Posted: 23 Apr 2012 05:42 PM PDT
LOS ANGELES, CA - Cave painters during the Ice Age were more like Leonardo da Vinci than Salvador Dali, sketching realistic depictions of horses they saw rather than dreaming them up, a study of ancient DNA finds. It's not just a matter of aesthetics: Paintings based on real life can give first-hand glimpses into the environment of tens of thousands of years ago. But scientists have wondered how much imagination went into animal drawings etched in caves around Europe. The latest analysis published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences focused on horses since they appeared most frequently on rock walls. The famed Lascaux Cave in the Dordogne region of southwest France and the Chauvet Cave in southeast France feature numerous scenes of brown and black horses. Other caves like the Pech Merle in southern France are adorned with paintings of white horses with black spots.
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