Pleistocene Horse Foot from the North Sea Ice Age Relic - Equus caballus - Horse - Pleistocene - Height: 365 mm - Width: 120 mm- 1124 g - (1)

Oss e subfossil bone attributed to Equus caballus, the horse, coming from the seabed of the North Sea and datable to the Pleistocene, with an indicative age of about 50,000 years. It is a distal portion of a limb, commonly described as a horse hoof, preserved with an anatomical structure still clearly readable. The specimen shows an elongated and slender shape, with the articular and terminal part of the limb still recognizable. During the Ice Age, wild horses were very widespread on the large cold steppes of Eurasia. They lived in herds and shared the pleistocene landscape with woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, steppe bison, reindeer, giant deer and large predators. The find comes from the North Sea, an area now submerged but which during glacial phases was partly exposed land. This ancient region, known as Doggerland, connected Great Britain to continental Europe and consisted of cold plains, waterways, steppes and wetlands. With the end of the last glaciation and the rise in sea level, these territories were flooded, preserving in the sediments numerous remains of pleistocene fauna. The surface shows a natural dark patina, with black, brown, gray tones and light ochre shades, due to the long residence in marine sediments, muds and sands of the North Sea. The bone is not completely petrified like rock, but presents as subfossil bone, preserved and impregnated over time by minerals and natural elements. Mounted on a wooden base with a metal support, the specimen is suitable for display in a paleontological collection, in a natural history gallery, in a private study or in a modern cabinet of curiosities. An authentic fragment of the European Ice Age, belonging to one of the most representative animals of the great pleistocene steppes. Technical data Species: Equus caballus Common name: Horse Period: Pleistocene Indicative age: about 50,000 years Provenance: North Sea, Europe Paleogeographic area: Doggerland Typology: distal limb portion / hoof Conservation: subfossil bone Mounting: wooden base with metal support Category: paleontological find / natural history collection specimen