Hello Zooarchers!

For those who are interested there has been published an article detecting
coat colour and sex by using DNA:
Coat colour and sex identification in horses from Iron Age Sweden.
Svensson EM, Telldahl Y, Sjöling E, Sundkvist A, Hulth H, Sjøvold T,
Götherström A.
Annals of Anatomy.

Ylva Telldahl



On Wed, 21 Nov 2012 13:05:51 -0500, Pam Cross <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Sue
> Interesting to hear from you. I've been meaning to get in touch and to
get
> 
> up the Fell Pony Museum for a visit. 
>  
> I've done quite a bit of research into horses, including morphology in
the
> 
> UK and Europe for my project. While I'm no expert on DNA, I try to read 
> some of  the horse related material. I would say that I am not aware of
> any 
> evidence  supporting particular colours of early British breeds,
certainly 
> pre-studbook  history, or that Friesians were introduced and are
> responsible for 
> the black  fell ponies. I wouldn't be surprised if Friesian or other 
> Belgian/Netherlands  horses were brought into the UK, there is various
> evidence 
> that horses went back  and forth between here and there quite a bit. The
> other 
> issue would be what  those Friesian breeds were like, as there's no 
> evidence that I know of  describing them and the modern breed has
> undergone a fair 
> amount of change in  the last century.
>  
> Yes, certainly, there is much evidence indicating that many breeds are
> very 
>  similar (dare I say, indistinguishable to the average eye). It's my  
> understanding from the genetics that European horses are relatively
> homogenous -  
> suggesting quite a lot inter/ cross-breeding.
>  
> I haven't seen or done a survey, but my observation of different breeds 

> suggests that Bay/Chestnut/Dun/Grey are the predominant colours found in

> horses  with variants of markings from white to flea-bitten. With true
> blacks and 
>  multi-coloured less common. Even breeds with colour regulations have 
> occurrences  of non-approved colour or white markings - I guess they
then
> refuse 
> to register  them and so discourage their occurrence. A number of the 
> military breeders  seemed to go for bays...
>  
> Iconographically, the Bayeux tapestry shows quite a variety of colours
> from 
>  whites, duns, browns, greens and blues (not sure what exactly those are

> meant to  be) - and all solid colours with no markings - though I
suspect
> that 
> was a  choice of the artists/needleworkers.
>  
> Have you read Dent's books?
>  
> Pamela J Cross
> PhD researcher, Bioarchaeology 
> Horses of Men &  Gods project (AHRC, NT & MoL) 
> Archaeological Sciences, University of  Bradford, BD7 1DP UK
> p.j.cross (at) student.bradford.ac.uk / pajx (at)  aol.com
> http://www.barc.brad.ac.uk/resstud_Cross.php
> _http://bradford.academia.edu/PamCross_ 
> (http://bradford.academia.edu/PamCross) 
>  
>  
>  
> In a message dated 21/11/2012 12:02:28 GMT Standard Time,  
> [log in to unmask] writes:
> 
> I am  an amateur who follows discussions on Zooarch mainly as a lurker.
I 
> edit the  Fell Pony Society's magazine and am compiling a publication to

> celebrate the  Society's 90th anniversary. 
> 
> 
> I have  an article about pony history which I want to include in this
> book. 
> It  summarises some of the breed's documented history (1860s to present 
> day) and  refers to some terminology in literature from the 1550s
onward.  
> 
> 
> However, "breed histories" published previously make  preliminary claims

> about the distant antecedents of the pony which I suspect  may well be 
> romantic wishful thinking on the part of breed promoters in the  past. 
> Ideally I'd 
> like to dismiss these, rather than discuss them, on  the basis that they

> are speculation, unsupported by evidence.  
> 
> 
> Claim  1: that ponies in Britain prior to the Roman occupation were of 
> brown, bay or  dun colour with few white markings
> 
> 
> If  anyone could point me to actual research to support or refute this I

> would be  grateful. I suspect it is based on Victorian speculation. 
> 
> 
> Claim  2: that ponies in Northern England were crossbred with Friesian 
> horses during  the Roman occupation and that this introduced the black
> coat 
> colour that is  most commonly associated with the Fell breed today. 
> 
> 
> I  understand that there is ongoing research into the relationships
> between 
>  modern breeds using DNA and MtDNA but am not sure it would help with
coat
> colour of equine landraces or types at any specific period. (The claim  
> cheerfully overlooks the fact that in the early stud books 50% of the
> ponies  
> registered were brown or bay.) Comments please? Am I right in thinking
> that 
> in  the global population of Equus caballus it is possible for
individuals
> in 
>  separate communities occasionally to resemble one another, without 
> necessarily  being related apart from sharing a common prehistoric 
> ancestry?
> 
> 
> It  isn't essential to the article to address these points, which I can 
> simply  ignore, but I would prefer to do so on the basis of "absence of 
> evidence"  based on your collective knowledge - if that is indeed the 
> case.
> 
> 
> Sue  Millard