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Horse
Talk
By R.Jay Gangewere At Powdermill Nature Reserve, a
scientific symposium ends with a horse show What could be better for horse lovers than enjoying a beautiful October in the horse country of the Laurel Highlands, sleeping at night in log cabins in the woods, or in rooms provided by generous country hosts, and during the day focusing on a shared passion: the ancient relationship between horses and people? And
then concluding with a horse show featuring the ancient breeds of Arabian
horses, the Icelandic horses ridden by the Vikings, the Friesian horses ridden by medieval knights,
magnificent Percherons, Belgians,
as well as race horses, bullfighter's horses, western Quarter horses, Mounted
Police horses, polo ponies, foxhunting horses (with hounds), miniature
horses, and a mammoth donkey. It doesn't get any better than this if you are an
international expert on the history of horses and humans. This is the way it
was at the Horses & Humans
Symposium: The Evolution of Human--Equine Relations, at Powdermill Nature
Reserve, from October 17 - 21, 2000.
Some thirty scientists in equine history came from all over the world
to the museum's nature center 50miles east of Pittsburgh to learn about each
other's research, and do such things as ask colleagues for feral (wild) horse
teeth to study and inspect primitive horse bridles. The hippologists,
as these scientists are known, came from the U.S.A., Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Belgium,
Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Russia, and Armenia. They represented such diverse disciplines as veterinary
science, paleontology, archaeology, and history, with professional homes in
universities, and organizations such as the Center for the Study of Eurasian
Nomads, the Institute for Ancient Equestrian Studies, and the Archaeological
Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The last conference on horses in human history--much more
specialized in focus-- was held in Germany fifteen years ago. The Powdermill
conference was generously interdisciplinary, because Carnegie Museum of
Natural History's associate curator of anthropology, Sandra Olsen, wanted it that way. She is an expert on the ancient horse
culture on the steppes in Kazakhstan, and the editor of Horses through Time, published by Carnegie Museum of Natural
History in 1996. In 21st century America, it is easy to
forget that the horse made a greater impact
on human society than any other animal.
More than other ridden animals such as elephants, donkeys, yaks, or
camels, the horse was the basis for the concept of rapid transit. Horses expanded the human range of
travel and increased communication among diverse cultures. Some ancient societies
worshipped horses, and even
sacrificed them in religious rituals.
Horsepower changed agriculture, and helped define trade routes. For thousands of years horses were a
military advantage to people who adopted them in their way of life, or who
used them as cavalry. In urban communities horses
influenced the design of city streets, and the way food and supplies were
transported. Horses were a
factor in developing urban sanitation policies, in creating public entertainment
and sports events, and in instituting new organizations such as the American
Society to Prevent Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). According to conference member
Clay McShane of Northeastern University, in 19th century America
huge herds of horses existed in our cities (120,000 of them in Manhattan
alone). Until the last 100 years,
most people's lives had an obvious connection to Equus caballus--the common horse. Americans still
talk comfortably about horseplay, horsing around, beating a dead horse,
working like a horse, horse sense, a horse of a different color, putting the
cart before the horse, big enough to choke a horse, getting off a high horse,
a dark horse candidate, getting a leg up, looking a gift horse in the mouth,
tilting at windmills, and we admire behavior that derives from the French
word for horse, cheval: chivalry. At the conference every scientist had a
specialty. One of the most
distinguished, Dr. Erzebet Jerem from
the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, an archaeologist, spoke of sites of Celtic
animal sacrifices in eastern and central Europe. Two Russian colleagues, Ludmilla Koryakova of Ural
State University, and Pavel A. Kosintsev of the Institute of Ecology at
Ekaterinburg, presented evidence of wild and domestic horses in the forest
steppes of Eurasia as far back as 3,000 years B.C. R. Dale Guthries of the Institute of Arctic Biology
explained why horses were so commonly drawn or sculpted in Paleolithic art
35,000 to 10,000 years ago.
Lynne S. Bell, a paleontologist from the Natural History Museum in
London, used chemistry and ecology to explain the composition of the enamel
in ancient horse teeth--which sheds light on the seasonal migration of horses
used by past nomads in Eurasia.
Carnegie Museum's Dr. Sandra Olsen presented the evidence for early
horse domestication in Eurasia.
