Horses may not have vanished outright from North America — they might have survived through Indigenous management and protection. Horse husbandry came later in Eurasia.
Human-horse association and assimilation hypothesis challenges extinction model
Key facts
- Hypothesis proposes horses survived not as wild populations but through human association, management, and protection
- Domestication involves reproductive control and sustained selection, but human association can begin long before such processes are complete
- Horse populations would have been highly mobile, capable of traveling considerable distances for water and forage
- If Eurasia.n horses were introduced, surviving native populations would have provided opportunity for genetic exchange through admixture
- Concept analogous to Neanderthal admixture with Homo sapiens — populations can disappear as recognizable lineages without disappearing completely as biological ancestry
- Genetic and archaeological research places emergence and major expansions of modern domestic horse lineages in Eurasia. within the fourth and third millennia BC
- Great horse cultures of the plains were historical phenomena dependent on access to horses, suitable territory, grazing, trade networks, and social stability — not eternal institutions
Sources
Equus scotti - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
Equus scotti is an extinct species of horse native to Pleistocene North America. Equus scotti. Temporal range: Early Pleistocene–Late Pleistocene.
A calendar chronology for Pleistocene mammoth and horse extinction in ...sciencedirect.com
We conclude that the extinction of horse (Equus ferus/caballus) in Alaska and Yukon is broadly contemporary with the arrival of humans in the area and took ...
Mammoths and North American horses vanished later than ... - CBCcbc.ca
Their paper, published in Nature Communications, found that mammoths and North American horses were in steep decline before the Pleistocene- ...
Horses in the United States - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
"A calendar chronology for Pleistocene mammoth and horse extinction in North America based on Bayesian radiocarbon calibration". Quaternary Science Reviews ...
Wild Horses as Native North American Wildlife | Animal Welfare Instituteawionline.org
The last North American extinction probably occurred between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago although more recent extinctions for horses have been suggested. late ...
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