New, exhaustive study probes hidden history of horses in the American West

ScienceDaily ^ | March 30, 2023 | Original written by Daniel Strain, Nicholas Goda, University of Colorado at Boulder

[SunkenCiv]

Landmark study on history of horses in American West relies on Indigenous knowledge

[SunkenCiv]

[ClearCase_guy]

Well, they actually had horses long before that. But the natives ate them into extinction rather than riding them.

[ryderann]

IIRC someone brought in a bunch of camels too.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Notice the language in the excerpt. “Native Americans” “CARE” for horses.

Evil white Europeans “use” and “exploit” them. Those are the terms I’m used to in writings about animals. But mention any other group - they care for them.

Yup, I’m cynical.

As for this, regardless, I have to wonder how Indians took advantage (another term) of horses. Are they implying Indians figured it all out themselves? Which they could, but I have to think much came from seeing the white man. Never mind whites gave them horses at all. Thanks, whites!

[the OlLine Rebel]

Horse ancestors originated in NA. But disappeared long before any Indians or other humans were here.

[ConservativeMind]

What did Indians get around on before we brought over horses?

[Chickensoup]

Shanks Mare

[Jeff Chandler]

The Comanches were an easy target for other, more martially proficient tribes until they acquired horses, after which they became feared by Indian and white man alike.

[SunkenCiv]

Shank’s mare.

[Sawdring]

Not likely, they died with all the other megafauna during the beginning of the Younger Dryas.

[Sacajaweau]

I think it was our military who invested in Camels. Anothr brilliant move.

[nathanbedford]

You would have found, "Dances with wolves" as manipulative as I did. The evil white men even shoot that heroic horse with the name "Cisco." Then they shot the wolf, they shot each other, of course they shot Indians, they shot everybody, alas, but Kevin Costner.

[SunkenCiv]

There’s a range of opinion of course, of course.

There’s a very small amount of scientifically dated remains of humans and animals from North American (and S A and the Caribbean for that matter) that antedate 1492.

Artifacts and petroglyphs related to horses have mostly not been scientifically dated (and thanks to NAGPRA etc, probably never will be), and oral traditions are, uh, fluid and not generally trustworthy, irrespective of their geographical and ethnic source.

Anyway, here’s one take on the “we had horses before Columbus” view:

https://ictnews.org/news/yes-world-there-were-horses-in-native-culture-before-the-settlers-came

[SunkenCiv]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_the_United_States#History

[SunkenCiv]

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The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization by Richard Firestone, Allen West, and Simon Warwick-Smith

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[SunkenCiv]

I know, it started the whole continent smoking. Hey, at least there aren’t millions of ancient filter butts around.

[SunkenCiv]

I grok that.

[nathanbedford]

DNA evidence, for example, suggests that most Indigenous horses had descended from Spanish and Iberian horses, with British horses becoming more common in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Iberian horses, of course, suggests a strong Arabian influence introduced by the Moors that bore the wonderful traits of those horses, endurance, density of bone, bottom, and intelligence. There is scarcely a breed in the world that is not improved by introduction of Arabian blood. By the 18th and 19th century the British horses referred to already had Arabian genes already bread into many.

[SunkenCiv]

Most of the "cactus hill" keyword:

• Who Were the First Americans? [01/13/2002]
• Immigrants From The Other Side (Clovis Is Solutrean?) [11/02/2003]
• When Did Humans Come to the Americas? [01/27/2013]
• Teams digging into history of the earliest people [07/25/2015]
• Rethinking the First Americans [05/19/2019]