I'm not sure I would call that riding. With all the poses I suspect this was some odd-ball cult practice. I'm sure the archaeologist who had to polish that knob on that anthropomorphic figure in that one panel #3 has some good stories. Probably significant that its the smoothest part of that figure.

The old joke about what they call a chicken fucker in Oklahoma comes to mind here except I think those pre-Turks were cavorting with leopards.

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avadodin 6 days ago | parent [-]

I was going to say that these ancient furries were about as much proto-Italians if not more than proto-Turks but then I noticed you said pre so maybe you meant simply that they predate the Turkic invasions.

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doodlebugging 6 days ago | parent [-]

I was trying to say that with the anthropological and archaeological data that we have available right now the best we can do is say that they pre-date the groups that are peopling the region today whose histories we understand. It is possible that some of those groups resident today share ancestry with those who built the sites but it is also possible that the original builder groups moved on due to environmental, societal, or other pressures we are not currently able to document.

Maybe the ones who built this site went to the Spanish/French border and are the ancestors of the Basques, who have a unique language. I'm not the guy to answer that question.

If I wanted to identify this group's descendants among modern people I would look for people who have a deep connection to cats like the ones depicted in their monuments.

And now you know why I am not much of an archaeologist. I get a little tired of every polished rock being something someone worshiped though it looks like for these people that probably fits.

	▲	avadodin 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Turks, and yes the Basques, among other Europeans, have a large amount of ancestry that is close to these people but specifically it peaks in Sardinians. Technically, everyone could be descended from their closely related neighbors who got sick of the cat people, rather than from the cat people themselves, though.