A paper came out that changed the timeline for horses in North America. For a bit of background, horses actually evolved in North America, going extinct around 6000 ish years ago. Then they were reintroduced by the Spanish after 1492. Generally it was believed that the horses spread to the Western US fairly slowly, with previous thinking being that the 1680 Pueblo Revolt is how they spread. Due to the revolt, many horses were left behind by the Spanish which is where it was thought Western Natives got them. This paper found that horses were actually present in the Western United States about a century before, meaning that they must've been acquired through early trades/raids/ escapees. It’s a change in the historical timeline for sure, but not exactly a major ground shattering one.
There is some disagreement about this timeline though. Yvette Running Horse Collins, who was consulted on the paper, argued that the American Horses actually survived their supposed extinction, and were domesticated and used by the Lakota people. According to Collins (who wrote a dissertation on the subject), the Lakota people believed that they have always had horses, even before Europeans reintroduced them.
This is where cryptozoology comes in, as one focus of cryptozoology is on extinct animals thought to still be around. Cryptozoologists like Bernard Heuvelmans and Austin Whittall collected sightings and reports that point to the possible survival of the American horse. You can learn about some of them in this video. Whittall in particular is important, because his work ended in being cited in Yvette’s dissertation. It should be noted, Yvette’s conclusions and research have been heavily criticized, even by people who are open to the idea that horses may have survived. For example
She cited a website that claims the earth is only several thousand years old
She cites Ancient Origins, a pseudo-archaeological site you can read about here
Whatever you think about the eyewitness reports Collins’ sighted, there isn’t any physical evidence to back them up.
She claims that this rock art is actually showing a horse, despite its only resemblance to a horse being that they both have four legs.
Other Native American scholars have disagreed with her interpretation of Native legends. “Even in language, it shows up as “what is this?”” archaeologist Shield Chief Grover said. He pointed out that the word for horse in Pawnee means “new dog”, while in other languages they didn’t have a unique word for the horse either. Blackfeet called them “elk dogs", Comanche “magic dogs”, and the Assiniboine “great dogs.”
Most importantly, even this recent study contradicts her claims! They specifically tested the horse remains and found that they came from Spanish and English horses, not the extinct North American horse.
On March 31st in 2023, the Associated Press put out the following tweet. “A new analysis of horse bones revealed that horses were present in the American West by the early 1600s, earlier than many written histories suggest. The timing is significant because it matches up with the oral histories of multiple Indigenous groups”. The tweet linked to an article that discussed the study and also quoted Collins. This unfortunately led to a lot of people mistakenly believing that this study confirmed Collins’ belief that horses were always present in North America, even though it was supposed to be talking about Natives acquiring horses before the Pueblo revolt.
Some choice tweets:
“Natives have been trying to tell y'all they've been here the whole time. Time to get rid of that tired ass Spanish did it narrative.”
“I didn't know this was controversial belief. North America had horses before it had Europeans. But then again it does say "written history". And we know who was writing history.”
“Yes world, there were horses in Native culture before the settlers came” is the title of an article I frequently saw in the comments being shared as well that backed Collins’ claim.
Unfortunately due to the wording of the tweet, thousands of people now believe that a pseudoscientific theory with no physical evidence to support it was confirmed by science. The comments were full of people spreading distrust of “people in lab coats” and “science”. So to leave off, here are some quotes from archaeologist Carl Feagans about the story.
“Collin begins her dissertation with a clear chip on her shoulder for so-called “mainstream academia” and “Western science.” There is no “western” science. There is science. The methods of which work regardless of where you are geographically or what your ethnicity is. That’s the wonderful and marvelous thing about science is that it can be wielded by even the most oppressed or marginalized among us if its methods are adhered to. The only real trick is to observe the universe in a logical fashion and record data in a manner reasoned enough that it will provide consistent results.
While Collin rightfully pointed out the presence of bias among non-indigenous or non-Native researchers, she also pledged to overcome any bias of her own. She failed. From the outset. Her abstract revealed a conclusion that she began with and proclaimed the data she would find. No serious attempt was shown in her work to falsify her hypothesis, indeed, her null hypothesis was unclear: what would show her to be wrong as she gathered data?
Reliance on sources so questionable as to be considered pseudoscientific, pseudoarchaeological, and pseudohistoric, however, has the effect of diminishing any research endeavor to the fringes of science at best. It places doubt on any future work the researcher produces. And it taints the reputations of those that academically validate it. But more importantly, when it comes to advancing indigenous or historically marginalized people, such works become obstacles to those that deserve that advancement.”