Native Americans corralled Spanish horses decades before Europeans arrived

 

According to a recent study, Indigenous groups rapidly incorporated horses of Spanish ancestry into Great Plains cultures by the early 1600s, decades before Europeans arrived. Some Indigenous oral histories suggest that their interactions with horses go back thousands of years to equines that might have survived the Ice Age. DNA comparisons with a range of modern horses showed that early North American horses were primarily of Spanish ancestry.

Native Americans domesticated a variety of plants and animals, including corn (maize), beans, squash, potatoes and other tubers, turkeys, llamas, and alpacas, as well as a variety of semidomesticated species of nut- and seed-bearing plants. Native people found uses for every part of an animal for survival such as turtle shells were used to make rattles, pots, bowls, calendars and bags; deer or elk antlers were often carved into buttons and beads or used as awls; castor oil from beavers was prized for making things waterproof.

A collaboration between Western scientists and Native Americans finds that Indigenous groups rapidly incorporated horses of Spanish ancestry into Great Plains cultures by the early 1600s. Some Indigenous oral histories say their relationship with horses goes back even farther to possible equine survivors of the Ice Age.