[HN Gopher] Oldest DNA from domesticated American horse lends cr...
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Oldest DNA from domesticated American horse lends credence to
shipwreck folklore
Author : pseudolus
Score : 97 points
Date : 2022-07-28 10:53 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| jboggan wrote:
| The saltwater cowboys and the annual pony roundup on Assateague
| Island (the descendants of the shipwrecked Spanish horses) are
| very unique pieces of coastal culture, it's an interesting case
| study in preservation of a "wild" population [0].
|
| 0 - https://www.chincoteague.com/pony_swim_guide.html
| elliekelly wrote:
| Is there a purpose/reason for doing this beyond tradition &
| public entertainment? It seems a bit cruel/stressful for feral
| animals to be herded, penned, and then forced to swim?
| alistairSH wrote:
| There are two populations of "ponies" on Assateague. A VA
| herd and a MD herd. The land-manager for each is different
| (USFWS vs NPS).
|
| For the VA (USFWS) herd, the herd size is capped at 150
| adults and the Chincoteague VFC is the herd manager/owner.
| The annual pony crossing is part of herd health and
| population management. Pregnant and newly birthed mares/foals
| do not make the crossing - they are corralled separately and
| transported via trailer. Part of the crossing effort includes
| health checks as well as the auction.
|
| The MD (NPS) herd is feral with contraceptives used to manage
| population and avoid over-grazing. Other than contraception,
| the herd is managed like other wild life (ie, mostly left
| alone, except for exceptional circumstances). This herd is
| not part of the crossing.
|
| There are several wikipedia entries for the ponies, the
| crossing, etc, if you're interested.
| ninesnines wrote:
| There is a purpose! Without regulation of the population,
| then there wouldn't be enough resources in terms of grass on
| the island and so you would have part of the population
| starving.
| samstave wrote:
| Hmm... maybe they need some _Guide Stones_ which talk about
| herd management.
| danielvf wrote:
| The animals are individually vet checked as well as a part
| of the process.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >Without regulation of the population, then there wouldn't
| be enough resources in terms of grass on the island and so
| you would have part of the population starving.
|
| Exactly so. If only more of my fellow human beings took
| this bit of logic to heart about our own species we'd be
| much better off.
| jmyeet wrote:
| For context, domestication of large beasts of burden were an
| important factor in early technological progress. These animals
| were important for farming and also for commerce (eg by
| transporting goods and people across large land distances).
|
| People point to this for the lower technological progress in
| South America vs Europe and Asia because the largest animal South
| American peoples had access to (up until a few centuries ago) was
| the llama.
|
| Obviously there are military implications to the horse as well.
| Not just the Mongols either. Horses were key to Rome too.
|
| The Spanish brought over horses obviously.
|
| But it's really interesting to think how society in the Americas
| could be completely shaped and changed by something like a
| shipwreck bringing horses, something they didn't have until then.
| [deleted]
| motohagiography wrote:
| If you looked side by side at an american mustang and a modern
| european warmblood or thoroughbred (after the introduction of
| arab and anglo-arab lines into european studbooks around the 17th
| century during an apparent period of fashionable anglomania in
| france), the missing link between them would be iberian horses
| like the lusitano and andalusian. It's not scientific, but
| mustangs are thought (colloquially) to be the descendents of
| escaped iberian horses both because of the plausibility of the
| shipwreck theory, and their general conformation. (shorter
| backed, roman noses, pointed ears, whereas up-hill withers are
| more of an artificial selective breeding trait) Another marker
| for iberian horses today is the common incidence of
| piraplasmosis, which may be interesting to see if it appears in
| those island horse bones, as it may indicate where the horse
| would have acquired it.
|
| The andalusian and lusitano are often called baroque breeds and
| they have a more compact conformation and up-and-down movement
| that we refer to as "carriage-y" now because we think of pulling
| carriages, but the iberian horses were bred for their agility and
| bold temperament for cattle herding (bullfighting and skirmishing
| cavalry), so a shorter back (think turning a short wheelbase)
| gave them an advantage. Wild horses in the US weren't subject to
| the "lightening up" of the breed that introducing anglo-arabs
| into european studbooks did. But admittedly these are post-hoc
| explanations that pervade horse history.
|
| The DNA evidence in the article confirms some ideas that I think
| had more rigor and reason than folklore, unless we treat
| historians and horsemen as folklorists.
| towledev wrote:
| Do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to
| upsidesinclude wrote:
| Unfortunately, these days if it isn't 'science', it doesn't
| count...
|
| That is a great bit of knowledge you have and it opened up a
| whole realm of thinking regarding genetic modification that I
| haven't ever explored. Primarily about the longevity and
| complexity of a society that requires the modification compared
| with their ultimate success. As we see many instances of
| domestication in various species, but often little diversity in
| that domestication.
