chapter. The people who brought the horse of the bronze age to Europe were undoubtedly accompanied by the shepherd-dog. Therefore, I no longer hesitate to give to the horse of the

  •  bronze age and early iron time of Europe the name that is its due, Equus caballus punapellii.

Coming now to Equus caballus nehringi, the small, stout horse of the ancient Germans, our thesis 7 proves that its agreement with the Anau horse is not very marked, less so indeed than that of Equus caballus pumpellii with the horse of Solutré, etc. I believe also that, considering the experiences of modern breeders in crossing Oriental and Occidental blood, we can assume that we have here not a cross of the German horse with that of the Gauls, that is, with Equus caballus pumpellii, for otherwise the Oriental blood would have struck through and have found expression in gracile bones, of which we have evidence only in the configuration of Gallic horses, concerning which Caesar says (Bell. Gall., iv, 2) that they were considered to be better than those of the Germans, since they were improved by costly, imported horses of noble breed. This improvement probably consisted in an increase in size. At least the Roman horses of Vindonissa point in that direction, for, as pointed out by Kraemer,* we find in Vindonissa a larger horse than those of the ancient Germans and Helveto-Gauls. It is found both in the amphitheater—where it might have been wild—and in very great numbers in the talus of refuse below the castrum, where it may well represent the remains of the horse of the Roman cavalry. The bones of this horse of the size of that of Cardainone, Arezzo, Devenzano, and of the larger ones of Solutré, point, through their texture and relative slenderness, to an admixture of foreign blood; indeed the occurrence of a series of small bones shows the contemporaneous presence of the bronze-age horse—Equus caballus pumpellii. It seems, then, very probable that it is this horse that was used by the Gauls in their ennobling experiments, for that the Romans could have brought it with the legions from Italy to Vindonissa is shown by the fact that camels too were used in the amphitheater, whose origin can not possibly be sought in Helvetia. Caesar says (Bell. Gall., vii, 65) that he gave Roman horses—the best he had—to his German soldiers, who were good riders but had bad horses.

The Equus caballus nehringi must be regarded as the autochthonous forest

,s      type of the wild horse, originating in the primeval forests of Germany; surviving
from the previous steppe-conditions, and becoming stunted in the forest period, to be at last, under the coercion and privations of severe winter life in the forest, brought by man under domestication, as was the Anau horse through the growth of desert conditions. I have already spoken in some detailt of the manner in

* Die Haustierfunde von Vindonissa, pp. 264-266.

f Tierzucht, Tierkult und Kulturgeschichte. Vortrag. Abstract in Neue Züricher Zeitung, Feb., 1907.