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Popular Archaeology DNA analysis shows that prehistoric cave paintings of horses were realistic depictions of the Paleolithic environment, including the leopard spotted horse. 
Long thought by many as possible abstract or symbolic expressions as opposed to representations of real animals, the famous paleolithic horse paintings found in caves such as Lascaux and Chauvet in France likely reflect what the prehistoric humans actually saw in their natural environment, suggests researchers who conducted a recent DNA study. To reach this conclusion, scientists constituting an international team of researchers in the UK, Germany, USA, Spain, Russia and Mexico genotyped and analyzed nine coat-color types in 31 pre-domestic (wild) horses dating as far back as 35,000 years ago from bone specimens in 15 different locations spread across an area that included Siberia, Eastern and Western Europe, and the Iberian Peninsula. They found that all color schemes for horses seen in Paleolithic cave paintings, including the distinctive 'leopard' spotting found in the cave painting, "The Dappled Horses of Pech-Merle" dating back more than 25,000 years in France, actually existed in ancient pre-domestic horse populations, supporting the theory that the cave artists were reflecting what they actually saw. Four Pleistocene and two Copper Age bone samples showed genetic evidence of the leopard spotting, and bone samples from 18 other horses showed evidence of bay and black, bay being the most common color for horses depicted in the cave paintings. Of particular interest was the leopard spotting variety, resembling some horses today that exhibit this coat pattern and thought by some scientists to be a phenotype that did not exist during the late Pleistocene times when the cave paintings were created. Said team researcher Professor Michi Hofreiter of the Department of Biology at the University of York: "Our results suggest that, at least for wild horses, Paleolithic 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." Cave art, the majority of which depicts horses in paintings where animal species can be identified, has been found in numerous sites across France's Dordogne-Périgord, Ardèche, and Ariège regions, and the coastal area of Cantabria in Spain. Professor Terry O'Connor from the University of York's Department of Archaeology, who was involved in interpreting the data, said: "Representations of animals from the Paleolithic period have the potential to provide first-hand insights into the physical environment that humans encountered thousands of years ago. However, the motivation behind, and therefore the degree of realism in these depictions is hotly debated." "The depictions of horses at Pech-Merle in particular have generated a great deal of debate. The spotted horses are featured in a frieze which includes hand outlines and abstract patterns of spots. The juxtaposition of elements has raised the question of whether the spotted pattern is in some way symbolic or abstract, especially since many researchers considered a spotted coat phenotype unlikely for Paleolithic horses." "However, our research removes the need for any symbolic explanation of the horses. People drew what they saw, and that gives us greater confidence in understanding Paleolithic depictions of other species as naturalistic illustrations." The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) as Genotypes of pre-domestic horses match phenotypes painted in Paleolithic works of cave art . It is distinguished by being the first to provide evidence for white-spotted phenotypes in pre-domestic horses. All other previous DNA studies have shown only evidence for the bay and black phenotypes. The data and laboratory work were led by Dr Melanie Pruvost of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and the Department of Natural Sciences at the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin. As a cross-check for validity, results were also replicated in laboratories at the University of York. The study authors were: Professor Michi Hofreiter, Department of Biology and Professor Terry O' Connor, Department of Archaeology, both University of York, UK; Arne Ludwig, Department of Evolutionary Genetics,Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany; Melanie Pruvost, Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany and the Department of Natural Sciences, German Archaeological Institute, also Berlin; Rebecca Bellone, Department of Biology, University of Tampa, Tampa, USA; Norbert Benecke, Department of Natural Sciences, German Archaeological Institute, Berlin, Germany; Edson Sandoval-Castellanos, Laboratorio de Genética Ecológica y Evolución, Departamento de Ecología Evolutiva, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico; Michael Cieslak, Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany; Tatyana Kuznetsova, Department of Palaeontology, Faculty of Geology, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia; Arturo Morales-Muñiz, Laboratory of Archaeozoology, Universidad Autonoma Madrid, Madrid, Spain; Monika Reissmann, Department for Crop and Animal Sciences, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany.
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