Re: [tied] Re: equus sivalences and the R.gveda horse with 34 ribs

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 4643
Date: 2000-11-12

Well, no, the genus still exists (horses, zebras, etc.), but its distribution in the wild is much more limited than it was during the Pleistocene. Wild equids are only found in Central Asia (Przewalski's horses), Tibet (Riwoche horses, kiangs), the Middle East (onagers, Asian wild asses) and Africa (African wild asses, zebras). The last European wild horses (forest and steppe tarpans) died out very recently.
 
Equus derives from the New World and during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs a number of species lived in both North and South America. A primitive fossil form of E. ferus, the common ancestor of Przewalski's horse and E. caballus, has been found in Alaska.
 
The Shivalik fauna existed in the Pliocene, that is earlier than 1,600,000 years ago.
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: kalyan97@...
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2000 2:35 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: equus sivalences and the R.gveda horse with 34 ribs

--- 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