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CHAPTER XIX.

THE HORSE OF ANAU IN ITS RELATION TO HISTORY AND THE RACES OF
DOMESTIC HORSES.

(Plates 87–91.)

Having, in chapter XVIII, endeavored to prove that the equid of the North
Kurgan of Anau is a horse and not an ass, and to show its relation to other Asiatic
Equidæ, and further to picture the changes it underwent during the life of the
civilizations of that kurgan, I shall now consider the relation in which the Anau
horse (Equus caballus pumpellii mihi) stands to the subfossil horse and to some
historical domestic breeds, as well as to the Equus przewalskii Polyakoff.

As is commonly known, the domestic horses are generally classed in two
groups: the Oriental and the Occidental. Frank* calls the first of these groups
also Equus parvus, and the second Equus robustus, and discusses at some length
the points of difference between the two types. In this connection I will state
briefly some points which have not been sufficiently touched upon in the previous
chapter.

In the Oriental horse, especially in the Arabian, the brain-skull is, relatively,
very strongly developed; the face less so. These horses are called broad-headed,
because the width of the forehead is large in comparison with the length of the
skull. We have already spoken of the teeth; regarding these we may here refer
especially to the anterior and posterior crescentic islands (Owen's terminology),
in which the enamel-margin is not so wavy; the internal lobe is placed just in the
middle of the grinding surface, and its division into two is not very clearly marked.
The hollow bones are remarkable for their graceful shape and solid, hard texture;
the metacarpal bones are relatively narrow. In many points, therefore, this
group of horses resembles the ass.

On the other hand, these same points distinguish the Occidental from the
Oriental horse. In the Occidental horse the facial part of the skull predominates
at the expense of the brain-skull, the skull appears long and narrow, the forehead
is narrower, the rim of the eye-socket is but slightly prominent. The enamel-
margin of the crescentic islands is very wavy, and the internal lobule is divided
into two very distinct horns and flattened. The bones of the extremities are
heavy and massive, while their texture is less dense and hard than in the Oriental
horse. The tarsal bones are generally broader than in the latter group. Again,
Sanson,† applying Broca's anthropological method, has proposed another classi-
fication of horses based on dolichocephaly and brachycephaly, dividing them into
four dolichocephalic and four brachycephalic races; but it has not been possible
to maintain this division in practice, as it is too schematic. We can not consider
here other attempts at classification.