Kiger mustangs carry rare Iberian Sorraia mtDNA

A chalk drawing on a broken school desk I made for an art show.

Someone posted on Facebook a photo of dun-colored Kiger mustangs, a horse that carries a rare mtDNA recessive dun-color gene from Iberia, and I fell down the Google rabbithole. I noted the phenotype was similar to the endangered Iberian horses related to the Gallego, and Sorraia breeds. The Southeastern Oregon Kiger mustangs were originally flagged as being unusual because of their dun coloring. Instead of shooting the mustangs for dogfood, someone thought to sequence their mDNA. So, being a horse of a different color literally saved a rare genetic pool from extinction.

BLM photo of dun Kiger mustangs in southeastern Oregon

The BLM photos of the Kiger mustangs made me think of the autochthonous, or Neolithic CeltIberian Sorraia (closely related to the Marismeño) horse, also with rare mtDNA markers. Coat coloration was the clue. Horses that are dun colored (a bay, or chestnut dilution gene), or grey-dun grullo (an even rarer black dilution gene—neither roan, nor grey) not only carry a primitive recessive coloration gene, they often have dark faces and points with pangaré markings, body mottling, zebra-striped legs, and dorsal stripes—a primitive dun horse trait similar to those tarpan-like horses represented in paleolithic cave paintings. Their manes and tails are often bi-colored with white guard hairs and black upright manes like that of the feral Polish Konik horse, and the Heck. The wild Przewalski's horse has a solid black upright mane and tail.

Many equines appearing in prehistoric cave paintings such as in Chauvet cave are dun, and several closely related species in the genus Equus show dun characteristics. These include the Przewalski's horse...and an extinct subspecies of horse, the tarpan. —Wiki

Chauvet, Ardèche, France, 31 000 BP —Wiki

Contrary to popular belief, Spanish and Portuguese explorers didn't ship their prized Baroque Andalusian horses to the New World. Instead, they sent primitive native horses on long ocean voyages that lasted two months or more. Hardy and resistant, unlike the valuable blooded horses preferred by the nobility, those diminutive horses captured from the fens and marshes of Portugal, were practically breathatarians, and  could survive the harshest of conditions, and subsist on little food or water.

Paleolithic artwork in Lascaux II, note the horse is pacing, not trotting—Wiki

Because the native ponies weren't valued as blood animals, they also nearly became extinct in both the New and Old Worlds via neglect and distain. The Sorraia was once hunted for food, and the Exmoor ponies of Britain was used for target practice during WWII, they were a source of illegal meat in the cities. During the 1970s, the BLM was infamous for slaughtering entire herds of mustangs for dogfood. And their nearest ancestor, the native American wild horse was probably also hunted to extinction during the Ice Age.

Carnyxes on my mind

Imagine a Roman legionary encamped in enemy territory, awakening to the otherworldly Gallic sounds of war. As myriad carnyx tongues flutter eerily in the predawn mist, you are reminded of the saying, The enemy of your enemy is my friend. Visiting UC Berkeley scholar, musicologist Simon O Dwyer made a replica carnyx and when he played it for us, my hackles rose. I tried to play it, they're hinged, on a pivot, mid-point, and are exceedingly heavy. You need serious upper body strength to carry and play them. The sine curve is well balanced. Let's just say I lost my balance and went careening off into the walls, for a mad Monty Python moment, but I managed to not crash the instrument. Pretty much. Any composure I might have had was lost. The looks on their faces, their mouths and eyes, silent white Os. I always meant to transcribe my notes but got hopelessly lost, they were so convoluted.

A video where musician John Kenny demonstrates a Celtic carnyx. You can also see Celtic warriors playing  the carnyxes on the Gundestrup cauldron. And on this rare Celtic gold coin that depicts both a chariot and carnyx.

"Fig. 2 Gold quarter stater of Ambiani tribe. On one side is the head of Apollo with a lyre hidden in his curly hair. On the other we see a Celtic hammer-god driving his chariot across the sky. He has long flowing hair and holds a large hammer in his right hand. He may be Sucellos ‘the good striker’. A big bee – the Celts made mead with honey – buzzes before the horse’s snout. Only one other specimen of this coin is known and that is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. The above coin will be sold by auction early in March." The link is dead.

See my story 

• Prehistoric Irish music notes with Simon O'Dwyer

Red Hair, A German Trait?

This is a comment from my Viking-Irish Redhead Gene Myth blog post turned into a blogeen of its own. I've reposted it here. I wind up doing so much research in order to answer people's comments, it takes me hours to write a rebuttal. Maybe it'll turn into a full post later.

Ross Hunter said...

Red hair is actually a very German trait. I know this not only from my own family history going back several hundred years on my Mom's side of the family, but also from my personal studies on many sources. Even the book "Germania", written around the year 98AD, describes the Germans as having "rutilae comae" which is reddish hair. The Romans who came into contact with the Germans brought that trait into their own society, thus the now large number of red haired Italians. The Germans were described as very warlike in in Germania, and in idle times, they often dreamed of waging their next war. While that may seem to put them in a romantic light, it's actually not that awesome considering their attrition rate. They also were said to have practiced human sacrifice and held a lot of superstitions at the time. They were described as "indians" and wore very little clothing.

I'm actually surprised that people don't associate red hair with Germans more often than they do, it's actually pretty common, even the old bog bodies from Germany have well preserved reddish to golden red hair. Sure, things have changed a lot in the modern days, but there is a lot of historical, concrete evidence to support this. APRIL 27, 2015

Maureen Hurley said...
Dear Ross Hunter,

Sorry I never commented back I must've missed it. A few notes on Germany and redheads. What is now present day Germany now was not Germany then. Much of what is Germany now, was actually Celtic territory, not German. Especially Bavaria, and the area around Cologne.

