American History Hit - How Horses Conquered America (Twice)

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

Horses have been a bulwark of American culture and society for centuries. Think of cowboys in the Mid-West or Native Americans riding bareback on the Great Plains. But new, ground-breaking archeological evidence has emerged to suggest horses were present in the Americas more than 10,000 years ago, shattering our previous assumptions that they were first brought to North America by the Spanish.In today’s episode of American History Hit, Don speaks to Dr William Taylor about these new findings, exploring how the mighty horse conquered America, went extinct, and then conquered it once more.Produced by Benjie Guy and Freddy Chick. Mixed by Joseph Knight. Senior Producer is Charlotte LongFor more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Listen to that sound and what do you hear? The pummeling vibrations of charging horse hooves on the ground, of course. Historically, the domestication and development of the working horse is commonly attributed to European and Asian cultures. In the Americas, the traditional story told has always been that only when Spanish explorers arrived in the new world, bringing trained horses by ship, were native peoples made aware of the horse and the plentiful ways they might use it?

Only then would those indigenous tribes acquire the horse and begin to enjoy the great advances made possible by this new breed of animal. They were suddenly free to move over greater distances, hauling greater loads. They could hunt more effectively, more profitably. They could make new and much more lethal kinds of war. Recent archaeological studies of this horse human history of North America have called that accepted theory, into question. And with us today is an archo-zoologist at the center of it all. Dr. William Taylor

is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and curator of archaeology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. Dr. William Taylor, welcome to American History Hit. Hey, great to be here, Don, and thanks for having me. Before we define the more modern historical revision you're a part of, let's outline in more detail the accepted wisdom that it challenges. It was always assumed that the horse arrived in North America with Hernan Cortez in about 1519, when he arrived in Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico. But actually, the horse was here first in North America millions of years prior, correct? Yeah, you know, the horse was a fundamentally American animal, at least in the deep time sense. I'm not a paleontologist, but palatological

research suggests to us that the horse and its closest relatives, donkeys, zebras are members of that lineage that are still alive today evolved kind of in the grasslands of the Great Plains and of North America. And there are horse-like creatures that can be traced back tens of millions of years. But the genus that we know of horses today really dates about to the time of what we call the Pleistocene, the beginning of the last Ice Age, about three million years ago. And that story, that chapter really began right here in the plains and in North America. What we know about the process from there is that those kind of American horses dispersed outwards from North America into other parts of the world, into South America, into Eurasia

and Africa. And there probably was a fair amount of back and forth at times that North America and Eurasia were connected. But ultimately, the horses that were domesticated or entered into different relationships with people in Eurasia, they ultimately, have, I think it's fair to say, an American pedigree. Wow. So they actually went in the reverse. The migrations would have happened over the Bering Strait and so forth. Is that the theory? You know, at various times, depending on what was going on with ice and sea level,

North America and Eurasia have really been part of a single hole. And so those intervals, those periods were definitely periods of connection and integration and movement for not just horses, but a lot of other animals, including people, right? So that's part of the process that brought folks, people, humans to the Americas too. Excellent. So this is part one of the fundamental misconception that we're addressing here in this program. I was certainly under the impression, and completely wrongly so, that the horse began in the steps of Eurasia. I always assumed that because of the Mongolian horses and all that sort of thing, that that's all where it began. And then they came over along with humans. But it's actually in reverse is what.

what paleontological evidence proves, does it prove it? Yeah, I think that's fundamentally sort of accepted. How much would prehistoric man have encountered that version of the horse, that prehistoric horse back then? Is there any kind of record of that relationship aside from hunter and prey? The story of people and horses is, in many ways, the most ancient that we know about archaeologically. probably the first animal that there's solid evidence of folks hunting, but also other kinds of

more nuanced relationships like making tools out of horse remains, even potentially processing of horse hides. The sky's the limit on what you can infer there about the earliest human horse relationships. Those go back half a million or maybe even a million years in certain areas of Eurasia. The same is true actually when we think about North America and our story of people and horses. In fact, the oldest archaeological evidence for human-animal interactions of any kind come from the Canadian Yukon, a series of sites called Bluefish Caves. Those date to more than 20,000 years ago. And those contain evidence that the first folks that are in what is today, North America, that we're still probably on the other side of this great ice sheet that would have separated

the continents at that time. But those folks were already hunting horses. So we know that literally the first Americans there had that relationship with horses. Now, one of the challenges about the archaeological record is we don't have the blessing of being able to see every aspect of what those relationships were like. If we have some fortuitous circumstance like a cave painting or something like we might know from France or Spain, sometimes we get to see, okay, there was more going on here besides hunting. But archaeological data from across North America show us that after the first Americans made it to this part of the world, there was a really widespread relationship with people and horses. And the things that we know, the things that are preserved are hunting,

