Mustang as delusion? January 19th, 2013

When we hear the word MUSTANG, many probably imagine something like the one in the photo above, or at least various modifications Ford Mustang. or even a P-51 Mustang fighter. In general, in the usual sense, Mustangs are beautiful and graceful horses.

Let's find out how mustangs appeared in general and what they are.

Let's start from afar. A long time ago - I think 50 million years ago, horses lived in North America - more precisely, the ancestors of the horse. They were about the size of a cat and instead of hooves on their feet they had five fingers (such handsome ones). A lot of work and time was spent by paleontologists to prove to skeptics that this is the ancestor of the horse. The animal was named - eogippus.

Approximately 30 million years ago, some unknown catastrophe occurred in North America, due to which all eogippus died out there.

Fortunately, some of them managed to move to Eurasia, where life forced them to become ... (almost wrote: people) - horses.

It is hard to believe that the ancestors of all mustangs were only 70 horses that survived in 1539 after
unsuccessful expedition to the Mississippi by conquistador Hernando de Soto. The height of the mustangs ranges from 134 to 153 cm. Any color. Due to mixed ancestors, the structure of the body is very heterogeneous. The best representatives have a powerful physique with strong dry limbs and hooves. Many mustangs have a Spanish-style head with a convex profile, usually short neck, straight shoulder, slightly pronounced withers, short back.

The word "mustang" comes from the Spanish words mesteno or monstenco, meaning "wild" or "no man's". (another version claims that the word "mustang" comes from the Spanish "mesteth", which means "herd of horses") This term accurately describes the wild horses of the United States. The modern horse evolved three million years ago and disappeared from this hemisphere 10,000 years ago. The horses returned to North America when the explorers Cortés and De Soto appeared riding magnificent Barbary and Andalusian horses. These were the horses that changed the lives of the American Indians who lived on or near the Great Plains. The Pueblo Indians learned to ride and passed this skill on to other tribes.

Spaniards in South America

In 1680 the Indians rebelled against Spanish rule and the Spaniards left thousands of horses in a hasty retreat. The Indians caught these horses, but some of them escaped. It turned out to be much easier to raid the Spanish settlers and steal their horses. Trying to stop the Indian raids, the Spanish government equipped New World reinforcement ship. It was hoped that the Indians would catch the "wild" horses and leave the Spaniards alone. Tens of thousands of Spanish horses, turned into free animals, grazed on the Rio Grande for about 200 years. These horses soon met with draft horses and cowboy ponies that had escaped from ranches and farms owned by settlers from the east. Others were driven off by wild stallions, who destroyed corral fences to add domestic mares to their herd. In addition, the Indians exchanged or captured horses from other tribes.

The Indians, of course, sought to adapt the mustangs to their goals, so they were engaged in improving the breed. Especially in horse breeding, the Comanche tribe distinguished itself. Other tribes, even if they did not specifically improve the mustangs, still sought to catch, steal or buy a better horse, so willy-nilly they took part in the selection.

After all the tribes of the Indians were destroyed, many horses were again left without owners.
Indian horses, as mustangs used to be called, having got to their historical homeland, apparently felt much better there than in harsh Eurasia, and successfully bred. A hundred years ago there were, according to various sources, two or three million.

Wild horse herds from the eastern United States were driven west by civilization, crossed the Mississippi River, and mingled with the western herds. French blood was represented by herds driven out of the territory in the Detroit area and fled from the French settlers from the South, from the New Orleans area. Another breed whose blood is probably present in Mustangs is the old type East Friesian.

The US government purchased about 150 stallions each year from the German government over a period of more than 10 years from the late 1880s to the early 1900s. East Friesian horses at that time were massive warm-blooded or draft animals and were sold for the needs of heavy artillery or for transporting large wagons. Thus, the horses that fled from the battlefields conducted by the American cavalry could pour their blood into the mustangs.

