Ancient cave paintings that seemed to depict make-believe white-spotted horses might have been drawn from real life, scientists now find.
The cave paintings of the Stone Age are not only among the oldest drawings made by humans, but also serve as evidence of our growing capabilities. Scientists hotly debate how realistic these paintings are — discovering this fact could reveal whether ancient humans tended more toward accuracy or creativity.
The approximately 25,000-year-old paintings "The Dappled Horses of Pech-Merle" depict spotted horses on the walls of a cave in France remarkably similar to a pattern known as "leopard" in modern horses such as Appaloosas. Horses were popular among Stone Age artists, found in most cave paintings that have recognizable animals in them, commonly in a caricature form that slightly exaggerates the most typical "horsey" features, such as their manes of hair.
Until now, ancient DNA analyses suggested horses during the Stone Age were only black or bay colored with no evidence for white-spotted patterns. This hinted that cave paintings of leopard-patterned horses were fantasy, not accurate portrayals. Some have proposed that drawings of imaginary animals might have had some kind of symbolic or even religious value.
Research now suggests those paintings might actually have been based on the real-life appearance of the animals.
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