butchery, obviously eating of horses, but also making tools, right? We can see that as well in the things that survive into the modern world from that period. They've also found evidence of ceremonial use, burial sites having, I guess, skeletal remains of horses. Around the world, that's another one of those things where if folks were doing ceremonial things that involved burying something, we have an archaeological record of it. That in itself sort of limits our time period to the more recent chapters of history. But ceremonial relationships with horses in which horses were buried alongside people actually predates domestication, probably. We at least find horse remains in kind of funerary contexts in some parts of Eurasia that would

predate the first evidence of domestication. It's always a challenge for the uneducated of us, myself included, to manage these massive eons of understanding. But really, this discussion is about, as you point out just a moment ago, prehistoric, ancient, and more modern. We eventually get to the modern, which has its own massive revision, a little bit further along in this conversation. But for now, let me just review. So the horse is a plentiful species in the Americas for millennia. undisputed fact. What's also undisputed is that the horse, once extinct, makes its return with the Europeans. What is intriguing enough for discussion is how that horse is newly distributed among the native peoples. I mean, that's where this whole argument shifts over, right?

I think it's important to point out that our understanding that story is actually changing from both ends. This project that came out this last couple weeks is addressing it from one end. But the better that science gets in terms of the tools we have available to us, the more we're actually learning about that process of what was once considered a very simple sort of extinction model, right? What we're finding is that probably there's a lot more complexity to that early chapters of human horse story in North America too. You know, at one point, folks thought 15, 20,000 years ago, horses were gone.

Now we're seeing that in some areas we have indisputable archaeological evidence that pushes that date closer to 10,000 years. And more recently, innovations in sedimentary DNA-based research have actually shown that at the high northern latitudes in North America, some of those ancestral horse lineages were still alive, perhaps as late as 5,000 years ago. And so the story is constantly changing and it's getting more complex and varied and also sometimes extending that timeline in which there would have been overlap with people and horses, perhaps a little bit further. Basically, science would be able to determine through DNA where horses came from, just like humans. Within limits, yeah. I mean, DNA allows us to study those ancestral connections. There's

almost nothing you can do scientifically that is without room for interpretation or dispute. But yeah. I'll be right back with more from Dr. William Taylor after this short break. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and on my podcast, not just the tutors from history hit, I try to make sense of everything that baffled our early modern ancestors. Like, what do you do with your waist? If you put your dung hill up against your neighbour's wall, you're going to cause rising damp. Would Henry the 8th ever consider executing his wife,

the Queen of England, and Berlin? I'm not even sure if the Billin's took it seriously because why would they have any reason to suspect Henry the 8th would really get rid of his queen? And why do men grow bards? During puberty, the male body heats. up and a smoke rises in the body pushes out the hair in the face. So the beard is actually a form of excrement. In other words, not just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors,

twice a week every week. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just as a sort of midpoint in this conversation, why does this matter? We're about to discuss something that's a really big historical revision. Why does this matter today? If Native societies here had an earlier relationship with a horse, what does that imply? How does this change our understanding of their societies? Horses are extraordinarily important to this part of the world. And I grew up in Montana. My family was kind of a horse family. My grandpa was a rancher and all that. Those connections, right, the cultural connections with the horse still mean a whole lot to people pretty much all across the western part of this continent. Because of that, the story of the horse has

always been a political one. Part of the process of colonizing and settling the Western U.S. was like the slaughter of indigenous horses, because that was a source of power. 150 years ago, one of the biggest military defeats of U.S. cavalry has ever suffered was in the plains of eastern Montana, and there wasn't a counter battle that the U.S. military figured it out and defeated planes nations on horseback, right? But they just continually lost. And it was only the process of removing that power base that settled the issue once and for all. So horses have always been embedded in that issue of power and control. For a lot of native folks, it's a source of autonomy, there's spiritual connections, there's identity wrapped up in it.