Numerous herds of wild horses did not create big problem until the western states became densely populated. and cattle and other herbivores did not graze on the once desert plains. The badlands of the west could not support large populations of herbivores, and mustangs began to be shot on some ranches. The mustang population at the beginning of the twentieth century numbered two million. By 1926 this number had halved. Currently, the number of mustangs is about 30,000 heads. In 1970, less than 17,000 heads remained.

Gradually, pastoralists increasingly began to oust the mustangs from their pastures. When they did not leave voluntarily, they were killed. Then people decided that in general it would be useful to destroy wild horses, and then they began to round up them. After the Second World War, the real beating of the mustangs began.

Moreover, with the full connivance of the government, they exterminated them in the most barbaric and painful ways. With the help of cars and planes, they drove the herds to dead ends, then they stuffed wagons with horses, and so tightly that half of the animals came to the knacker in a crushed state. Of course, no one fed the horses either on the road or in the knackerel, so in the future they were distributed as follows: the dead were allowed for fertilizer, the still alive - for canned food for dogs.

In 1971, under public pressure, the US Wildlife Conservation Act was passed. Today, the BLM (Bureau of Land Manegement) organization monitors the mustang population. Under this protection, the number of wild horses began to grow rapidly, and in the 70s of the twentieth century, the question arose of controlling their population. The act ordered the destruction of all animals in excess of the established number of livestock "to restore the natural ecological balance of the region, and protect the region from damage associated with an increase in population."

The Adopt a Horse program began in 1973 in the Pryor Mountains of Montana, and was the sale of extra animals. Under this program, surplus animals were put up for auction at prices ranging from $125 per horse to $75 per wild donkey. Buyers must meet certain requirements for the proper transport and handling of animals. The horses remain the property of the government for one year after the sale. At the end of the year, the new owner must provide confirmation from the veterinarian and local authority certifying that the animal has been properly cared for. After approval, he is issued a certificate that he is the full owner of the animal.

Mustangs, in the hands of an experienced rider, usually become as obedient as horses born and raised on a farm. General Crook said: “Hardy Indian ponies can run 90 miles without needing food or water. They surpass in endurance all the cavalry horses we have on the frontier.” In addition to incredible endurance, Frank Hopkins noted the intelligence and economy of this horse breed. But there was another opinion. John Richard Young famous coach, said of the mustangs: “Not only must we let the mustangs disappear, we must do everything possible to exterminate them, because we simply cannot breed better horses than thoroughbred mustangs. Now a good horse, after special training and grain feed, is able to show miracles of endurance, but any good mustang will easily surpass it.”

Largely the result of natural selection, most mustangs are lightweight or riding horses. In some areas there are horses of a heavy draft type. Mustangs can be of any height, type, color and build. On average, the height at the withers is about 147 cm, but individuals below 135 cm or above 164 cm are not unusual. The most common are bay and red suit, but any is possible. Piebald, palomino, appaloosa, buckwheat suits are also not uncommon. As a result of the influx of Spanish horse blood, many mustangs still show similarities with their Iberian ancestors. Recently, several small herds have been found in isolated areas, the horses of which, after blood testing, were found to be direct descendants of the Spanish horses. These are the Kiger Mustang and the Serat Mustang.

Domesticated mustangs are often very good riding horses. Due to their innate endurance, they are great for long rides. Currently, there are about 60 thousand mustangs. They live in only a few states, half of them are in Nevada.

So carefree guys (cowboys), prancing along the saloons on horses of elite breeds, are an invention of writers and directors. The Indians almost did not ride mustangs at all. They ate them.

sources

The Indians of Mexico, at the first meeting with the Spanish conquerors, which took place at the beginning of the 16th century, were most shocked not so much by the white-faced riders in shining armor, but by their horses. This was because the American Indians had never seen horses before. Why did North, Central and South America not have their own horses, while in the expanses of Eurasia they walked in countless herds?

It turns out that wild horses were once found in America, but then died out. They disappeared on the American continent at about the same time that people first appeared on this continent, and it was about 13 thousand years ago. At the same time, many other species of animals disappeared here, mostly large ones, starting with saber-toothed predators and ending with mammoths. Finding an unambiguous explanation for the phenomenon of the extinction of horses, American mammoths, mastodons, glyptodons, giant beavers and sloths, dozens of species of other creatures, is extremely difficult.

