What Really Happened to America's Horses?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
- What Really Happened to America's Horses?
Discover the fascinating history of North America's vanished giants, including wild horses. Journey through time to uncover the mystery behind the disappearance of these magnificent creatures over 11,700 years ago and their remarkable return with European explorers. Learn about the transformative impact of horses on Native American cultures and the significant role of the Columbian Exchange in reshaping the world. This educational and engaging video delves into the evolution of horses, the Quaternary extinction event, and the profound changes brought about by their reintroduction.
North America did not have modern horses, but only precursors to the modern horses. Modern horses were imported by the Spanish in the 1500s.
Absolutely correct! North America's prehistoric horses, like the Equus genus, were indeed precursors to modern horses. The horses we're familiar with today were indeed reintroduced by the Spanish in the 1500s like you can see in the video. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
@@thevoiceofwonderlust yeah I’ve heard horses were here but got hunted for meat or left over towards Asia when the land bridge existed , though they where expert horse men one group of natives were very quickly so makes me wonder did they know of horses before the Europeans re introduced them to the continent example by storytelling by campfire long ago? Cause they have found cave drawings in the Grand Canyon of horses from long ago been dated to whatever.
Modern horses would not have been too different from older horses, at least twelve thousand years ago.
@@Svensk7119 there were no horse “fossils” from 12000 years ago.
@@cathiehutcheson6556 Fossils are extremely rare. But if the progenitors of modern horses were alive in the Americas 'til the end of the Pleistocene, they were not very different from modern horses. The little amount of time guarantees that.
Dogs, as a reference, are the longest domesticated animal species, bar none. Fourteen thousand plus. For all intents and purposes, they are still wolves, genetically.
amazing
Glad you think so!
Intresting👍👍
Indeed 🐴
it happened in Europe also. And South America.
Absolutely, you're correct. The extinction of megafauna during the late Quaternary period wasn't exclusive to North America. Europe and South America experienced similar losses, with large mammals like mammoths in Europe and giant ground sloths in South America disappearing.
So if we want to buy into the theory that modern humans were mainly responsible for the demise of the North American megafauna by over hunting then we need to balance the number of the megafauna with the number of humans. The prevalent theory is that North America was very sparsely populated which leaves us with a problem.
I agree, there's no way it was 100% caused by humans. I bet humans even played a really small part. If this was common with homo sapiens, we would have seen this in Africa and Asia, but elephants, lions and tigers all still exist. I think it was mostly climate. Specifically ice ages.
Researchers suggest that even small groups of humans, using efficient hunting strategies, could have a substantial impact, especially on species like horses that had no prior experience with human predators. But other factors, such as climate change and habitat disturbance, likely played a significant role.
Since the original Native American horses went extinct thousands of years before the Spanish reintroduced horses after Columbus, I why didn't Native Americans domesticate the bison(buffalo), elk, moose, and caribou for the purposes of riding and carrying their belongings, long before they acquired horses from Europeans after Columbus?
Great question! Native Americans didn't domesticate bison, elk, moose, and caribou due to several factors. These animals' temperaments, social structures, and physical attributes made them less suitable for domestication compared to horses. Horses, once reintroduced, were quickly adopted due to their suitability for riding and carrying loads.
I suspect ancient man saw horses as a source of protein. Besides the humans of that time period had very few possessions to move from place to place. Their hunter/gather social units had no need of a domesticated animal except perhaps for dogs.
You make a valid point! Ancient peoples indeed relied on horses and other large animals primarily as a food source. The nomadic lifestyle of many hunter-gatherer societies meant that their material possessions were minimal and easily transportable without the need for large domesticated animals. The relationship with dogs, as you mentioned, was likely more about companionship and aid in hunting rather than transportation.
Yeah and the Norse visted long before Columbus
Indeed, the Norse, particularly the Vikings, are believed to have reached parts of North America around 1000 AD, well before Columbus in 1492. Their settlements, like L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada, provide archaeological evidence of this. Your comment points to a fascinating, though less widely known, chapter in the history of transatlantic exploration.
@@thevoiceofwonderlust exactly, yes Columbus got the whole rime about 1492 but obviously others knew about these lands over here long before he did, he just got more famous for it vs other explorers who were in north America long before he was, Vikings even gave native Americans a different name for the people living here.
It wasn't until Columbus that Europians stayed in the Americas.
Yes, thats right. The name they gave them was "Skræling".
I wonder if those extinct breeds were domesticable.
That's an intriguing thought! Many of the horse breeds that existed in prehistoric America were likely similar to those later domesticated in Eurasia. Considering the successful domestication of horses elsewhere, it's plausible that these breeds could have been domesticated too, had they survived.
They were eaten.
They were not primarily hunted to extinction. While hunting by humans played a role, climate change and habitat loss were significant factors too.
@@thevoiceofwonderlustclimate and environmental change is a natural occurrence and the Earth go through cycles every thousandths or millions of years. You mentioned in the video about horse evolution, yet they have been evolving with such cycles. The only pattern of the past thousands of years with the collapse of megafauna in the 5 continents is the rise and spread of humans. Africa still retains much more megafauna because they co-evolved with humans. Of course hunting by humans is not only the cause but possibly the most detrimental is human effects in the environment. Such as the constant use of fires, accelerating bush and wildfires.
You are right, but natural climate shifts and environmental changes can have profound effects on ecosystems, potentially leading to species extinction without significant human interference. These natural processes can alter habitats and food sources so drastically that even well-adapted species struggle to survive. Also the timing of human arrival and the extinction of megafauna doesn't always perfectly align, suggesting other factors could have played a major role. While human influence is significant, it's crucial to consider the full range of natural dynamics in these complex ecological events.