Those who call for the brutal and systemic removal of wild horses and burros (donkeys) from US public lands are generally under the impression that they are an introduced species. This long-standing piece of misinformation is central to how these animals have been treated, as they are not offered the protections they might receive if they were recognized as a native species to this continent. However, according to evolutionary biology, all branches of the horse family (Equidae) originated in and co-evolved with the native flora and fauna of what is now known as the Americas, around 53 million years ago. Within this family, the genus Equus, which includes horses, asses, and zebras, first evolved in the Americas more than 4 million years ago. There are few other mammalian families that can lay as much claim to native status and belonging on this continent. 

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In contrast to another common belief, namely that horses became extinct in the Americas during the last Ice Age after crossing the Bering land bridge to Eurasia, recent discoveries in molecular biology, via the extraction of mitochondrial DNA in the melting permafrost, shows that they may have existed in North America at least as late as around 5000 years ago. This research dovetails with Native sources who speak of the Indigenous Horse of the Americas, also known as the Pre-Columbian Horse, a native horse that survived the Ice-Age and co-existed with Native Peoples long before the Europeans arrived in the late 1400s. Some of these sources document how the horses that were brought over by the Spanish, and later escaped or were released into the wild, went on to interbreed with Indigenous horses on their ancestral lands. Those who carry this ancient DNA are said to be identifiable by the presence of primitive markings such as a dorsal stripe, leg bars, guard hairs in the mane and tail, and/or curly hair.

 

Another myth often used to justify the ongoing mistreatment of wild horses and burros, is that they are "feral" rather than "wild", despite this word having little scientific basis from a biological viewpoint. In fact, regardless of modern domestication, their innate biology and the hardwiring of millions of years of evolution remains intact, as with other wild animals that have been domesticated. This explains why the equids that were re-introduced by European explorers and settlers, and escaped or were released into the wild, reverted so quickly and thoroughly to their ancient wild behavioral patterns. Regardless of their domestication, they a e survived and thrived in the often extreme climates and habitats where their ancestors evolved, without any need for hoof care, dental work, or human intervention of any kind. Further, recent science has revealed that the modern horse, Equus caballus, is the exact genetic equivalent to all extant equines, and is the most recent species known to have existed in the Americas. This means that all equids that exist today, whether wild or domesticated, represent an unbroken genetic line that can be traced back to their original wild ancestors. 

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The original Eurocentric theory, that no horses were to be found in the Americas prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus, was first forced to change in the 1830’s when paleontologist Joseph Leidy discovered horse skeletons embedded in American soil. At that time these fossilized horse bones were the oldest of any to be found in the world. Despite this new evidence of the origins of Equus, Western scientists, who had been taught that the horse had originated in Europe, expressed outrage at Leidy's discovery. These scientists were relying on a narrative used and documented by the colonizers of the Old World to justify their conquest of these ancestral lands, namely that the Native peoples were"savage" and uncivilized". This narrative stood in contrast to the horse that represented all things noble, powerful, and civilized at that time in the Spanish court. This superior mindset persisted in American thought and led the scientific community to doubt Leidy's discovery, though ultimately they were compelled to accept his findings.

 

Dr. Ross MacPhee, a curator of the American Museum of Natural History, pursuing DNA research into the origins of the equid species, states the following: 

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"Equidae, which includes all living horses, zebras, and asses, plus all of their extinct relatives, originated in North America approximately 53 million years ago. Since that time, equids have continuously evolved, producing numerous lineages. All of these are extinct except for the remaining species within genus Equus. The horse traveled over the Bering Land Bridge over millions of years as part of a migratory journey, along with many other mammals, many now extinct. Fossil evidence had long supported the idea that horses, once leaving the Americas, evolved into a new species, and so the horses which Spanish explorers brought to the New World were unfamiliar to this land. Advances in molecular genetics have proven otherwise: the horse completed its last adaptation in North America before its absence (for what was ostensibly a short-term blip in geologic time scales), and so when the Spanish and then early European settlers brought horses to his new land, these horses, Equus caballus, were, in fact, returning home.”

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Given the latest findings among archaeologists, zoologists, scientists, and scholars, and a resurgence in Native voices speaking out about the genealogy of their equine relatives, the accepted history on the origin and evolution of Equus is undergoing a review.

 

In 2020, when Emily Lena Jones radiocarbon-dated some unearthed horse bones from a site called Paa’ko on the outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico, settled by Puebloan people from 1525, she was surprised to find that these bones were at least 400 years old, far predating the establishment of the first known Spanish settlement in New Mexico in 1598. As journalist Andrew Curry writes in Horse Nations, from the May 2023 edition of Science magazine, this change in the historical records as to when European-born equids first appeared in the Americas, “opens up a wide range of cultural change happening outside of European view”. It shows how the settlers who were responsible for chronicling history at that time, had failed to take any of the Native oral histories into account. It is possible that this was due to the dispersal of horses into Native hands happening mostly out of sight of European chroniclers, or perhaps because the records were deliberately written in such a way that the role of the Spanish and later settlers was emphasized, in order to claim historical ownership of the horse. 

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A study from March 2023 that looked at the genetics of horses across the Old and New Worlds, through archaeological samples, revealed that the horse was deeply integrated into Indigenous societies (through herd management, ceremonial practices, and culture) long before the arrival of 18th-century European observers. For example, one fossilized horse included in the study was shown to have sustained a skull fracture at some point in its life which was unrelated to its later death, and that would have almost certainly required supportive care for the horse to survive. This is a testament to how tough these early horses must have been, and is an example of how well the Indigenous communities cared for them. Another example is of horse teeth found on the banks of the Kansas River in northeastern Kansas showing that the horse had been fed corn, a wintertime staple for Plains people, and dated pre-1600's. Archaeologist William Taylor, University of Colorado, a co-author of this study, remarked that this is "an incredible snapshot of an animal that was deeply integrated into Indigenous culture”.

 

In her 2019 dissertation, Yvette Running Horse Collin, scholar and enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Nation (Oglala Sioux Tribe), argues that the horse survived the Ice Age and that the Native Peoples of these continents had a relationship with the horse from Pleistocene times all the way to the time of so-called "first contact." In her work, Collin as presented fresh archaeological evidence, radiocarbon dating, isotope analysis, and ancient DNA to back up this perspective, and conducted interviews from seven First Nation tribes, all of which reported that horses had been an integral part of their culture prior to European arrival. Each of these indigenous communities shared their traditional creation stories describing the sacred place of the horse within their tribal societies. And despite speaking different languages and living in different geographical areas, all of these Native oral histories were in complete alignment around the story of the horse. As one Blackfoot (Nitsitapi) participant in Collin’s doctoral study states, “We have calmly known we've always had the horse, way before the settlers came. The Spanish never came through our area, so there's no way they could have introduced them to us."