An attempt to see the genetic mechanism of "aging" american horses in the accumulation and interaction of neutral mutations is unsuccessful because mutations occur in single individuals, and not in the species as a whole. In these individuals, and not in the whole species at once, new mutations interact with existing ones. Unsuccessful combinations are eliminated. For a number of reasons, climatic and epizootic explanations are also unsuccessful.

It should be noted that the extinct and surviving Pleistocene megafauna lived in an environment that was different from the modern one in the same areas. The animals themselves are “to blame” for this, especially giants weighing more than a ton, who formed the environment in the way that elephants now form it. Grazing vegetation and fertilizing the soil, they accelerated the turnover of substances and the flow of energy, contributed to the reign of pasture ecosystems, where valuable fodder plants and plant conditions dominated those of little value.

In the course of everyday grazing, they created peculiar forest-meadow-steppes or open forests with an abundance of grass on the site of continuous forests, meadows or meadow-tundra on the site of the tundra, and the vegetation of the steppes became more mosaic and more productive. In seasonally dry regions, extinct giants, like elephants now, dug "wells" that watered the giants themselves and other animals. Fallen trees also served as food not only for the giants. In the north, wintering of less strong ungulates was of great importance for mammoths breaking up the crust and trampling down the snow, which facilitated movement and reduced injuries.

The largest predators, not suppressed or weakly suppressed by humans, also maintained the balance, eliminating the excess of herbivores, including juvenile giants, and keeping smaller predators, potentially more dangerous for some prey, at a low density.

Such was the Neogene-Pleistocene "prehistoric balance", these primitive pasture ecosystems, a "hunting paradise", teeming with large animals. The constituent species were different on different continents and in different climatic zones, as well as in different eras, but the principle of ecological organization remained similar. Since the giants on which such ecosystems were based were resistant, enduring to climatic changes in the environment, these changes could not destroy such ecosystems: as long as the mammoth survived, the “mammoth” steppes, meadows, and forest-meadow steppes were preserved, where both the mammoth and the horse were at ease. , and the cave lion.

In the zone of Eurasia, now occupied by broad-leaved forests, the mammoth shared dominance with the mighty straight-tusked elephant or completely gave way to it. This elephant created a forest park or a forest with a mass of clearings, even where high humidity contributed to the growth of the most dense forest. So, it is not surprising the presence in warm interglacial and wooded Western Europe of horses, aurochs, giant deer with a span of horns up to 4 meters, steppe rhinos and hippos, which need a lot of grass for food.

In the tropics of the Old World, America, Australia, their giants created their pasture ecosystems, which survived many cold snaps and warmings, humidification and desiccation.

Africa: prehistoric balance vs. "unique species"

The danger to primitive pasture ecosystems has matured in the face of Australopithecus, who invented the spear, probably about 3 million years ago. n. With the development of fire (between 2 and 0.5 million years ago), Pithecanthropes began to burn their points on fire. At first, the hunt for giants was facilitated by the fact that they were not afraid of bipedal enemies, like modern elephants - baboons. Therefore, prehumans could relatively freely approach almost close to the animal and drive a pike into the groin or belly of the giant. It remained to move away and follow the elephant until he collapsed from peritonitis. Apparently extinct giants have never developed a fear of bipeds, just as whales do not sense enemies in whalers. However, fear may have appeared and the thick-skinned ones began to run away from enemies, or attack them, which prompted the bipeds to improve their hunting techniques in order to strike the same deadly blow. The fear of the prey made it possible to use driven hunts and drive hunts by some hunters of prey on hidden others, and fire gave new opportunities for driven hunts. Man's pressure grew as he freed himself from the pressure of large predators - his own enemies.

