
"..the ancient ancestor of the modern horse first appeared four million years ago..."
...and three million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety five years ago, Tesco launched their value beefburger range.
Biologists have sequenced the oldest full genome from a horse bone, in the process discovering that the ancient ancestor of the modern horse first appeared four million years ago, nearly twice as early as previously thought. What has the science world most excited, though, is the fact that they were even able to work on such old …
> can the first horse have existed 4 million years ago, when the world is only 6000 years old?
Should one subscribe to that particular mythology, there is only one logical conclusion:
There was only God before creation. Horse existed before creation. Therefore God is a horse.
Simple, yet profound.
Looking forward to "Pliocene Stable" where a crazy millionaire clones an ancient proto-equine and then heartwarmingly they win the Kentucky Derby because one teenage girl believes in them, in spite of being only 18" high at the shoulder. The perfect balance of "Jurassic Park" and "Racing Stripes."
Except that modern race horses have been selectively bred for speed over 1.5 miles. They haven't been bred for survival against the kind of predators that existed four million years ago. So while those ancient horses were probably bigger, stronger, tougher, etc, they likely weren't as fast. Nor were they likely as willing to have simians on their backs.
You have clearly never watched Racing Stripes - it wasn't a problem for that talking zebra is all I'm saying.
Also, if I'm honest, I can't imagine there are many other Reg readers who have watched Racing Stripes.
If you look at the early record for equines they were really little - eohippus fossils are little bigger than a mousedeer - the other horse species ( many of which seem to have been inferred from fairly slim evidence- as far as I can tell the existence of Equus Giganteus is inferred almost entirely from a couple of fossil teeth ) may have been bigger but they were also way more recent.
What I would be really interested to find more about would be what this can tell us about the differences between the american equine strains, which appear to have died out well before the modern era, and the European ones that survived through domestication.
I'd venture the guess that you'll find a close genetic relationship between Przewalski's Horses and Tarpans. In fact, some quick research on some of the "horsey" sites I frequent (so yeah, I'm a geek who rides and owns horses, what of it?), indicate that horses evolved in the Americas and only survived because they migrated westward into Asia.
Interesting link here. Well interesting for those who are into horses.
http://horsetalk.co.nz/2012/11/29/why-did-horses-die-out-in-north-america/
"So while those ancient horses were probably bigger, stronger, tougher, etc,"
You've got that a bit wrong - they were significantly smaller than nearly all modern horses, can't remember exactly but maybe the size of a large-ish dog. They weren't any tougher either as their main form of defence was running away, and they had multi-toed feet rather than single hooves. Over time as they turned running away into an art form, they spent more & more time up on their toes and eventually the middle toe only - which evolved into the hoof as we know it today. They still have vestigal toes which stop about half way down their lower leg, and the current hoof is really an evolved toe nail.
Makybe Diva would like to have a word with you about "bred for 1.5 miles".
As for simians on back: it only takes one to be willing.
Literally: it was apparently one, lone stallion in the Asiatic steppes that was willing to have somebody sit on him and from whom all our rideable horses are descendents. (source: The Horse, the Wheel, and Language" by David Anthony, who specialises in that research.)
The answer for why the dating metods are at odds with the 6k year age of the earth and the answer is found in Genesis. For the first 1000 years after creation the earth was covered by a cloud layer thick enough to affect the amount of radiation being absorbed by living mater. When you extrapolate the decay rates pre vs post flood you end up with wildly varying dates in the past as the dating methods assume uniform absorption based on today's irradiation levels. Basically bad science. The recovered DNA is probably around 5000 years old trapped in the ice in the post flood climate shifts...