Archaeology and genomics together with Indigenous knowledge revise the human-horse story in the American West

Wed, 4 Oct 2023 04:42:01 +1100

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://theconversation.com/archaeology-and-genomics-together-with-indigenous-knowledge-revise-the-human-horse-story-in-the-american-west-202222>

"Few places in the world are more closely linked with horses in the popular
imagination than the Great Plains of North America. Romanticized stories of
cowboys and the Wild West figure prominently in popular culture, and domestic
horses are embedded in everything from place names, like Wild Horse Mesa, to
sporting mascots, like the Denver Broncos.

Horses first evolved in the Americas around 4 million years ago. Then horses
largely disappeared from the fossil record by about 10,000 years ago. However,
archaeological finds from the Yukon to the Gulf Coast make it clear that horses
were an important part of ancient lifeways for the early peoples of North
America.

Millennia later, horses were reintroduced by European colonists, and eventually
the Great Plains became home to powerful Indigenous horse cultures, many of
which leveraged their expertise on horseback to maintain sovereignty even amid
the rising tides of colonial exploitation, genocide and disease.

But how did horses become part of life on the Great Plains? And are there
pieces of that story that may be missing from today’s popular narratives?"

Via Future Crunch:
<https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-endometriosis-poverty-mexico-indigenous-canada/>

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

Comment via email

Home E-Mail Sponsors Index Search About Us