Did the Celts take ponies everywhere?

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Did the Celts take ponies everywhere?

Postby Boreades » 12:18 am

While helping #1 Boreades Junior with his homework, I came across this snippet.

William the Conqueror, who claimed the New Forest as a royal hunting ground, shipped more than two thousand horses across the English Channel when he invaded England in 1066.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Forest_pony#History

So Normans shipped war horses with them. (see the Bayeux Tapestry) But WTC's horses weren't ponies were they?

The curious thing is that almost everywhere I can find in Britain where Celtic folks moved in and started mining, there are "native ponies" as well.

Devon & Cornwall: Dartmoor and Exmoor ponies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_pony
Dorset: New Forest ponies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Forest_pony
Wales: Welsh Muntain Cobs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Hobby
Cumberland and Westmorland (Cumbria) and Northumberland: Fell Pony: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fell_pony
Yorkshire Dales: Dale pony: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dales_Pony

But it goes further:
Asturias : Asturcón ponies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturc%C3%B3n
Basque: Pottok ponies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottok
Galicia : Garrano ponies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrano
Ireland: Irish Hobby: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Hobby

The western coastal areas clearly prefered ponies to the larger horses which were around.

So, have the "wild ponies" always been there? Or (as I suspect) are these domesticated ponies (that were useful for Celtic mining and metal trading) have been allowed to roam free?

Some have made it a PhD subject, albiet with a Roman slant
http://www.york.ac.uk/media/archaeology ... hDvol1.pdf
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Re: Did the Celts take ponies everywhere?

Postby Mick Harper » 12:28 am

The Megalithic Empire takes the position that these are all domesticates-gone-feral. It is simply not feasible to imagine a wild population even reaching Britain, much less surviving for thousands of years. The big question is whether the ponies, which are as you say closely associated with mining areas, were for mining (as per pit ponies) or for transport (as per pack horses).

Actually TME takes the rather more radical view that all horses in the world are either domesticates or domesticates-gone-feral. In our view the only wild horse population that ever lived was in North America and that was domesticated by neo-Megalithics in the period after 12,000 BC.
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Re: Did the Celts take ponies everywhere?

Postby Boreades » 9:08 pm

How did wild horses get from North America to Central Asia?
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Re: Did the Celts take ponies everywhere?

Postby Mick Harper » 9:19 pm

Orthodoxy acknowledges that the horse is native to North America -- the fossil evidence is unequivocal. But has to account for a) why they went extinct in North America (they say the Red Indians managed to extinguish them, by means not vouchsafed) and b) how they got to Asia (they say over the Beringia landbridge).

We say that a) the horse was not extinguished in North America, it was domesticated (hence the fossil record disappeared) and b) was taken to Asia by humans -- we are agnostic as to whether over the landbridge or by boat.

'Wild' Asian horses are domesticates-gone-feral.
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Re: Did the Celts take ponies everywhere?

Postby TisILeclerc » 9:25 pm

Perhaps the Red Indians ate them all?

However it's well known that the 'garron' was the mercedes of the day in Celtic circles in Scotland as well as in Norwegian circles.

Always good for circus entertainment.

There's a video on youtube, I'm not sure if it is Tony MacRobinson of that ilk but they do a horse ride from Canterberry or some such place to London on wee horsies which they claim was the preferred mode of transport in medieval times.

Piebald horses of that ilk are the chosen horses of the travellers. They put them in large caravans I believe to move them about the country until they get to Appleby where they annoy the locals.
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Re: Did the Celts take ponies everywhere?

Postby Boreades » 9:29 pm

I thought we had watched a BBC2 documentary about this? About a lady from New Zealand who went to Central Asia to find special native horses also found in North America?
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Re: Did the Celts take ponies everywhere?

Postby Mick Harper » 9:42 pm

And thus proved The Megalithic Empire correct in every particular. What she found, the Appaloosa, was the original domesticate that has survived in out-of-the-way (but the homeland of the original North American horsemen!) Mongolia. Which not surprisingly (to us) is the nearest relative of the original North American domesticate, the Red Indian pony/mustang/pinto/whatever you call it.

Everybody else says these 'Red Indian' ponies are Spanish horses gone feral since 1500 but cannot explain why -- to the New Zealand lady's obvious bemusement -- modern American horses aren't closely related to the mustang.
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Re: Did the Celts take ponies everywhere?

Postby TisILeclerc » 9:50 pm

Scientists or whatever they call themselves keep telling us that small islands produce small animals, and people.

We should therefore expect that America would produce rather large horses.

Where did the Clydesdale come from?
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Re: Did the Celts take ponies everywhere?

Postby Boreades » 10:02 pm

TisILeclerc wrote:Where did the Clydesdale come from?


I dunno. We get ours from the brewery in Devizes.

http://www.wadworth.co.uk/our-shires

A while back, M'Lady and I met a lovely couple of people at the Berkshire County Show, who were in deep shit with the Suffolk Shire Horse association. The problem (for the horses) was that they were getting dangerously inbred. The couple we had met had landed themselves in the poo by ignoring the "official" breed standards and importing sperm from North American Shire Horses. Healthier, happier horses, but tut they had broken the rules.

See Crufts.
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Re: Did the Celts take ponies everywhere?

Postby TisILeclerc » 10:08 pm

A learned article tells us that an analysis of medieval records shows that the peasants preferred horses while the demesne preferred oxen.

'All in all, even as the demesne was persevering with the ox, it is not difficult see why the peasant, for equally sensible reasons, would cheerfully switch to the horse. In many parts of medieval England, it appears he was doing precisely that.'

It's too late to follow the reasoning but it all boils down to money. Or perhaps the preference of the peasant for horses. Inbred perhaps?

http://www.bahs.org.uk/AGHR/ARTICLES/30n1a3.pdf
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