There were many more presentations and the research will be published
as a festschrift in honor of the
famous expert on horses, Mary Littauer. Like
so many fields of research, hippology has entered a new scientific era with
techniques such as DNA analysis, computerized data, refined techniques of
environmental study, and a new sharing of information between researchers in
the West and those of the former Soviet Union. While English is often a common language at such
international meetings, at least one Russian expert at Powdermill required a
translator. Much of the early
research in the domestication of the horse comes from evidence found in Russia
and Eurasia. The ancestor of the
modern horse, the Przewalski horse, is named after the Russian scientist who
first traced the domestication of horses on the Russian Steppes. According
to Olsen, some of the most important moments at the conference occurred
around the fire or while sharing popcorn at the roundtable one night. While discussing their main topic,
horse domestication, they made progress
towards standardizing methods of research worldwide, and began plans
for a website to track the latest progress in the field. It was the unique intermingling of science and the love of animals that made this
conference unique. In
order to make the symposium successful, Olsen sought the help of horse lovers
and museum supporters in the Ligonier Valley and Pittsburgh--people pleased
not only with the scientific topic, but interested in showing off Ligonier
Valley as a delightful place to keep horses. The enthusiastic support and work from the Rolling Rock
Hunt Pony Club and members of the Rolling Rock Hunt made it possible to end
the conference with a public pageant, the
Celebration of the Horse, at the St. Claire Showgrounds. WTAE-TV anchor Sally Wiggin, an avid
equestrienne, narrated the demonstrations, the Parade of Breeds, and show
jumping. Thus, science blended
with local interests, and everyone there understood the important connection
between humans and horses. At the stables during the horse show a horse owner was
happy to bring out her horse so English scientist Gail Brownrigg could put a
replica of a primitive bridle on it. Nearby a farmer from Somerset County,
Larry Shelley, showed off his Texas-bred Catalonian donkey,
"Jim-Jack," 12 years old and 16 hands high. After working around horses and mules
all his life, Shelley says simply, "I like to raise a good jack to sell
to people who want to raise nice mules." There
was also Trooper Wade Crimbring of the
Pennsylvania State Police, with his horse "H. Egon," a Hungarian
warmblood representing "the heavenly horses" of cavalry
tradition--quiet, friendly, loyal, emotionally attached to one person. One weekend H. Egon will have to be able to push physically through
large crowds, while not succumbing to picket signs, shouting, whistles, tear
gas, loud noises and lots of traffic. The next weekend, he may be at an
anti-drug program at a school, or provide security at a fair, where kids and
adults will surround him, talking, laughing, and petting him. He must adjust to both
situations. The Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania maintains about 30 horses, all donated, and stables them at
Hershey near Harrisburg, where they can be trailered discretely to locations
where crowd control might be needed. Crimbring says horses tend to quiet
people--you don't make eye-contact with them the way you do with another
human being and you have to respect their size. Director Joe Merritt of Powdermill Nature Reserve
has a theory about what makes a good scientific conference. He believes smaller conferences where
no more than about 60 people interact constantly in an isolated, beautiful
setting are more satisfying than giant meetings like the one on ecology he
recently attended in Salt Lake City, with 2000 other people. Large conferences usually limit
special topics to one or two sessions, and the mechanics of attending,
interacting with one's peers, and transportation, can be draining. He also favors interdisciplinary
conferences, where people have a chance to discover related interests. The
conference connoisseur may well prefer an intimate retreat such as Powdermill
Nature Reserve. Although
Powdermill is one of about 180 field stations in this country, it has special
advantages for meetings. Not only can people live in small cabins on the
grounds, they can also present programs at Nimick Nature Center, and share
meals (and wash dishes) together at rustic Raven's Roost. Participants are located just a few
miles from Ligonier and if they have the time can visit nearby architectural
treasures such as Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob. All of the horse researchers were
touched by the sincere kindness and hospitality shown to them by the local
residents. Without the financial
support of the conference's patrons, key participants from Russia, Armenia,
Hungary, and England would not have been able to participate. Powdermill
has developed a tradition of hosting small conferences. Since the 1970s,
research at Carnegie Museum of Natural History has triggered conferences on
African small mammals, shrews, the ecology of small mammals, tree squirrels,
and now horses. Merritt is an
internationally recognized specialist in shrews, and hopes to bring the
international shrew experts back to Powdermill in 2002. However
infrequent, meetings like the Horses
and Humans Symposium create connections that can last a lifetime. And with email available to
scientists throughout the world, one-time personal meetings easily ripen into
long-term professional associations.
These scientists will are likely to stay in touch with each other,
whether or not the symposium ever returns to Powdermill. But the Celebration of the Horse may come again to the area--as an event that horse lovers in southwestern Pennsylvania may want to repeat. It could be a regular pleasure. It could be like watching a Paso Fino--the smoothest riding horse in the world. Developed in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico from horses brought to the Americas by Christopher Columbus, the Paso Fino has an evenly spaced, four-speed lateral gait, natural from birth. It's exciting to see the muscles rippling over its full body as its footfalls generate a staccato rhythm that the rider barely feels. It's one of those things you just have to see demonstrated, as it was by an elegant stallion named "El Glatiador de Pleybeyo" at the Celebration of the Horse. |
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