The bog bodies were found in present day northern Germany, etc., but that doesn't make them German. We tend to use current political boundaries to define ancient peoples, and that is a false syllogism. Ahlintel Man, and others were from Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, which was part of Jutland, so they could also be Frisian/Danish/Scandinavian/Celtic bog bodies.

However, the Nienburg (and the Jastorf) had material cultural characteristics similar to Celtic cultures.... It should, as the Nienburg culture (grave goods, and weaponry) was the northward thrust of the Hallstatt culture. Some La tene influence as well.

The thing to keep in mind here is that Hallstatt was NOT a Germanic culture. Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein were not settled by the Germans unto the 3-7th c.s AD., considerably later than the bog-folk. At any rate, there is archaeological evidence of isolated Celtic settlements as well in Jutland.

Hair color is impossible to determine on a bog body as bog water, heavy in tannins, both leaches and stains. DNA analysis would have to be done to determine if they were redheads. Blond or grey hair would stain read in bog water, so it's not a reliable indicator.

"There has also been migration from former Celtic areas into Scandinavia .... investigations at Dosenmoor, Schleswig-Holstein, and Svanemose, Jutland, Boreas " —The Germani - Haplogroup I2b1 info

There were Celts also in the Netherlands, and many bog bodies were found near Drenthe.

The Celts lived on both sides of the Rhine. Caesar, when he was thumping the war chest coffers stretched the truth a bit (a lot). Hw said that the Gauls were an awful foe, and that the "Germans" were even worse, so he could get funding. Tacitus stretched the truth even further, both did so, to meet their own political needs—which was to get more money from the senate.

Remember, victory was written in the voice of the winners, who had a political agenda. We need to read those old texts with a grain of salt. Rhetoric.

Part of the confusion lies in the fact that the word Germania is not a German tribe, just like Teutates: both are Celtic words. Germania is actually a Celtic war cry, and Teutates, was a Celtic god.

I have read Tacitus carefully, and many of the names he uses are linguistically Celtic, not Germanic, so methinks he was fabricating just a bit. They also could have been a Celto-Germanic tribe. But culturally and linguistically, many of the peoples that Tacitus described, were Celtic, not Germanic.

As to those red-haired Italians, the north of Italy was settled by the same Celts that settled in Anatolia. Especially around Ravenna, Modena, the Po Valley, and the mountains: it was called Cis-Alpine Gaul. So yes, the red-hair gene would be dominant in the north.

Merovingians notes

A Facebook group I belong to, Celtic Surnames and Place-names - History and Origins is:

A repository and discussion about the history behind placenames and the original Celtic names pre-anglicisation and before local corruption. Feel free to post in any Celtic language or English. 

For some peculiar reason, someone in the group keeps posting bits on Merovingians. What they have to do with Celtic Sur- and Place Names, is beyond me. Of course, he didn't see any problem with posting something on the Merogingians in a Celtic studies group. So I decided to tie in his post with a Celtic context.

Understand that the moderator is a bit harsh if you post anything without some sort of back-up analysis. I might also add, these guys are mostly GoBs—good old boys—clubbers who barely tolerate women posting in the group. As a result, few women post, after being ridiculed and bullied. I'm sure these GoBs are not aware of their generic or genetic arrogance, but sometimes they can be quite funny, if not bordering on the rabid. 

I love the subject mater, and so, call them on their general twattiness and happily arm-wrestle with them. Besides, I don't respond well to attempted silencing.

I posted:

Merovingians seem to be wholly Frankish at first glance, but at an anthropological dig I attended in Rogny, near Marle, we could see the Merovingian dressed with Celtic La Tene style artifacts—specifically Celtic style silver inlay belt buckles. Lots and lots of them. 

Of course, belt buckles don't point to identity, but it does suggest many of the Merovingians may have been Gallo-Frankish. All those Gauls of Gaul weren't killed off by the Franks. 

The Merovingians were also called the "long-haired kings" (Latin reges criniti) as their preference for long hair was considered an oddity among the short-haired Franks. And Irish monks held great influence in the Merovingian court—St. Columbanus, especially. And most of the Merovingian clergy were from the Gallo-Roman aristocracy. 

I got a lot of flack for this comment—bordering on the mysogenistic. Rip me a new asshole. So I deleted my comment. As if archaeology wasn't proof enough that there was indeed a Merovingian—Gaulish contingency.

So this then, sir, is my revenge.

Letter to Wapedia on the Gauls: check your sources

After reading a bad Wapedia Mobile article, I tried to send an email to correct the glaring errors, but it bounced:

For starters, the Gauls didn't found cities, they founded oppida, or fortified hill forts that later evolved into civitas under Roman occupation.

Tolouse was the region of the Aquitani Volcae Tectosages, a fierce Celtic confederation. There's a famous tale in a classical text that tells of the enormous gold stores in a lake that one chief had stolen.They also got around. Like to the Ballkans and Anatolia. Some say they were the Galatians that St Paul got so worked up over their feasting, fighting and fecking that he wrote a flame letter to them to change their evil ways.

Masallia (Marseilles) was a trading post founded by Greeks in the 6th c. BC to trade with the wine loving Celts (Princess of Vix krater held more than 50 gallons of wine) along the Rhone River region....

Anyone can write and post an article on Wiki....no scholarship credentials needed. Always check your sources as it does us little good to continue to promulgate such blatantly wrong information. It comes back to haunt us in weird ways.