Prehistoric Horses of Europe. 71 



our early forefathers, which have ever since cootinued to be, 

 as it were, the backbone of all social communities. Of these 

 outstanding features in the evolution of present humanity, 

 agriculture and the domestication of animals are, next to the 

 invention of tools and weapons, the most important. 



Before discussing the problem of the domestication of the 

 horse from the standpoint of archaeology, which is the main 

 object of this paper, there are a few interesting facts bearing 

 on the history of that animal to be gleaned from palaeon- 

 tology which, being of a preliminary nature, will be first 

 disposed of. 



Palj^ontological Notes. 



From a study of the progressive changes in the limbs of a 

 few extinct genera and species of Equid^e, the genus Cahallus 

 can be traced back to an animal having five toes on each 

 foot, which lived in the early Tertiary period. From this 

 starting-point palaeontology demonstrates a succession of 

 species, each, as it were, gradually dispensing with the toes 

 on both sides of the middle digit, till, ultimately, the latter 

 alone remained, as is the case with the horse of the present 

 day. The undoubted object of this remarkable specialisa- 

 tion of the middle toe was to secure greater speed ; but, as 

 the highest limits of perfection were soon reached on this 

 line of development, the horse must now be regarded as a 

 terminal form of life. In fact, Nature has inveigled this 

 noble solipede into a cul de sac, from which it required 

 human intelligence to extricate it — a remark which will be 

 referred to later on. Pari passu with these transition stages 

 in the development of the horse since Eocene times, there 

 has been a gradual increase in the size of successive species. 

 The genus Hipparion was widely represented in Europe, 

 Asia, and America during Pliocene times; but from this 

 point, probably owing to geological changes, the development 

 of the subsequent horses of the Old and New Worlds seems 

 to have been independent of each other. Palaeontological 

 researches show that on the American continent they con- 

 tinued to flourish abundantly in Quaternary times, as, accord- 



