The continent of North America is where horses first emerged. Millions of years of evolutionary changes transformed the horse before it became the natural companion of many Indigenous Peoples and the flagship symbol of the Southwest. An international team uniting 87 scientists across 66 institutions around the world now begins to refine the history of the American horse. This work, which embeds cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural research between Western and traditional Indigenous science, is published today in the journal Science.
The continent of North America is where horses first emerged. Millions of years of evolutionary changes transformed the horse before it became the natural companion of many Indigenous Peoples and the flagship symbol of the Southwest. An international team uniting 87 scientists across 66 institutions around the world now begins to refine the history of the American horse. This work, which embeds cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural research between Western and traditional Indigenous science, is published today in the journal Science.
„Horses have been part of us since long before other cultures came to our lands, and we are a part of them,“ states Chief Joe American Horse, a leader of the Oglala Lakota Oyate, traditional knowledge keeper, and co-author of the study. In 2018, at the instruction of her elder knowledge keepers and traditional leaders, Dr. Yvette Running Horse Collin contacted Prof Ludovic Orlando, French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) scientist.
She had completed her Ph.D., which focused on deconstructing the history of horses in the Americas. Up until that point, the field had been dominated by Western academics, and Indigenous voices had been largely dismissed. She sought an opportunity to develop a research program in which traditional Indigenous sciences could be brought forward and considered on equal footing with Western science.
For the Lakota, scientifically investigating the history of the Horse Nation in the Americas was a perfect starting point, as it would highlight the places of connection and disconnection between Western and Indigenous approaches. The elders were clear: working on the horse would provide a roadmap for learning how to combine the power of all scientific systems, traditional and Western alike. And by doing so, eventually provide new solutions to the many challenges affecting people, communities and biodiversity around the globe. For now, as her ancestors before her, Dr. Running Horse Collin would follow the lead of the Horse Nation.
Part of the program was to test a narrative that features in almost every single textbook on the history of the Americas: whether European historic records accurately captured the story of Indigenous people and horses across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains.
