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   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    New, exhaustive study probes hidden history of horses in the American   
   West    
      
     Date:   
         March 30, 2023   
     Source:   
         University of Colorado at Boulder   
     Summary:   
         Indigenous peoples as far north as Wyoming and Idaho may have   
         begun to care for horses by the first half of the 17th Century,   
         according to a new study by researchers from 15 countries and   
         multiple Native American groups.   
      
      
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   FULL STORY   
   ==========================================================================   
   A team of international researchers has dug into archaeological records,   
   DNA evidence and Indigenous oral traditions to paint what might be the   
   most exhaustive history of early horses in North America to date. The   
   group's findings show that these beasts of burden may have spread   
   throughout the American West much faster and earlier than many European   
   accounts have suggested.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   The researchers, including several scientists from the University of   
   Colorado Boulder, published their findings today in the journal Science.   
      
   To tell the stories of horses in the West, the team closely examined about   
   two dozen sets of animal remains found at sites ranging from New Mexico   
   to Kansas and Idaho. The researchers come from 15 countries and multiple   
   Native American groups, including the Lakota, Comanche and Pawnee nations.   
      
   "What unites everyone is the shared vision of telling a different kind   
   of story about horses," said William Taylor, a corresponding author   
   of the study and curator of archaeology at the CU Museum of Natural   
   History. "Focusing only on the historical record has underestimated the   
   antiquity and the complexity of Indigenous relationships with horses   
   across a huge swath of the American West."  For many of the scientists   
   involved, the research holds deep personal significance, added Taylor,   
   who grew up in Montana where his grandfather was a rancher.   
      
   "We're looking at parts of the country that are extraordinarily important   
   to the people on this project," he said.   
      
   The researchers drew on archaeozoology, radiocarbon dating, DNA sequencing   
   and other tools to unearth how and when horses first arrived in various   
   regions of today's United States. Based on the team's calculations,   
   Indigenous communities were likely riding and raising horses as far north   
   as Idaho and Wyoming by at least the first half of the 17th Century --   
   as much as a century before records from Europeans had suggested.   
      
   Groups like the Comanche, in other words, may have begun to form deep   
   bonds with horses mere decades after the animals arrived in the Americas   
   on Spanish boats.   
      
   The results line up with a wide range of Indigenous oral histories.   
      
   "All this information has come together to tell a bigger, broader,   
   deeper story, a story that natives have always been aware of but has   
   never been acknowledged," said Jimmy Arterberry, co-author of the new   
   study and tribal historian of the Comanche Nation in Oklahoma.   
      
   Study co-author Carlton Shield Chief Gover agreed, noting that the love   
   of horses may be one thing that extends across societies and borders.   
      
   "People are fascinated by horses. They've grown up with horses," said   
   Shield Chief Gover, a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and curator   
   for public anthropology at the Indiana University Museum of Archaeology   
   and Anthropology.   
      
   "We can talk to one another through our shared love of an animal."   
   Mud Pony For many Native American communities that shared love goes a   
   long way back.   
      
   The Pawnee, for example, tell the story of "Mud Pony," a boy who began   
   seeing visions of strange creatures in his sleep.   
      
   "He makes these little mud figurines of these animals he sees in   
   his dreams, and, overnight, they become alive," Shield Chief Gover   
   said. "That's how you get horses."  European historical records from the   
   colonial period, however, have tended to favor a more recent origin story   
   for horses in the West. Many scholars have suggested that Native American   
   communities didn't begin caring for horses until after the Pueblo Revolt   
   of 1680. During this event, Pueblo people in what is today New Mexico   
   temporarily overthrew Spanish rule, releasing European livestock in   
   the process.   
      
   Taylor, also an assistant professor of anthropology at CU Boulder,   
   and his colleagues didn't think it fit as an origin story for the   
   relationships between humans and horses in the West: "We thought: There's   
   something fishy about this story."  Clues in bone With funding from   
   the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), they formed an equine dream   
   team that includes archaeologists from the University of Oklahoma and   
   University of New Mexico. Geneticist Ludovic Orlando and Lakota scholar   
   Yvette Running Horse Collin took part from the University of Toulouse.   
      
   "This research demonstrates how multiple different types of data can   
   be integrated to address the fascinating historical question of how   
   and when horses spread across the West," said NSF Archaeology program   
   director John Yellen.   
      
   The researchers began collecting as much data as they could on horses   
   remains from the West. DNA evidence, for example, suggests that most   
   Indigenous horses had descended from Spanish and Iberian horses, with   
   British horses becoming more common in the 18thand 19th Centuries.   
      
   "Our analyses show it was born and raised locally," Taylor said. "It   
   was cared for, and when that animal passed, there was extraordinary   
   significance to that event."  The remains of this horse, along with   
   several others from the study, also seemed to date back to around the   
   turn of the 17th Century, decades before the start of the Pueblo Revolt.   
      
   How animals like it arrived in Wyoming isn't clear, but it's likely that   
   Europeans weren't involved in their initial transport.   
      
   Shield Chief Gover explained that few Indigenous people will be surprised   
   by the results of the study. But the team's findings may help to   
   illustrate for academic scientists just how important these animals were   
   to the history of Indigenous peoples. The Pawnee, who lived in Nebraska,   
   for example, rode horses on twice-a-year buffalo hunts, traveling farther   
   and faster into the "sea of grass" of the Great Plains. Comanche also   
   galloped on horseback to hunt buffalo, while owning a lot of horses was   
   a sign of wealth.   
      
   "I don't want to diminish the reverence and the respect we have for   
   horses," Arterberry said. "We see them as gifts the Creator gave us, and,   
   because of that, we survived and thrived and became who we are today."   
   Respecting horses Study co-author Chance Ward, a master's student in   
   Museum and Field Studies at CU Boulder, would like to see the archaeology   
   community begin to treat those relationships with more respect. He   
   was born and raised on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota,   
   which is home to four bands of the Lakota Nation.   
      
   Ward grew up listening to his mother's childhood stories about riding   
   ponies in the Bear Creek community. His father's parents started a ranch   
   on the reservation where members of the family practice rodeo today.   
      
   He explained that many researchers don't handle animal remains with the   
   same care they reserve for cultural objects and human remains.   
      
   "They tend to be thrown into a box or bag where they hit against each   
   other and break," Ward said. "This project is a chance for us as Native   
   people to put our voices out there and take better care of important   
   and sacred animals in museum collections."   
       * RELATED_TOPICS   
             o Plants_&_Animals   
                   # Horses # Veterinary_Medicine # Animals # Mammals   
             o Fossils_&_Ruins   
                   # Cultures # Human_Evolution # Anthropology # Archaeology   
       * RELATED_TERMS   
             o Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas o Goldfish o   
             Invasive_species o Icelandic_horse o Pig o Miniature_horse o   
             Bald_Eagle o Yellow_fever   
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Story Source: Materials provided by   
   University_of_Colorado_at_Boulder. Original written by Daniel Strain,   
   Nicholas Goda. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Related Multimedia:   
       * Horse_and_her_foal   
   ==========================================================================   
   Journal Reference:   
      1. William Timothy Treal Taylor et al. Early dispersal of domestic   
      horses   
         into the Great Plains and northern Rockies. Science, 2023 DOI:   
         10.1126/ science.adc9691   
   ==========================================================================   
      
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230330172129.htm   
      
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