CH. Ill] PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC HORSES 83 



Ireland, for not long since a lower jaw was found ^ in the marl 

 below the peat near Athlone, co. Galway, which is but twelve 

 and a quarter inches long and four inches at the widest part, 

 and must therefore have belonged to an extremely small race. 

 But as the jaw may have only sunk from the peat into the 

 upper portion of the marl, it is not impossible that the bone 

 may belong to a more recent period. 



Daring the Quaternary period wild horses were abundant 

 in Europe and formed an important part of the food supply of 

 Palaeolithic man and various wild animals such as the hyaena. 

 Their remains have been found in the Kirkdale Cave, Yorkshire, 

 and Kent's Cavern, near Torquay, which in addition to many 

 bones of horses, hyaenas, and other animals contains much 

 evidence of human habitation. These early men have left us 

 at least one picture of the horse, which they hunted and ate. 

 In one of the caves of the Creswell Crags, on the borders of 

 Derbyshire and Nottingham, was found a small fragment of rib 

 with its polished surface ornamented with the incised figure 

 of a horse-; the head with its eyes, mouth, and nostrils, is 

 admirably drawn, and a series of fine oblique lines, stopping at 

 the bend of the back, are supposed to prove that the animal 

 was hog-maned, but these lines may have simply been the 

 primitive artist's way of indicating the mane, whether hogged 

 or flowing. 



Prof Boyd Dawkins has shown in his tables of the Pleistocene 

 animals living to the north of the Alps and the Pyrenees that 

 the remains of the horse were found in thirty-one out of the 

 forty stations tabulated ; and Dr Munro has pointed out that 

 the horse was one of the most common animals among the 

 cave-fauna of Belgium, both during the mammoth and reindeer 

 periods. From this it is clear that the horse must have been 

 very common in Belgium. No less common was the horse in 

 France. The station of Solutre, near Macon (Saone-et-Loire), 

 partially excavated by MM. Ferry, Arcelin, Ducrost, Lortet, and 

 others, has revealed a great abundance of implements of flint 



1 I am indebted to my friend Dr Scharff, of the National Museum, Dublin, 

 for this information. 



- Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, p. 184, Fig. 53. 



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