Re: Equids

whittet (whittet@shore.net)
30 Dec 1994 08:18:13 GMT

In article <3dtr8f$kjj@lehua.ilhawaii.net>, "WIlliam C. Wilson" <Wildbill@ilhawaii.net> says:
>
>
>> While that may have been the case perhaps a decade ago, I have not read
>> a recent book, article, paper or report, which does not mention the
>> growing body of evidence and albeit begrudging, acceptance of it,
>> that there are at least 30 well known, reasonably secure, carbon dated,
>> sequentially stratified, sites for mans habitation in the Americas
>> at 25,000 plus BC. Deal with it.
>
>Why hasn't the majority of the anthrpology community accepted it then?

I thought they had, I have read several papers where people want to
push the dates back into six figures.

>I'ld love to accept it, it would help solve a lot problems with humans
>in the americas. But it still doesn't affect our discussion. Man
>was here by 11,000 BC

how about for purposes of discussion we take the mean, 19,000 BC

the (official) fossil record shows the horse
>disapears by 8000BC

same with the horse. 4000 BC

and it isn't domesticated until @6500BC in
>Europe.

That's the earliest hard proof, a bridle, in Siberia.

There are many indications, cave art, carvings
of horses with what could be bridles, circa 20,000 BC+

Relict populations aren't a very effective way to keep the horse
>around till 1500AD; if the Spanish horse spreead as fast as it did
>then why didn't the relict populations do the same?

Suppose there were fluctuations in its size. Climate and the incursions
of man on its range could decrease its population, while the removal
of people due to disease, could reopen an old niche.

Look at the sudden surge in Mongol populations in Asia.
small mounted populations with a huge range can suddenly just appear
in your neighborhood as if from nowhere.

If the Peruvians
>could domesticate the llama and alpaca why didn't the north american
>indians have any domestic animals (other than the dog)?

That's a good question, perhaps they started out with a maritime
tradition, or suffered from malnutrition, or were happy with sedentary
agricultural communities and used water for transport. Maybe they
did domesticate animals and we just didn't know about it.

Some tribes of Plains indians did have the horse before their first
contact with the white man.

>
>
>
>> > 3)Proto-Amerindian tool cultures undergo a change to smaller
>> > spear.arrow points at the same time.
>> > This atleast suggests that the large easily hunted animals
>> > had been eliminated.
>>
>
>>
>>
>> My sources say domestication of herd animals, from whom nomads have
>> probably been getting milk and meat for some time, occurs when the
>> nomads get tired of carrying around their, bedrolls, cooking pots and
>> tents. Some great domesticators of herd animals have never attempted
>> agriculture to this day, but get all their needs from their herds of
>> animals and some gathering. The Lapps and Mongols for example.
>
>If they are tame enough to milk and stay around for the slaughter
>haven't they already been domesticated? We are talking about the first
>taming of these animals first and the riding of them second. I'll
>grant that second came very shortly after the first but the first is
>the real problem.
>
>
>> The domestication of the horse is accomplished by taking mares and
>> tethering them to be mounted by wild stallions. Obviously if you can
>> hunt an animal you can capture its pregnant females when they foal.
>> If you feed the foals until they learn to depend on you for food
>> you have domestic horses.
>
>Have you ever tried to do these "easy" things withwild mustangs and
>do it without mounts of any sort?

No, but I have tried with camels and deer, both were unafraid and
easy to approach because they had never been hunted. I would also
imagine that Edwards expects the pregnant females would be disabled
by actually foaling.

Yes you can run them down and trap
>them into pens or box canyons and slowly gentle them, but even this
>isn't as easy as it sounds.
>
>
>> Why can't I turn around and with every bit as much
>> justification, assume that if man could enter the Americas from Siberia
>> he could enter Siberia from the Americas?
>
>You could just don't ask me to buy it, fossils show man in asia
>for at least 500,000 years, in the americas for only 12,000 (or
>25,000, or 40,000 depending on which claim you accept) if he didn't
>come from asia originally where did he come from?

You will note that there is a difference between Asia in general
and Siberia in particular. There may have been people on the coasts
of China and Japan who could have coasted along the islands of the
northern pacific rim, but there were no significant populations
in adjacency to the Bering Strait until the two creeks.
>
>
>> I would really like to go one step beyond sources and propose some new
>> studies, which don't begin by making assumptions which exclude some
>> possibilities. I would also like to be aware of all the existing data,
>> but I don't see that it is as yet sufficient to shut the door on
>> further inquiries.
>
>Fine by me, how do we do the digs in the Bering sea or on the
>submerged castal plains where the best evidence probably is/was?

I would look at the coastal islands. If you find something there
call in the marine archaeologists. Dreging off Massachusetts has
brought up Red Paint artifacts and the shell middens sometimes
show up on barrier beaches.
>
>
>
>
>> One thing I am really curious about is that all of the coastal
>> areas show many tribes in possession of relatively smaller territories.
>> When you get to the plains, suddenly there are a few huge empires
>> controlling areas the size of Texas or Ontario.
>
>I believe Science News had a report in the last 2 months on this-
>it suggested that for at least part of that time the central great
>plains were not grasslands but actual deserts with sand dunes etc.
>High productivity areas have concentrated populations with limited
>areal controls for each group, low productivity areas have large
>areas of control for small populations. The plains are dry and may
>have been even dryer I suspect water is/was the controling factor
>for control of the plains. That certainly seems to be the story
>as far as I can tell from the "official" history (Coronado, La Salle,
>etc.).
>
>
That is a really good tip, I will check it out, thanx,

Steve