and considered it possible that the same prototype also influenced Estonian, Swedish and Norwegian horse populations. A genetic study in 2014 concluded that closest relatives to the Finnhorse were the Estonian horse, Mezen horse, Yakutian horse and Mongolian horse. Later, agronomist Axel Alfthan (1862–1934) and veterinarian Kaarlo Gummerus (1840–1898) expanded Aspelin's hypothesis, proposing that the horse population later diverged into Eastern Finnish and Mid-Finnish types, which had remained distinguishable as late as the turn of the 20th century. Photographs support these claims: the small Karelian horse was blocky and stout, with pronounced withers, a short neck and large head. The small horse from central Finland, on the other hand, was "more noble", with a longer body, lighter neck and more refined head. The Swedish professor Eric Åkerblom even suggested that the Finnish horse spread along river valleys to Troms, Norway, and was the ancestor of the Nordlandshest/Lyngshest, found around the Lyngenfjord. The Norwegians continue to utilise Finnhorse bloodlines, having purchased the Finnish pony-type stallion Viri 632-72P for stud use in 1980. However, Åkerblom dismissed the possibility that the eastern Finnhorse came from same prototype as the western pony breeds. In 1927, veterinarian and professor Veikko Rislakki (then Svanberg) proposed a different theory in his doctoral thesis. He argued that three types of wild horses existed in Europe, one of which he believed to be the Przewalski's Horse. Rislakki believed this unrefined and notably large-headed type was the horse the early Finns encountered about 1000 BCE. He suggested that the Finns later encountered other peoples and horses south of the Gulf of Finland, and that these peoples had better proportioned horses with a shorter muzzle and wider forehead, descended from the Tarpan. In addition, Rislakki suggested that the Finns came across European horses of Spanish and French origin during the first few centuries CE, larger in size and with narrow foreheads. Rislakki believed that his craniometric examinations, carried out in the 1920s, proved the influence of all these three horse types. Almost 20 years later, during the Continuation War, Rislakki also measured Karelian horses, and proposed they also came from an original Northern European animal descended from the Tarpan. Modern studies have discredited theories suggesting modern domesticated horse breeds descending from the Tarpan or the Przewalski's horse. The modern Konik horse resembles the extinct Tarpan however. In the early 20th century, English J. C. Edward and Norwegian S. Petersen, proposed that