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Ridgeway (Early Age of Greece, 1901) considers that the Belgic tribes were Cimbri, "who had moved directly across the Rhine into north-eastern Gaul."
Ridgeway, who maintains that the Iron age originated in central Europe, and that iron must consequently have been worked in those regions as far back as C. 2000 BC.
Ridgeway, in his Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse (1905), reinvestigated the historical mystery as to the Arab breed, and its connexion with the English thoroughbred stock, but his conclusions have been hotly controverted; archaeology and biology are in fact still in the dark on the subject, but see the section on " Species " above.
According to Ridgeway, the original source of the finest equine blood is Africa, still the home of the largest variety of wild Equidae; he concludes that thence it passed into Europe at an early time, to be blended with that of the indigenous Celtic species, and thence into western Asia into the veins of an indigenous Mongolian species, still represented by " Przewalski's horse "; not till a comparatively late period did it reach Arabia, though the " Arab " now represents the purest form of the Libyan blood.
The controversy depends upon the consideration of a wealth of detail, which should be studied in Ridgeway's book; but zoological authorities are sceptical as to the suggested species, Equus caballus libycus.