There was an evolutionary competition of prey and predators, predators with predators, it also went on between types of prey for the best avoidance of enemies. The hunting power of man from australopithecines to sapiens grew slowly, which allowed some thick-skinned people to acquire relative resistance and displace those species whose behavioral evolution lagged behind the improvement of human hunting skills. Africa has maintained a variety of climates and landscapes for all these 3 million years. And yet, during this period, the number of proboscis species decreased from 8 or 10 to one. The saber-tooths died out, apparently in need of an abundance of young and old proboscis, which a bipedal predator began to intercept from them. A number of extinctions of ungulates and primates were apparently associated with ecosystem shifts that occurred due to the impoverishment of the proboscis set caused by humans and man-made increase in vegetation burning. Nevertheless, since one species of elephant and some other pachyderms survived, there were relatively fewer secondary extinctions of smaller mammals than on other continents. Yes, and these extinctions took place, mainly up to 50 thousand years ago. n. , and after that there were few of them: the megafauna managed to adapt to the gradually increasing human pressure. That is why it is Africa, where grazing ecosystems close to the Pleistocene are partly preserved, that provides the most for understanding prehistoric balance.

In our view, the Indian is always drawn on horseback. Like a centaur, merged with a horse into a single whole - brightly decorated with colors and feathers, a semi-fantastic creature of wild beauty ...