And it's the same for other folks out here, too. There's threads that link people to horses in pretty much every culture that's out west. So it's important that we get the facts right because this stuff still affects how people live day to day in 2023. Along with all that, I think of it as a technology discussion almost. The horse is prior to the combustible engine, basically, or the steam engine, certainly. The horse is the central technology that makes society move a lot faster and be able to carry bigger loads. I mean, it's a really central part of industry. So if native peoples had mastered this horse in their society, it infers a greater sophistication and complexity to that society. I think one of the issues here, of course,

there's an aspect of horses that is this totally civilization and history-changing technology. From across the world in every context, that relationship with horses has been transformative in so many ways. But in the way that we've thought about it, it's almost been an incidental piece of the story here in which horses are part of the colonization story. And yeah, maybe native folks got them for a little while, but ultimately horses were part of the guns, germs, and steel here that successfully delivered a colonial outcome to European folks. That narrative has made a steamroll over the uniqueness of and the contributions and the innovations that have come out of Indian country. When we actually take a zoomed out look at that relationship,

with horses and we look at some of the new findings that we're looking at archaeologically, it shows us that that relationship was in many ways, the integration of that technology and the things that came out of it were self-nominated. Folks were making new choices, developing new relationships in this really creative and kind of unique way. The things that came out of indigenous relationships with horses were, even if we're taking a purely technological view, they were different. There were new ways to raise a horse, new ways to train a horse, there's new ways to control a horse or use them in combat or battle, right? All those are things that folks have known for a long time. They tend to not totally get their fair share in the

historical narrative that we tell. I mean, we're so used to their presence in our society that they've become almost quaintly familiar and not necessarily the world-changing technology that they certainly once were. The European colonization that you're talking about, The arrival of the Spanish in what is today, Mexico, is kind of part one. That's the opening of this theory, that Cortez arrives in 1519, the horses come with him. And this is the first introduction of these tamed beasts of burden that can be used in amazing ways. The second piece is something new to me that I learned only by preparing for this interview. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

This is something that happens in the southwest of the continent here. It was always assumed that this is when horses were stolen from the Spanish. Talk to me about this event. Spanish colonial activities sort of extended northwards as far as what is today. New Mexico and perhaps a little bit beyond, beginning in a pretty formal way around 1600. And there are all across, we might call New Spain, there's a lot of inks spilled about Spanish control over horses. So there were laws on the books which said native folks are forbidden to have the horse.

And understandably, if you just took a look at the documents, it would be, pretty reasonable to infer that even though the Spanish showed up in a very permanent way, that they were able to pretty much maintain control over horses. And this event of 1680 sort of brought an end to whatever control Spanish folks had, at least temporarily, right? It was a uprising of subjugated pueblo folks that expelled formal Spanish presence from New Mexico for around a decade or so. And the idea, as the story goes, right, is that the Spanish are given the boot. It's like they finally have relinquished that control over their animals.

That's the launch point for how horses made their way into native nations across the plains and the Rockies, because finally that tight-fisted Spanish control is out. And the horse is free to distribute from that platform. So that theory says that at that point, 1680, just before the 1700s begin, the horses are suddenly distributed around the country and all those tribes that eventually profit from their presence, which is far, far away, a thousand miles away, very expediently get their horses and begin to train them and understand them and integrate them. That's a very, very fast timeline. It is, and I don't think fast timelines should necessarily surprise us when we're talking about

horses. Folks have quickly and immediately recognized the utility of horses, and it's been sometimes shocking the speed in which they can spread and disseminate into cultures that are interested. The difference in that story, though, is, you know, who was in control? And in story number one, it's not that surprising that horses spread fast, but it was only after Spanish sort of relinquished that control. And our archaeological research tried to sort of poke into this story a little bit because the truth is it doesn't really line up with a lot of indigenous perspectives on when and how and where they encountered the horse. So, for example, one of the greatest horse nations in human history, right, human story would be the Comanche. And I don't think anybody would dispute that.

But folks like me, Euro-American guys from the outside looking in, have looked at these two data points and said, hey, we know by the 1700s there were Comanche folks all across the Southern Plains. and they clearly had this interest in horses. They were trading horses. They were moving around. They came from the Rockies. They came from half a continent away. And the idea has always been, well, it was the desire to get those horses that pulled them down. And the Camanschi folks that we talking to and working with on this project, their stories say we had the horse.

