--- In
cybalist@egroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> The genus Equus began to spread into Eurasia at the end of the
Pliocene, about 2.5-1.6 million years ago. There were a few species of
horse in Asia at that time (E. sivalensis, E. sanmeniensis, E.
namadicus) and a few more in Europe and Africa. Not all of them looked
like modern horses; remember that asses, onagers and zebras are also
members of the same genus. The Shivalik fauna (including E.
sivalensis) was long extinct by time the first modern humans left
Africa (and a very long time before the Rgveda was composed, of
course).
Thanks for the leads.
I find from the following quote that the genus survived until only
about 10,000 years ago.
"With the exception of Australia and Antarctica, it had a worldwide
distribution and survived undisturbed until about 10,000 years ago,
when overhunting by prehistoric men brought it to a drastic reduction
in Eurasia and to extinction in the Americas, where it was
reintroduced in post-Columbian times".
http://www.unifi.it/unifi/msn/geopal/route/eqfr_eng.htm