|
| I'm interested to know what the possible genetic markers could
| provide regarding the history of the migrations across, say,
| Northern Europe of the Celts and Scots and if there are any
| distinct breeds that can be traced. Or tying those forward to
| the breeds we see of the various native tribes across America
| motohagiography wrote:
| I can recommend this documentary series:
| https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/equus-story-of-the-horse-
| abo... it's dramatic, but fun.
|
| (second episode here:
| https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7xsqy0)
|
| I have a pet theory about how greek mythology talks about
| wisdom originating from centaurs who lived in the forests of
| the "east" rhymes pretty well with mongolian horse cultures,
| where full time riders being percieved half-man and half-
| horse barbarians is a pretty plausible metaphorical
| description. These centaurs would have brought sophisticated
| techniques for domestication, and even the necessary cultural
| morals and ethics that were the effect of their competence -
| and which cultivated willingness in the animals, and the
| stewardship of them. The myth of greek titans raised with the
| wisdom of centaurs is appealing, and what we understand as
| hellenic western values that originate from those myths may
| have been the necessary conseqeuence of our species
| relationship to horses. The link above talks about the
| Mongolian connection.
|
| This is more hypothesis generation than explanatory, but
| horses live shorter lives than humans, we would have left
| dead ones behind over the course of our migrations. Maybe it
| could inspire something to test for in the genetic record.
| The documentary gets into prehistoric ancestors of them, so
| there are definitely serious people working on this
| academically.
| upsidesinclude wrote:
| Interesting take. I'll check these out, thank you
| kibwen wrote:
| Surprised that the article doesn't at least mention the fun fact
| that horses (and camels!) originally evolved in North America,
| only becoming extinct around 10,000 years ago as a result of the
| cooling caused by the last ice age.
| reaperducer wrote:
| The tiny community museum in Shoshone, California has
| fossilized camel tracks taken from a nearby dry lake.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| That's super interesting. Always thought they originated in
| Europe, Asia, and Africa
| mc32 wrote:
| Interesting! Why couldn't they have migrated down to Mexico?
| codesnik wrote:
| I suppose, they were hunted along the way. Humans were
| already there. https://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2015/03/25/horses-
| hunted-north-a...
| yuan43 wrote:
| Hunting to extinction and/or out-competition from humans for
| resources is also cited by some sources as a factor.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| It's a regular coincidence in archaeology that when humans
| show up, other species tend to go extinct. Then there's
| debate whether humans caused it or not.
| googlryas wrote:
| I understand it is a popular theory, but I just have a hard
| time believing that humans would be able to hunt horses to
| extinction in the Americas, without even a small reserve of
| them remaining and then repopulating. The current estimate is
| less than 1M people spread out across the Americas around 10k
| BC...I just don't see how it could happen. It seems like
| larger climate change may have been the reason humans start
| going to America, and also leading to the horses demise.
| dav_Oz wrote:
| For anyone interested, the picture _Figure 1_ [0] - as one
| would except - is quite messy but yeah, _Equus_ (most recent
| common ancestor) node 1 and node 2 (3.9 - 7.8 mya (~5.6 mya))
| and the divergence (node 3) to _caballine /non-caballine Equus_
| @ ~4.0-4.5 mya; those bifurcations - based on the found fossils
| - _all_ originated from North America (orange color).
|
| [next @~1mya (the lower orange (North America) _caballine_ arm
| from node 3): leading to _E. caballus_ (green: Eurasia) -- >
| domesticated [1] horses]
|
| Regarding the causes of the Late Quaternary extinctions [2] it
| is pretty hard to pinpoint a single cause e.g. climate change
| etc. and there are a lot of hypotheses floating around
| (probably the most curious/spectacular of the bunch: younger
| dryas impact theory).
|
| But at some point regardless of the causes - approx. 10.000
| years ago - there are no traces found of (wild) horses in the
| Americas, anymore; they only reemerge again with the
| reintroduction by the European colonists in the 15/16th
| century.
|
| [0]https://elifesciences.org/articles/29944/figures#content
|
| [1]https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/horse-
| dom...
|
| [2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8654998/#!po=32
| ...
| mcculley wrote:
| I had read this kind of timeline before but then more
| recently encountered claims that the Native Americans had
| horses (e.g., https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/yes-world-
| there-were-hor...). Is there any validity to these claims?
| progre wrote:
| The overlap between the last known modern horse and the
| first people in America is about 2000 years. If they
| domesticated horses in that time, how come the horses
| didn't thrive along with the human population?
|
| I think the horse population where already on the brink of
| vanishing due to climate change after the last ice age, and
| the new Americans simply ate the last of them.
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