And we have words for horses that mean different things. it was that story that we found conflicting between the archaeological and the historic records. We poked into it from the scientific end, and we found that pretty much across the western U.S., from Idaho to Wyoming to Kansas, we were finding evidence that horses were integrated into native societies across the plains as early as 1,600 or so, perhaps even earlier. So our evidence that we have here suggests that the horses that show up at this time are of Spanish or Iberian ancestry. So that would suggest that they spread northwards out of Spanish, Mexico, or wherever it was,

but that the timeline there of who was in control when that happened was wrong. So we're moving that timeline. We're backing it up, let's say a century or more, to give these findings that you have, the space that they need, historically speaking. The key to this is that we are no longer attributing it necessarily to a slow build, but rather they had a lot more time to gear up with this and a lot more evidence supports that. Yeah, I think the archaeology is showing us is that beyond the first batch of horses off the boat in Mexico, probably there was a lot less rigorous control over where horses were and who

controlled them beginning in that earliest stages of the story. And honestly, we hypothesize it's a little speculative. But in the paper, we hypothesized it may have even been indigenous folks in northern Mexico that first brought horses into what is today, the U.S. and the Southern Plains. And for some folks, that story might be centuries older than you would suggest if you were just looking at the history books, right? And I think that helps us kind of reorient how we think about the story of people and horses in the Western U.S. For many folks, it's older than we've been giving it credit for. That should shift the way we think about it a little bit.

Not only that, but what I find delicious to consider is that if the prehistoric horse was already there with early man, who are the ancestors of these Native American tribes we traditionally talk about, then those oral histories would have been passed down. Understanding and probably even pictures of those horses would have been transmitted down through the ages. And we're talking about thousands of years, perhaps. So that when the horses show up, as if, you know, a reunion has happened here. that the species that was once with these same people is suddenly come home. So this is probably the most extraordinarily controversial piece of the paper here. Some of our tribal partners, Oglala, Lakota folks in particular, do have that story. They have a story of an earlier relationship with the horse.

Now, 10,000 years is an extraordinary amount of time. And so some folks would look at that and say, that horse must have persisted longer. our study doesn't tackle that stuff. But what I would say is that our research is showing that there is truth encoded in those oral traditions. And if we work collaboratively with scientists, whether those scientists are Euro-American or Native scientists or both, sometimes we can tease out what those truths are and use that collaborative perspective to make our science better. And so I think it's important when we stay curious about this sort of things. I'm not here to tell you how feasible it is for the mechanics of oral traditions to be passed on. All I know

is that, you know, working with tribes on these perspectives gives us a new lens to look at the archaeological stuff and uncover aspects of the story that we might have missed because we weren't considering those ideas. I don't think I've read an article in Science magazine that was not more of a synthesis of different kinds of disciplines as I read here. You know, it's a really interesting marriage of different ways of thinking scientifically and sociologically, not to mention historically, through this whole problem. And the fascinating aspect of it is it's pinned to something so familiar to us in the modern age. And yet now we're thinking about it so differently. It's a bit of the history told by the victor's story in a way because the proud story of the

horse is precious to colonial truths. You know, we've brought this great civilization to these shores and not only Christianized, but also gave technology to these people. This completely flies in the face of that. It does. And I think the sad fact of history and archaeology, for those of us who love it, it's sometimes a little hesitant to admit that part of the genesis of our discipline has been to kind justify our presence here. And if we really want the truth, now in the 21st century, we're going to have to work kind of hard to unpack that and tease that out a little bit. Yeah, sometimes it might be necessary when we make a museum exhibit or when we teach a class, we're not just showing pictures of cowboys or when we talk about horses that we add some other pieces of that story into the things

that we're teaching the public and teaching kids. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's part of telling a good story. I totally agree. I think this whole calling this political correctness or any kind of way of shading this is so wrong because it's very exciting to get this information that fills in gaps, it's a really important factor to realize that those images, cliche though they are in the movies, of these barebacked riding Native American warriors, well, they were incredible with their horses. Where did that horsemanship come from? It came from training and taming these horses and understanding how to work the horse. That takes a long time culturally to get right. So this is a story that addresses that factor and kind of fills in the gap there.

really interesting study. This is all very new stuff. I just want to really alert people to this. I look through an article that was just published in Science Magazine. It's a really exciting new study that's all a correction of a misunderstanding, not only of the origins of the horse in the world, but also of its arrival and distribution among these peoples, that the horse's arrival in the new world was more of a homecoming than an introduction. It's fundamental stuff and something that an archaeo-zoologist would be passionate about. You're the first one I've ever talked to in my life. Well, you know, we are a rare species, you know. There's not a lot of us out there. You've popped up in the middle of Pangea and distributed yourselves around the world.

Thank you, Dr. William Taylor, for enlightening us to this interesting. This is going to unfold more, isn't it? Yeah, you know, this is just a starting point. And luckily enough for me, this is my job. So I'll keep doing this stuff as long as I can and asking new questions and excited to see where the story takes us. We look forward to the best-selling book yet to come. Thanks so much for joining us. All right. Take care. for listening to this episode of American History Hit. I hope you enjoyed it. Please don't forget to like, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'll see you next time. This podcast includes music from Epidemic Sound.