Horses and Native Americans: Rewriting The Timeline

Anthropology.net

Indigenous Knowledge and Science Unite

Recent research has reshaped our understanding of when horses were reintroduced to North America. Spaniards brought horses to Mexico in 1519, but it was Indigenous peoples who swiftly transported these horses north along trade routes. A new study in Science1 reveals that many Native American populations across the Great Plains and the Rockies had incorporated horses into their cultures by the early 1600s, long before direct contact with Europeans.

Rock art at a Wyoming site depicts a horse and rider, likely carved by ancestral Comanche or Shoshone people. (Credit: Pat Doak)

Challenging the Traditional Narrative

Previously, European accounts from the 1700s and 1800s suggested that horses spread into North America in significant numbers only after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, when Pueblo people temporarily expelled Spanish settlers from New Mexico. However, molecular archaeologist Yvette Running Horse Collin of the Center for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse in France questioned this narrative. As a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, she knew that Great Plains populations, such as the Lakota and Comanche, spoke of interacting with horses long before European arrival.

A Collaborative Effort

Running Horse Collin collaborated with Ludovic Orlando, a molecular archaeologist renowned for tracing the origins of domesticated horses to southwestern Asia over 4,200 years ago. Together, they organized a large-scale collaboration of Western scientists and Indigenous scholars, including members of the Lakota, Comanche, Pawnee, and Pueblo Nations. Archaeozoologist William Taylor of the University of Colorado Boulder during a news conference said

"Our findings indicate that horses spread from Mexico into North America by the turn of the 17th century and were raised locally, which strikingly lines up with Native American perspectives.”

Evidence of Early Integration

The team radiocarbon-dated remains of 23 horses from western North America and six from Argentina. Three of the North American horses dated back to the second half of the 1500s, well before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. These specimens were found in Kansas, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Reanalysis of a previously dated horse from Idaho using near-infrared radiation measurements provided a similarly early age estimate.

These early North American horse remains showed evidence of Native American groups caring for, riding, and culturally embracing horses by the early 1600s. For example, bony growths at the back of the skull suggested the use of a halter or bridle, while dental damage indicated the use of a bridle’s metal bit. One horse was found among ritual artifacts, implying ceremonial significance.

Tracing Ancestry and Diet

Chemical analyses of teeth revealed that some early North American horses were raised locally, while others were part of managed herds fed maize. DNA comparisons with modern horses showed these early horses were primarily of Spanish ancestry.

The Broader Implications

Some Indigenous oral histories suggest interactions with horses date back thousands of years to Ice Age equines. However, DNA analysis of Ice Age horse remains from Alaska showed no direct ties to later North American horses. While wild horses are believed to have evolved in North America tens of millions of years ago and died out around 10,000 years ago, this new evidence supports the idea that horses were integrated into Great Plains societies before European contact.

A New Standard for Archaeological Research

The collaboration between Western scientists and Indigenous knowledge

"sets a new standard for archaeological research into the early spread of the horse and the take-up of horse usage by Indigenous groups"

…globally, said University of Oxford archaeologist Peter Mitchell. This interdisciplinary approach not only enriches our understanding of the past but also honors the wisdom and traditions of Indigenous communities.

1

Taylor, W. T. T., Librado, P., Hunska Tašunke Icu, M., Shield Chief Gover, C., Arterberry, J., Luta Wiƞ, A., Nujipi, A., Omniya, T., Gonzalez, M., Means, B., High Crane, S., Dull Knife, B., Wiƞ, W., Tecumseh Collin, C., Ward, C., Pasqual, T. A., Chauvey, L., Tonasso-Calviere, L., Schiavinato, S., … Orlando, L. (2023). Early dispersal of domestic horses into the Great Plains and northern Rockies. Science (New York, N.Y.), 379(6639), 1316–1323. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adc9691