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Horses and History
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The Dog May Be Man's Best Friend,
but It Was the Horse that Built Civilization!
"History was written on the back of the horse," according to an inscription at The Horse Park in Kentucky. Horse lovers do not need to be reminded how much human beings owe to equus caballus, but to the general population, civilization's debt is perhaps not immediately apparent. A comparison of civilizations that had horses with civilizations that did not soon makes it clear that human history, at least in Eurasia, would have been profoundly different were it not for the horse.
A prime example is the entire Western Hemisphere, which was horse-free as of 30-40,000 years ago for reasons as yet unknown. One of the consequences was that its native populations remained scattered, sparse and overwhelmingly in the hunter-gatherer stage of development. The most culturally and socially complex civilizations were those of the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs. Although successful as warriors, they could not spread their knowledge terribly far, since they lacked swift, agile animals like horses to carry them and their ideas to the rest of the Americas. As accomplished as they were, they ultimately were no match for the mounted conquistadores.
Other horseless parts of the world, such as Australia and sub-Saharan Africa, provide similar examples of restricted human mobility and development.
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The Facts About Horse Slaughter
Fact: Horses are an intregal part of any heritage and culture.
Fact: Horses are pleasure animals used primarily for recreation and sport.
Fact: We should not eat horses or raise them for food.
Fact: Horse slaughter is a virtual secret industry.
Fact: The method by which horses are slaughtered is cruel and inhumane and cannot be regulated to be humane.
Fact: Horses are acquired for slaughter without disclosure contributing to both consumer fraud and horse theft.
Fact: Horse slaughter subsidizes over breeding, theft, and the unlawful extermination of our wild mustangs.
Fact: Horses are not feeding the starving masses, rather a $15 a pound delicacy for foreign gourmands.
Fact: State revenues and horse-related industries are diminished by horse slaughter.
Fact: Horses are taxed differently than food-source animals.
Fact: Dogs and cats are protected against slaughter and export to countries where their meat is eaten. Horses deserve this protection also.
Fact: Horse meat eating is discouraged by Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist & Hindu religions.
Fact: Responsible horsemen humanely euthanise their horses.
Fact: According to a national poll, 93% of Americans want horse slaughter stopped.
Let's put the Horse back in the stable ...and off the table!
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WHAT IS A HORSE?
Though their glory days may be in the past, these hoofed creatures continue to enthrall us, as the NATURE program HORSES demonstrates in sparkling detail. From the steppes of Mongolia, where children race at breakneck speeds perched on stallions ten times their size, to the fields of Georgia, where people confined to wheelchairs find new freedom in the saddle, HORSES highlights the many roles played by this multi-talented beast of burden. There are also rare glimpses of the world's most endangered horse, and an inside look at the art of the horse whisperers, the trainers who through their gentle touch can transform a wild bucking bronco into a stately show horse.
But the star of the show is the animal that scientists call Equus caballus, the modern horse species that includes everything from miniature Shetland ponies to massive draft horses able to pull astounding loads. The horse we know today, however, evolved from an ancestor that was quite different.
More than 50 million years ago, a small fox-sized animal crept through the forests of North America, browsing on fruit and leaves. Its arched-back body was only about a foot high at the shoulder, and a long tail and short-snouted head probably gave it a distinctly dog-like look. In fact, its feet sported pads like a dog's, except each toe ended in a tiny hoof instead of a claw. Interestingly, in modern horses, one toe has become the hoof, and the others remain as vestigial bumps higher up the leg.
When fossil hunters first discovered the bones of this creature a century ago, they named it Eohippus -- "the dawn horse" -- and believed it was the first link in an evolutionary chain that led directly to today's horse. Indeed, many museums and textbooks still have displays and pictures showing this neat, predictable progression, with horses gradually getting larger, shifting from many toes to modern hooves, and gaining longer teeth able to grind down tough prairie grasses.
These days, however, researchers have a far more complex picture of horse evolution -- and they have given the dawn horse a much less colorful name. While they agree that today's horse probably arose from that smaller ancestor, the path was by no means direct. Instead, paleontologists have uncovered fossils that show that horse ancestors varied in size: some large early horses gave way later to smaller ones. They also discovered that some lines of horse-like animals alternated between many and few toes over time. In addition, some proto-horses once thought to be direct forefathers of the modern animals were revealed to be distantly related cousins -- just one dead-end branch on a bushy family tree.
One branch, however, kept growing. About a million years ago, it produced an array of small pony-sized animals that galloped across ancient plains around the world in large herds. They probably behaved much as today's wild horses do, using their flowing tails as remarkably accurate fly swatters and signal flags, and snorting the air for the smell of enemies and the scent of food.
Less than 10,000 years ago, however, many of these horse-like species became extinct, along with other browsing animals such as mammoths. Climate changes and over-hunting by humans may have been to blame, but no one knows for sure. The only survivors were horses in Asia and several zebras. In North America, however, horses were wiped out.
So where did the modern horses come from, the ones that spawned America's cowboy myth? Historians believe that Spanish explorers brought the animals with them on their voyages to the New World in the 1500s. Let loose upon the land, they soon reclaimed the prairies that had once been theirs alone, producing vast herds of wild horses.
Even today, as HORSES shows, tens of thousands of wild horses roam the American West. To prevent the herds from destroying their habitat, the U.S. government captures hundreds each year and puts them up for adoption. For some of the proud new owners, the chance to ride a wild-born horse is a dream come true -- and the continuation of an age-old relationship that has made the horse one of our most revered and fascinating animal partners.
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