I'm not cherry picking the report, you are. As the anecdotal evidence points to an entirely different mound for the later introduction, there's no chance for the anecdote to have any bearing on it. No one in the report is accepting anything "based on faith", but the attitude that the horse was extinct in the Americas until the Coronado expedition reintroduced it -- an event for which there is testimony in firsthand accounts of the expedition, I'm sure -- is nothing but faith. Whether the horse was reintroduced is the question.
Whatever. One of us is quoting one line of the report without also mentioning the unsurety of the horse skull's age. It ain't me.
As the anecdotal evidence points to an entirely different mound for the later introduction, there's no chance for the anecdote to have any bearing on it.
Incorrect. At the very least it demonstrates the possibility that the horse skull in question could be a result of a later insertion into the older strata.
No one in the report is accepting anything "based on faith",
Wrong again. There is a direct assumption in the report that because an undated horse skull was found in association with materials properly dated to have pre-columbian origins, then the horse skull itself must also be pre-columbian. This is an invalid assumption and is based on faith, particularly, a faith in the technique and veracity of the original excavators, and a faith that the horse skull's inclusion was not the result of the sort of intrusion described elsewhere in the same report. Until the skull itself is objectively dated, its legitimacy rests on nothing more than the assurances of a Mr. W.C. McKern, and that, quite frankly, is not enough.
I put to you that the remains of the so-called "Piltdown Man" were also discovered among legitimate artifacts with legitimate dates, but that did not make the "Piltdown Man" remnants themselves genuine.
the attitude that the horse was extinct in the Americas until the Coronado expedition reintroduced it -- an event for which there is testimony in firsthand accounts of the expedition, I'm sure -- is nothing but faith.
I hate to say it, but again you are wrong. In the fossil record in North America, there is a very distinct gap before which horse remains are found, and after which horse remains are found, but during which they are non-existent. The only possible exception I have ever heard of is this mustang skull in the Milwaukee Museum which, while it was found in supposed association with materials that have properly been dated as pre-columbian, has not itself been objectively dated and is therefore of very dubious legitimacy. If it ever is carbon dated, and it does prove to be pre-columbian, then it is a very significant find and potentially rewrites the current consensus on horses in America. Until then, though, it cannot be counted as evidence of anything.
Meanwhile, we have a fossil record which, as I mentioned, includes horses up until 11,000 years ago, and then is devoid of horses (apart from the dubious mustang skull you mention which has not yet been objectively dated and is untrustworthy evidence) until halfway through the second millenium when horses suddenly explode back into the fossil record.
What you are asking us to believe is that horses somehow managed to hold on in the background and remain out of the fossil record for eleven millenia. Yet horses were important enough to be included in the mound of one particular pre-columbian population, but haven't been found associated with any other artifacts from that population (or any other). And that the sudden reappearance of fully domesticated horses among the native populations almost immediately after well documented releases of horses into North America is a coincidence. And you base this conclusion on a single horse skull that has not been properly dated.
If the same mound had included a tire from a 1927 Model-T Four Door, would you also assume that automobiles were common in pre-columbian North America?