Dirt & Bones: Horses, redux

Magazines have long served as one of my research resources. A favorite is “Archaeology,” a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America.

In the May/June 2018 edition, I found a very short but interesting article about early horses.

To summarize, Recent DNA research leads researchers to believe that Przewalski’s horses are not the last wild horses on earth, but the descendants of horses tamed thousands of years ago by the Botai culture of Kazakhstan. This means Przewalski’s horses are technically feral, not wild. That might seem like a small semantic difference to most of us, but in the world of archaeology — and of novelists who write about ancient times — it looms large. I envision structural and plot changes in a book that has been simmering in my head for the past couple of years. And I love that kind of challenge!

Meanwhile, in everyday life, I’m just grateful that our world is blessed and made beautiful by horses. Are you a horse lover?