Let's try to peer into this romantic image with a sober look of an adult. It is well known that before the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492, the indigenous population of two huge continents, which Columbus called "Indos" - Indians, did not know other domestic animals, except for the dog, llama and turkey. There were simply no horses in America. Although it american continent is the birthplace of ancient horses, they all died out there back in the pre-glacial era, as evidenced by the numerous remains found - bones, skulls, etc. Some of the ancient American horses crossed from North America to Asia along the so-called Bering Bridge - an isthmus that periodically appeared on place of the Bering Strait during the cooling epochs, when the general level of the World Ocean dropped, exposing the seabed off the coast. After the warming, the waves again flooded the land, and the horses, cut off from their homeland, moved forward, settling in all corners of the Old World. This is how tarpans, and wild horses of Asia, and zebras of Africa appeared.
Horses returned to America already in a domesticated form on the ships of the Spanish conquistadors, who longed to conquer the New World with fire and sword, to take possession of the untold wealth of the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans, who created powerful, highly developed states by the arrival of Europeans. And a handful of Spaniards easily put thousands of Indian warriors to flight. The horror of the natives was caused by two miracles possessed by pale-faced bearded aliens - firearms and horses. The horse and the armed, armored conquistador seemed to the Indians as a formidable mythical god of war, who came to punish and destroy them.
Years passed. The Spaniards, and later the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch founded colonies on American soil. They built settlements, farms, cities, fortresses, ports. They were helped to develop vast virgin spaces by horses, which were brought in hundreds, thousands across the ocean from European countries, and then bred on farms and ranches. The Indian tribes resisted the invaders. Their former fear disappeared, they quickly mastered both guns and horseback riding. Light, fast, almost elusive Indian cavalry now terrified not only peaceful white settlers. Using their own tactics of equestrian combat, the Indians more than once inflicted major lesions parts of the regular army of the colonialists. So, the Araucans fought stubbornly with the Spaniards, the Apaches with the Mexicans, and the Sioux with the Americans.
The horse made a real revolution in Indian society, caused changes not only in the economy, but also in the social organization of the tribes. In the center of North America, on the expanses of the prairies, a new, world-famous Indian culture was born - the culture of horse bison hunters.
Before the appearance of the horse, the Great Plains were practically inaccessible to the native tribes. The Indian on foot felt small, alone, and defenseless against the majesty of the vast open space. Hunting for powerful and fast bison at that time was very difficult and dangerous. It was considered a great success to drive a herd of bulls to a cliff or lie in wait at a watering place.
Everything changed, horses appeared. From farms and ranches, from forts plundered by the Indians in the steppe, many horses ran away. They quickly grew wild and bred on free pastures. This is how the famous wild horses of North America - mustangs - appeared.
The word "mustang" comes from the Spanish "place" - a free horse, a horse without a rider. By the middle of the 19th century, mustangs that did not know the bridle incredibly multiplied, according to various sources, there were from one to three million heads. Mustangs outwardly were very far from the standards of the horse article. But wild life quickly revived the inherent wild horse qualities - endurance, unpretentiousness, strength of the hoofed horn, etc. Even the suits became, mostly "wild": savras, mouse, tan, brown - with a dark belt on the back, dark stockings on the legs, with zebroid stripes on the forearms, etc. But there were also red, and black, and piebald mustangs. Despite the external nondescriptness, these horses carried the blood of the beautiful riding breeds of the Old World - Andalusian, barbarian, Arabian.
Mustangs were valuable animals for people who explored the Great Plains. They were caught and tamed by Indians and white settlers. Many of the current breeds in the United States carry mustang blood in their veins. But the settlement of the plains by farmers and pastoralists led to the extermination of wild herds, which became a hindrance to cow pastures and corn crops. Even driven into the barren corners of the Southwest, the last mustangs remained the object of a ruthless hunt for lovers of easy money. Beautiful animals, considered one of the symbols of America, were exterminated by the thousands to make canned food for dogs and cats. The mustangs were saved by amateur enthusiasts who forced the US government to issue a special law banning barbaric hunting. Today, several thousand mustangs graze in protected areas in Nevada, Utah and New Mexico. Part of the livestock is caught under special licenses by cowboys, amateurs and professional horse breeders. After all, the mustang is the most valuable gene pool for refreshing the blood of many breeds.
But still, it was not the mustangs that became the ancestors of the Indian horses, although the Indians used tamed mustangs to cross with their "ponies" (as whites usually called Indian horses for their small stature). Indian tribes usually obtained horses from white traders or ranchers in exchange for bison skins or furs, some handicrafts, and meat. But more often horses were simply stolen during military raids. The horse became the favorite prey of the Ute, Apache, and Navajo warriors. They were the first among the North American tribes to have mastered riding, but did not bother to breed herds. Bringing captured horses from the Mexican raids, they kept the necessary amount for themselves, and the rest were driven for sale to their northern neighbors. So got horses and mountain Indian tribes. Many of them got the opportunity to go down to the plains to hunt buffalo. Now they overtook fast herds in any convenient place and killed with bows or spears a huge number of animals that gave the Indians skin, meat, fat, tendons for thread and bowstrings, raw materials for cooking glue, horns and bones for making various utensils. Nomads could set up large tents covered with skins - tips, store a lot of food - everything was easily transported on horseback.
Thus, the bison gave the Indians everything, but in order to get more bison, good ones were needed, frisky horses. They were used for warfare, and for horse racing and horse games that the Indians loved. Gradually, the tribes of the plains begin to breed horses, trying to consolidate the necessary qualities in the offspring. Of course, the selection of stallions and mares was carried out empirically, on the intuition of the owner of the herd. But the best manufacturers were in demand throughout the territory of the settlement of the tribe.
Indian horse breeding was extensive. herds all year round grazed on the prairies, changing location as the pastures emptied. No fodder preparations were carried out. In summer - a rich herbage, in winter - tebenevka, digging grass from under the snow, eating trees in river valleys protected from the wind. This is how all the ancient nomads of the earth conducted their household.
The primitiveness of horse breeding could not but affect the appearance of Indian horses. The growth of most of them did not exceed one and a half meters, and the exterior was the simplest. But these were hardy and unpretentious animals that did not require either forging or special care.
The Indian's favorite riding horse was his pride, a kind of visiting card, which was almost always next to the owner, tied to a peg in front of the entrance to the tipi-tent. On long marches, and sometimes on a hunt or in a war, Indian warriors rode more than simple horses, leading the best horses on the reins in order to save their strength for the right moment. These horses were highly valued. Sometimes, during the exchange, ten ordinary horses were given for such a horse. And it was these, the most valuable animals, that the participants in the raids sought to steal at night.
Prairie Indians can rightfully be considered one of the best riders in the world. Sitting on a practically bareback horse, they controlled it at full gallop with only their legs, because their hands were busy with archery. An interesting feature is that the Indians mounted a horse with right side and even jumped from behind, over the croup, as if on sports equipment. The Indians had a special attitude to the harness. Of course, the southern tribes, who had come into contact with white people since the 16th-17th centuries, borrowed both bridles and saddles from them, but the Indians began to decorate them in their own way. Thus, the Navahs mastered the chasing and manufacture of silver plaques, buckles, and rings. The tribes of the northern plains made their own harnesses for their horses. On the contrary, everything was reduced to a minimum. The bridle was replaced by a loop of rawhide, which was thrown over the lower jaw of the horse, and the saddle was a piece of leather or skin, pulled together by a girth belt.
Over time, all the Indians began to make saddles of the Mexican or cowboy type, with a wooden or horn tree, with a girth of thick rawhide and wooden stirrups covered with leather. Warriors covered such saddles with richly embroidered saddlecloths or skins of a mountain lion - puma. Bridles, breastplates, sweatshirts, all of this was also skillfully decorated with national ornaments made of porcupine quills, beads, fringe, strands of scalps, and numerous eagle feathers. There was a special coloring of military horses. Zigzag lines were applied to the legs - for playfulness, on the muzzle or forearms, the stripes meant the number of exploits of the owner, for visual acuity, the horse was painted around the eyes, and on the croup, in the form of hoof prints, horses stolen in raids were drawn.
Among the general, rather numerous stock of Indian horses, by the 19th century, two fast-gait breeds stood out - pinto and appaloosa. Pinto (from Spanish - “spot”) is piebald (large spots in combination with white with some other color, red, black or bay), well-knit, very hardy riding horses, bred by the tribes of the southern plains - the Comanches and Kiowas. Through theft and exchange, skewbald horses spread throughout the region. The Indians generally preferred bright, unusual horse colors. Such a suit was fully possessed and best horses Indians of the West - Appaloosa. According to some, the word "Appaloosa" comes from the name of the Payuz tribe inhabiting the Rocky Mountains in Idaho, other historians associate it with the neighboring Ne Persa tribe, so named by the French for the custom of wearing jewelry in their noses. Appaloosa has a unique, inimitable suit. The entire body of the horse is covered with countless spots of various sizes and colors. According to the exterior, these are rather compact, efficient animals with good strong hooves. The following colors dominate in this breed: blank - an accumulation of dark spots on the front, which become rare on the croup, leopard - uniform small colored spots on a white background, marble - larger combinations of spots. The history of these two breeds can be traced through the rock paintings of ancient peoples...
Modern breeds Pinto and Appaloosa, of course, are not only bred by Indians. At present, a number of associations of lovers and admirers of these breeds have been created in America. These are tall half-blood horses of excellent exterior, good-natured, suitable for walking and for sports. In Indian reservations they are loved, rightly considering them their national pride.

