So it's plain old fashioned cross breeding. Nice work, guys. I'm sure it'll sell. It's a really cool product.

THEY extrapolate, that is. Also, I guess some cartilage could have survived.

Carl, thanks for the tip. As a former medievalist, I definitely want to check that out.

Alex, I think the extrapolate from the little bone at the top of the nose, which would give the angle, and the surrounding bones, which would give the width and length. I'll check it out. It's an interesting question, especially since this is done so frequently in forensic reconstructions.

Not everything works according to Hoyle.

The board sounds fabulous.

If they've done carbon dating, they did it on the board, not the stones. They probably also date the game from the age of the dig they are working in. I think the archaeologists know what they are doing.

Congratulations Alex! Awesome achievement. It's an honor to write for Neatorama.

When I put one of these pics up at my site, a reader, Ken, came up with this:

Humidity's rising
Barometer's getting low
According to all sources
The tree's the place to go

It's raining goats
Hallelujah it's raining goats, Amen
It's raining goats
Hallelujah it's raining goats, Amen

It doesn't seem any creepier to me than Mendel messing around with smooth and wrinkled peas. People have been doing selective breeding since prehistory. This is just on a micro rather than a macro scale. If they'd put frog genes in the celery, now, that would have been creepy.

Or maybe a Joan Miro

That horse actually looks very much like a Picasso.

Some people say it's a dragon too. I agree about the level of artistry,. The stylized work in so called primitive art was so mature that it formed a major influence for Picasso.

And SMART! Try getting a horse to go up steps.

I think maybe this is about the time they decided that zebras couldn't be trained....

I'd feel a lot safer on the painted donkey than the real zebra.