[Wild horse or domesticated horse? Horse remains from the neolithic settlement in Pestenacker, Bavaria].

The research deals with an investigation of horse remains from the neolithic settlement in Pestenacker, Bavaria, and tries to determine whether these represent wild or early domesticated horses.

Background of the Research

• The study focuses on horse remains dating back to the latter half of the 4th millennium BC, discovered in the neolithic settlement in Pestenacker.
• It explores the question of whether these bones belonged to wild or domesticated horses, an aspect that isn’t well established yet pertaining to Middle Europe’s early history of horse domestication.
• The research also mentions the distribution of wild horses in the post-pleistocene era and suggests that wild horses were indeed present during this period in Middle Europe, contrary to prior beliefs.

Research Methodology

• Three different criteria were used to help discern whether the bones belonged to wild or domesticated horses.
• The first criterion examined the proportion of horse bones found in relation to the total number of bones unearthed.
• The second criterion looked at environmental conditions which existed during the horses’ lifetime using pollen-analytic reconstruction.
• The third criterion focused on the size of the bones as a distinguishing factor.

Findings

• Based on these three criteria, the research suggests that the horse bones most likely belonged to wild horses.
• It was postulated that these wild horses inhabited the gravel terraces along the Lech River during that era, thereby revising previous hypotheses that postulated a lack of wild horses in Middle Europe during the post-pleistocene period due to an increasing amount of woodland.