Everything about everything. Volume 5 Likum Arkady

When did horses appear in North America?

In fact, the question should be: when did the horses return to North America? Because horses appeared in North America millions of years ago. During long history horses from their North American homeland spread to South America, Asia, Europe and Africa. On all these continents, they gave rise to many new breeds of horses. But during ice age horses that lived in North America became extinct. At the dawn of civilization, there were no horses in North America. They lived only in Europe, Asia and Africa. The Spanish conquistadors brought horses back to the Americas.

In 1519, Fernando Cortes brought 16 horses with him when he sailed from Havana to conquer Mexico. De Soto delivered over two hundred horses when he landed in Florida in 1539. More of these animals were with him as he moved down the Mississippi River in 1541. And Coronado, who was exploring the Southwest at the same time, had over a thousand horses on his expedition. Spanish missionaries and settlers who came to these lands after the explorers added to the number of horses.

At first, the American Indians were frightened by these animals because they had never seen such creatures before. But they quickly realized how useful they could be. Soon they began to steal them from the Spaniards, take them to their place. Tribe after tribe became owners of horses. Owning horses changed the way of life of many Indian tribes. Thanks to horses, they could quickly and easily get to any campsite of the tribe. Horses made it possible to follow herds of buffalo and hunt for any game. The Indians who lived on the plains used horses in battles with other tribes and in battles against the invasion of whites.

