Posted on 11/29/2005 8:24:25 PM PST by SunkenCiv
...As I mentioned before, many Native Americans believe that horse was in America many centuries before Columbus. Pony Boy gives one of such traditional narratives in his book, although, it needs to be noted, he generally tends to support the mainstream academic view of horse history in America.
Here's a picture of a very unusual "Przewalski horse".
This wild horse is still found in Mongolia. It is so different, it has 66 chromosomes as compared to the 64 that we find in all other horses. This is a very primitive kind of horse, the one probably quite similar to what the ancient peoples first domesticated. (Nevertheless, some researchers believe that it represents a whole different species as compared to our domesticated horses.)
(Excerpt) Read more at trends.ca ...
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We've done alot of digging, alot of construction near rivers, alot of agriculture on the great plains.
Bones?
Teeth?
If there were horses here, the odds are phenomenal we'd have fossil evidence.
The Mongols conquered half the known universe with the Przewalski horse. This breed's endurance and stamina is commendable.
I don't think so. There is no evidence across the Americas of the Incas, Mayans or any of those cultures having any sort of beast of burden.
The odds are phenomenal that we wouldn't.
Fossilization is rare.
Even remains are rare; in the US, human remains create a big fight (under NAGPRA) precisely because they are so rare. In the case of the tribes, there were different methods of dealing with the deceased, including excarnation (exposure to be eaten by animals).
Glaciation has happened for long periods, altering the landscape.
And the number one answer...
No one has even bothered to look, because, after all, everyone knows that a few horses lost by Coronado's expedition produced all the horses used by all the tribes which used horses.
Coronado wandered around circa 1540, and AFAIK no artifacts from his expedition have ever been found (and people have looked). Horses were widespread in use (particularly west of the Mississippi, but not exclusively so), so much so that the Lewis and Clark expedition took it for granted when they found members of tribes on horseback.
http://www.beringia.com/02/02maina14.html
"The Yukon horse (Equus lambei) was a relatively small caballoid (closely related to the modern horse Equus caballus) species. It occupied steppe-like grasslands of Eastern Beringia (unglaciated parts of Alaska, Yukon and adjacent Northwest Territories) in great numbers, and was one of the commonest Ice Age (the Quaternary, or last 2 million years) species known from that region..."
Well, the Incas used llamas for hauling stuff. Also, the landscape was different in Central and South America. While that's also home to the jaguar, it would stand to reason that the cougar in North America would pose a similar threat to wild horses (which wouldn't be that much, apart from the old and infirm, the sick, and the very young).
I'm not aware that there are any surviving images of the horse in the Central American writing systems. But then, I wasn't trying to make that case.
Nice!
Here's something about zebras:
Zebra Crossing
American Long Ears Society
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/2905/zebxing.html
"the Grevy's zebra has 46 chromosomes, the Mountain zebras has 32, while the plains h[a]ve 44"
That used to be the belief, dunno if it's still generally believed. Used to be the wolf was thought to be from the Americas, and spread into Asia, etc, giving us the domesticated dog after some time. :') Camels also existed in the Americas (fossil record) and went extinct. When the sea level was hundreds of feet lower (which happened a number of times), the continental shelf was exposed, and I think the continental shelf had it going on... :')
Nice page about the "Heavenly Horse" BTW.
a link from Yuri's page (also by Yuri):
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/tran/9h8.htm
"In the Milwaukee Public Museum there is the skull of a mustang excavated in 1936 by W.C. McKern from a mound on Spencer Lake in NW Wisconsin (47BT2), and vouched for by McKern in the _Wisconsin Archaeologist_, Vol. 45, #2 (June 1964), pp. 118-120. Says McKern , 'there remains no reasonable question as to the legitimacy of the horse skull that we found as a burial association placed in the mound by its builders.'"
It's fairly well documented that before Columbus arrived, the largest domestic animals in the Americas were Llamas (if you can consider a creature as full of spite and spit as a Llama "domesticated"). While it is possible that the scandinavians might have brought domesticated horses and cattle with them on their explorations and failed colonization of the Americans around the beginning of the second millenium, there is no evidence thus far of native domestication of equus before Columbus. Any horses encountered by precolumbian humans in the Americas would most likely have been eaten, not ridden.
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/tran/9h2.htm
"The assumption among historians is nearly universal that there were no horses in America before Columbus (except, of course, for those that became extinct very early on). I certainly cannot claim at this point that this assumption is incorrect. I can only say that there seem to be some assorted problems with this view, as well as a few troubling items (such as the horse skull) found in good precolumbian contexts."
Horses and camels originally evolved in North America, but left via the Land Bridge, apparently before our indigenous aboriginies {I was born here, so I'm a Native American] arrived. The Indians of the southern plains bred horses that escaped from the Spaniards, and from there the horse moved north. Indians used dogs to pull loads before they got horses. I beileve the Lakota phrase for horse, Tshunka Wakan [p/s] means "sacred dog". Indians hunted bison on foot prior to getting horses.I don't believe there's any evidence that Indians had horses before the arrival of the Spanish.
This is kinda cool, another link from Yuri:
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/horses/
Larry J. Elmore
Bozeman, Montana
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/tran/xhorse.htm
"Now it is known that the Vikings used horses and brought them to Iceland and Greenland. They are relatively small, varicolored ponies. They also released them to run wild. They captured new horses from the wild herds and also hunted and ate them at need. The Vikings are known to have had a settlement in Newfoundland. It would be ridiculous to presume that they didn't also visit the mainland, only a few hours sail away (though apparently some anthropologists hold to that view). This would explain both the physical characteristics of the Indian ponies and give the horses 500 more years to breed and spread across the continent, and to be domesticated and used by the Plains Indians."
I believe I may have heard of this horse before. Is it the one that Poland was attempting to restore in Poland?
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