Farmer's Discovery In France
A word to the wise when plowing or moving dirt with a tractor, pay attention, you just never know what you might uncover. I’m Susan Allen when Open Range returns the discovery one French farmer made last month. Most of us have been taught that horses descended from a dog size creature, called the Dawn horse around four million years ago in Eurasia. Given the Mongols and Asia’s history with horses it’s interesting that France continues to play a critical role in dating the equine species. Remember back in 1995 when drawings of horses were found in a cave in the south of France. The art was said to be thirty thousand years old. Well this Fall, once again, in France, farmer, Jean-Charles Tixidre struck a horses skull with his tractor while digging in a sandy era and had the good sense to stop, shut every thing down and take a look a close look . What he saw caused him to immediately contact the French Cultural affairs office who sent out an archaeological team that unearthed a whole intact skeleton of a small 13.2 hand horse (picture a big pony). It’s believed the unfortunate creature tumbled into a ravine and then was quickly covered with mud preserving it for our generation to ponder. And the kicker...Equus is believed to be over one hundred thousand years old, which changes the original theory that horses came to Europe in the Upper Paleolithic era to an even earlier time period. The history of the horse all thanks to a farmer.