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IN There were no horses in Eurasia until they were brought from America by ship, that is, according to the generally accepted version, it turns out after the discovery of America by Columbus, after 1492- "American horse marker".

I understand that the stated hypothesis breaks the pattern and chronology, but even if it does not convince, readers will still be able to learn a lot of interesting things about the role of horses in the history of civilization.

When and where did horses appear in the Old World?

Nobody disputed fact : the evolution of horses took place in North America and is well-documented by fossils that show how a small, dog-sized, woodland animal called the Propaleotherian, which had toes instead of hooves, for 50 million years turned into large ungulate inhabitants of open spaces - horses(lat. Equus) is the only modern genus of the horse family (Equidae).

Question: how did horses cross the ocean and end up in Eurasia and Africa?

1. First, I will give my hypothesis, which was put forward and its evidence was found on the basis of the conclusions arising from the logistic theory of civilization. The horses of North America, indicated on the diagram as "mustangs", also penetrated South America by land, turning over many, many years into a group of horses that differ in characteristics, indicated on the diagram "criollo" (Creollo, Creole horse):

Both groups over many, many years reached a population of millions of individuals each and were distinguished by amazing intraspecific diversity.

The Indians had a lot of time, they tamed and domesticated the appropriate horses, engaged in selection and achieved amazing success in training.

The first navigators from the Old World, amazed by the unprecedented spectacle of riders, brought stories about centaurs (ken-prince, Taurus-bull!).

Realizing that a horse is an indispensable tool for conquering land spaces, maritime civilization took measures to transport horses along the only then accessible "Columbus' route".

But on the then available ships of such large animals to transport across the ocean was very difficult:

"The Arrival of Columbus in America". Engraving from the book: S. Columbus: De Insulis inventis (Basel, 1493)

at the top is the inscription Insula Hyspana - the island of Spain

Only with the development of shipbuilding and navigation did it become possible to bring a more or less significant number of horses in order to start breeding them at the nearest points of arrival - in the territories of modern Morocco, Portugal And Spain.

Therefore, in those days, horses were very expensive, hence the expression "a horse, half a kingdom for a horse", prince = "horse".

Modern genetic studies show the maximum relationship with the mustangs of North America in the "oldest breed" - Barbary-Iberian, which is localized in Morocco, Portugal And Spain.

Iberian horse

Individuals brought to other places in Europe due to horse breeding ability " in itself " (inbreeding, inbreeding without negative consequences degeneration) gave more or less uniform offspring, originally named after the place of origin: Lipizzians, friezes and others, and only in the 19th century did targeted selection lead to the formation of the corresponding breeds.

Because the by the second half of the 19th century maritime civilization neither the Indians were needed as a source of supply of such valuable horses, nor the mustangs themselves, they were all destroyed with the use of troops, including the destruction of the original longhorns and other fauna to clear the area for crops and settlement by European immigrants.

So grand ecocide-genocide and ended the history of primitive America. [I note that we still at least know about the Indians. And how many people were simply wiped off the face of the Earth by businessmen? ]

Now let's compare my hypothesis with the one and only monopoly that is accessible to everyone, but I can't call it official, because I haven't found the original source yet. My version causes cognitive dissonance primarily with the dating of images and references to horses: from images in the cave of Altamira and the chariots of the Assyrian-Egyptians to medieval knights and so on.

It is for this reason that the inventors of the "official" hypothesis had to avoid mention human factor / sea route of horses from America, and they found a natural bridge between the continents. Attention, watch the "hands" of unknown thimblers theorists!

2. By " official"The horse hypothesis also formed as a species in North America, but ended up in Eurasia during the next formation of a land" bridge "through the Bering Strait approximately 10 thousand years ago.

The bridge was formed according to various estimates 4-6 times, elephants, rhinoceros and other living creatures penetrated through it, but the horses disciplinedly waited in the wings and entered Eurasia at the last moment through Alaska, Chukotka and Siberia!

And now surprise surprise ! As soon as the migrant horses crossed Alaska, the Bering Strait and Chukotka, then the remaining horses in North America ... DIED!