Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Lehi Horse: Implications for Early Historic Horse Cultures of the North American West

Abstract

Although recognized as one of the most significant cultural transformations in North America, the reintroduction of the horse to the continent after AD 1492 has been rarely addressed by archaeological science. A key contributing factor behind this limited study is the apparent absence of equine skeletal remains from early historic archaeological contexts. Here, we present a multidisciplinary analysis of a horse skeleton recovered in Lehi, Utah, originally attributed to the Pleistocene. Reanalysis of stratigraphic context and radiocarbon dating indicates a historic age for this horse (cal AD 1681–1939), linking it with Ute or other Indigenous groups, whereas osteological features demonstrate its use for mounted horseback riding—perhaps with a nonframe saddle. DNA analysis indicates that the animal was a female domestic horse, which was likely cared for as part of a breeding herd despite outliving its usefulness in transport. Finally, sequentially sampled stable carbon, oxygen, and strontium isotope values from tooth enamel (δ13C, δ18O, and 87Sr/86Sr) suggest that the horse was raised locally. These results show the utility of archaeological science as applied to horse remains in understanding Indigenous horse pastoralism, whereas consideration of the broader archaeological record suggests a pattern of misidentification of horse bones from early historic contexts.

Analysis of the earliest complete mtDNA genome of a Caribbean colonial horse (Equus caballus) from 16th-century Haiti

“…Relatively little is known about the introduction of horses to the Americas from their archaeological remains, in part because early colonial horse remains may be mistakenly identified as either pre-extinction equids or Historic/modern intrusions [28]. Horse remains are rare in most 16 th -century vertebrate assemblages of the Americas.…”

“…Ancient DNA studies of archaeological horse remains in the Americas are equally rare. While several studies analyzed the extinct lineages of pre-Holocene horses [6,33] only one published study contains genomic data (no mtDNA) of an historical horse specimen [28]. Thus, the Puerto Real specimen and its ancient DNA presented here is critical to understanding the history of domestic horses in the Americas.…”

“…The quality of the reads from the sequencing was first assessed using FASTQC [44]. Adapter removal (i5 and i7 Illumina primers) and quality trimming [28] was performed with the program adapterremoval [45]. The forward and reverse reads were then merged into a single read and duplicates were removed in Geneious Prime (https://www.geneious.com/,version 2021.1).…”

Early dispersal of domestic horses into the Great Plains and northern Rockies

“…Given that most of the continent north of New Mexico was terra incognita to European chroniclers, natural and cultural landscapes remained largely uncharacterized until the early 19th century CE ( 23 ). Furthermore, these Euro-American historic records are often rife with inaccuracies and strong anti-Indigenous biases, depreciating the fundamental relationship between Indigenous peoples and horses ( 24 ).…”

“…Despite representing a major source for understanding the timing and ways in which horses were managed, ridden, and integrated into early societies, archaeological remains of domestic horses from Indigenous contexts are also overlooked ( 24 ). In this study, we extensively surveyed existing archaeological collections to identify early historic horse specimens with potential for reconstructing early human–horse relationships across the American Southwest and Great Plains (Fig.…”