Horses (Equus) have had a long and intimate relationship with humans. One of my most cherished remembrances of early Long Island is that of a friendship I had with a long time local farmer and horse and mule lover—Jim. When his own farm was retired from agricultural production—on which he used only horses and mules for power…he could not retire the team of horses and mules he had trained and used almost all of his life. At that time several local farms had been converted from crop production to growing trees and nursery stock. My friend JIm found work for his teams in the hundreds of acres of closely spaced nursery stock—row plantings where big wide tractors could not go. Jim’s team of mules and horses worked to till those rows quickly and very effectively for many years.
Horses have been used as beasts of burden, as general transport, and as essential agricultural work-animals used to till the soil and harvest our foods and grains. They worked in mines. In wartime, they carried massive burdens, as well as the officer class to the front lines. They served famously as mounts for our western beef herders—our cowboys. Municipal police departments use horses to safely and effectively control crowds. Their uses have been eclipsed Yet they are still part of wild America. Wild horses are presently found on every continent except Antartica. In the wild they interact with the natural environment to improve soil and increase plant and animal diversity. In the past, and not so long ago, everyone had a stable for the family horse. In those days human-horse relations were very intimate and common.
Today, horses continue to serve as a source of healthy exercise. They are used in sports like polo, and observer sports like horse racing. Most recently horses are kept as service animals where they facilitate horse-rider interactions helpful to improve human pysiological well-being and realtionships which improve motor coordination, relaxation, and better mental health. Their sounds, smells and appearance, are all part of a deep, strong bond between these patient, big and beautiful animals and their human owners, which anyone who has had the opportunity to experience finds unforgettable.
The horse genus Equus first evolved in North America, millions of years ago. Adapted to grasslands, the genus spread widely over North America, evolving from a tiny species no taller than a large dog, into a near-modern size horse in the Late Pleistocene. During the Pleistocene or Glacial Age (2.6 million years ago to 12,000 years ago) when a land bridge connected North America and Asia, wild horses expanding their range, migrated west across the Bering Strait land bridge into Eurasia.
Perhaps the first contact between horse and humans occurred somewhere along the Bering Straight land corridor late in the Pleistocene. For during that time, our own species (Homo sapiens) was migrating east from Eurasia into North America, as horses went west to populate and form herds in Asia and eastern Europe. However, by 10,000 years ago, horses horses in North America had disappeared from the fossil record, perhaps as a result of climate change, helped on by human predators who may have hunted them—no one knows.
But they thrived in Europe, and in the great grass-lands or steppes of central Asia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. About 8,000 years ago in what is now Kazakhstan, the people of these vast grasslands or steppes may have first hunted horses for food and skins. But they soon came to realize that they were more valuable alive and began to use them for riding, to facilitate hunting, as beasts of burden and as a source of meat too. These people of the steppes domesticated horses. They herded horses into corrals and paddocks where they were used as a source of food, milk, skins, and to carry burdens.
The advent of the domestic horse changed the economy of the steppe people. No longer were they forced to remain in one place. They could pack up their horses with their goods, tents, and families and travel to better lands for grazing, and hunting. Their change in lifestyle gave them an advantage over other tribes. There were able to exploit the grassland environment more effectively for meat and food. They accessed more calories, and nutritious foods and were healthier, taller, and were more likely to dominate their neighbors.
From about 6-7000 years ago these horse-based pastoralists spread out from Kazakhstan into western Europe riding and leading their horses. Their nomadic lifestyle, military prowess and horsemanship permitted them to dominate those areas into which they moved.
These “horse people” who dominated others, brought not only the horse but also the language they spoke—Indo-European. Indo-European is the parent language of almost all the modern languages we speak in the west today. The Indo-European language and the horse spread all through Europe.
More than 5,500 years later, the Spanish discovered and widely explored the New World. They brought horses with them to serve as mounts and beasts of burden during these incursions. Thus the Spanish speaking an Indo European language—introduced a language as well as the horse into North America. The Spanish reintroduced the horse to where it once had evolved and introduced their Indo European language to North America as well.
Many Spanish horses escaped into the wild, to form wild bands or herds. Others were stolen by indigenous peoples of the southern plains, most notably the Comanche who famously adapted to the horse, just as those ancient people of the Asian steppes some 6,000-8,000 years ago had done. More than nine thousand years after if was exterminated from North America the horse again prospered in the grasslands of the west.
Today our wild mustangs still roam the hills and valleys of Nevada, Utah and Colorado where some say they are feral —not wild—animals introduced by man. But history seems to suggest-they came form North America and are now back where they belong.
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