 |
 |
Hi Karina, We have most of a large draft horse in our lab in Montreal. Unfortunately I don't know if the animal was actually a working animal or not and I'm away so can't check the completeness of the skeleton. But if you send me the measurements you would like to have I could see if one of my graduate students or a colleague would be willing to take them for you? Cheers AB "Now is the time to make good the promises of democracy." (Martin Luther King) Prof. Ariane Burke, Directrice scientifique, Laboratoire d'Ecomorphologie et de Paleoanthropologie Universite de Montreal, Departement d'Anthropologie, C.P. 6128, Centre-Ville, Montreal, QC, Canada H3C 3J7 http://www.hominindispersals.net/ ________________________________ From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Deb Bennett <[log in to unmask]> Sent: June 25, 2019 5:49:31 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ZOOARCH] Complete Draft Horse Skeletons Karina, if I’m understanding you right there seems to be a confusion here. You will not find one single horse prior to the time of Henry VIII that stood taller than 15:2 hands max, or that weighed more than 1100 lbs. Kings and other important people went to war on “substantial” horses standing around 14:2 hands; common soldiers had smaller, narrower, and scruffier mounts, vis. Durer’s famous “Knight”. An excellent place to see really well done authentic Medieval horsemanship is your own Royal Armouries Museum – the one in Leeds – I’ve spent significant time there and not only are their mannequins correct (both horse and human) but their re-enactors (who don’t joust or fight, but they do make as if to go hawking) are mounted on the closest thing you can now get to what they were really riding back then, i.e. the re-enactors are mounted on Cobs. To reiterate: all the Hollywood movies, and the shows at the gambling palaces in Reno and Las Vegas and Florida and other places, i.e. “Medieval Knights” and so forth, are all for show and usually utterly inauthentic. No knight ever rode a horse as big as a modern Shire, a fact well proven not only by artwork but also by the very armors themselves, i.e. go look at the stuff in Leeds, and that’s what I meant when I said “their mannequins are correct” because the mannequins have been made SMALL enough to fit the chamfrons and bardings and saddles and other parts. The term “great horse” which was used to describe the horses that knights rode is to be taken to mean a broad and substantial horse, one somewhat heavy for its height; but the height is not overly great, and as I said, the weight never exceeds 1100 lbs. What’s magic about that number is that it’s also the very biggest that the Grevy’s Zebra ever gets – I mean a big zebra stallion of this species. Ergo that is the largest equine that Mother Nature ever made, and again, from that we must conclude that anything much taller or heavier, which has been created by mankind through a process of selective breeding, is pushing the physiological and biomechanical design limits of the species. I think it would be a most interesting thesis which made explicit exactly in what ways those limits are being stretched. If you want my whole rant on this particular topic – I say ‘rant’ because I find the trend in international competitive dressage very disturbing, the trend or fad being that the horse has to be enormous in order to be competitive – this came on with Christine Stuckelberger’s international wins back in the 1970’s on a horse named Granat that was a right big ‘un. Now, competitors of international caliber commonly have oodles of money and that includes the ability to pay a staff veterinarian and a groom, whose job it is to ‘make up for’ the damage that asking a very heavy horse to suspend the gaits, and in short to move as if it were half the size and weight it actually is. And the general horse-owning public, who even though they by no means have that kind of back-up resources, very often does what they see their neighbor do, without thinking; so as a horsemanship teacher and a teacher of biomechanics, I often find myself having to explain that a horse that weighs 1600 lbs. but presents only 9 inches of bone-tendon circumference, in other words has a “substantialness” of only 5.62 inches of bone-tendon circumference per 1,000 lbs. of weight is very seriously under-designed -- and is thereby destined for unsoundness and a short career. So, if you want to hear this set of arguments too, based on the same engineering principles that building codes require builders to meet, so that the roof and the snow-load do not collapse the building, and set for with illustrations and all, write to me off list and I’ll send you the .pdf after July 4th, when I get back from teaching one of those very same horsemanship clinics of which I have just spoken. Cheers – Dr. Deb From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rapp, Karina Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2019 2:10 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ZOOARCH] Complete Draft Horse Skeletons Apologies everyone, I should have clarified that I am primarily on the lookout for modern skeletons, but archaeological ones are also helpful and appreciated! Sincerely, Karina Rapp MSc Zooarchaeology Student University of Exeter, HumAnE Lab ________________________________ From: Karina Rapp <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2019 9:49 AM To: [log in to unmask] Cc: Rapp, Karina Subject: Complete Draft Horse Skeletons Good morning, zooarchers. I am a master's student at the University of Exeter, working on a dissertation relating to the equine vertebral column and the pelvis. I am wondering if anyone knows of any complete draft-type horse skeletons (Shire etc.) in Britain. I have already exhausted the collections at the Natural History Museum in London, and the National Museum of Scotland, and I have checked the Archaeology Data Service website. The University of Southampton and the Historic England has a few horses I haven't measured yet, but again, no draft horses that I can see from the ADS website. I am aware of some collections in France, Germany, and Prague, but I can't spare the money or time to visit those. In addition to looking for a draft skeleton, I am also interested in any already-collected data worldwide (does not have to be Britain specific) on the thoracolumbar and pelvic regions for any horse types (especially horses bred and used for driving activity). If anyone can think of anything else off the top of their heads, I would be very grateful. Thank you! Sincerely, Karina Rapp MSc Zooarchaeology Student University of Exeter, HumAnE Lab ________________________________ To unsubscribe from the ZOOARCH list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=ZOOARCH&A=1 ________________________________ To unsubscribe from the ZOOARCH list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=ZOOARCH&A=1 ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the ZOOARCH list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=ZOOARCH&A=1