# Why were ancient American horses not domesticated for transportation purposes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 17, 2015, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877 "2015-10-17T04:07:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ionizer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5daacb/32.png) [@Ionizer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ionizer)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/21 "2015-10-17T12:54:15Z")
The phrase ‘breaking a horse’ comes into play here, I bet. It is very dangerous to try and get a non-broken adult horse to accept a bridle/saddle/harness, be led by rope, or other useful-to-human activities. The horse does NOT desire doing such things, of course. It takes a lot of time (usually) plus knowledge of process to get a gentle compliant and trustworthy horse. It’s much easier to start ‘training’ on a foal than one that is big enough to kill you with one kick. I’ve seen a few ‘breakings’ of adult horses and it ain’t easy - gotta have a small corral or unescapeable, ropes, others with knowledge of how to help the breaker-person, etc. One person in open area does not have the strength or to somewhat safely handle an unbroken horse without probale high-level injury to them, in general. Canines, on the other hand, will want food which humans could provide easier than the animal having to spend energy/time hunting it down, for the most part. Plus, the canines would follow the easy source of food if/when the group of persons moved about periodically. This made their domestication much easier, succintly put. Horses could graze on grassy stuff pretty much anytime they wanted and did not need (or necessarily want), persons to lay out food-source for them if they had to deal with the persons they saw as a threat (or troublesome at least). They’d just run off to graze elsewhere in peace. I am sure there is/was more to it, but just pointing out a few big differences in the two species’ behaviors. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/22 "2015-10-17T12:58:58Z")
Yeah, I kind of wonder which came first, the meal or the ride? Would nomads trading with Mesopotamia and area have said “ooh, look what their doing with sheep and goats, I wonder if we can do that with whatever’s handy in our neck of the steppes?” Then when it’s time to move their dinner from one camp and pasture to another, think “hey, he’s a big boy, why not get him to carry the yurt and/or grandmother?” ---
**Author:** ![Ionizer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5daacb/32.png) [@Ionizer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ionizer)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/23 "2015-10-17T13:39:27Z")
\*\*md2000: \*\*I should’ve previewed the thread before posting - we said much of same point, wasn’t trying to pigyback off your post, fwiw. Oops. There would seem to be a difference in hunting -v- grazing species’ domesticating ease afaik. Grazing takes little effort while hunting your food can be problematic and dangerous. A species’ reducing the hazards of hunting seems to be part of the canines’ much earlier domestication than equines overall from what I understand. A just to add, if a horse (like some other domesicated animals like sheep and goats, etc) isn’t kept in a in fenced area (no matter the size of such) or forced by persons to stay in one area, it tends to just wander away wherever as it sees fit (as long as there is ample grazing area). Canines will, in general, return to easy food source ( ie ‘home’) unless they find someone else that gives it food/shelter/care reasonably quick, IME. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/24 "2015-10-17T14:48:23Z")
About horse breaking: a big hurdle is getting a horse to accept something they’re innately afraid of- having an animal on their back, which in the wild is usually the harbinger of a bloody death. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/25 "2015-10-17T16:36:58Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > About horse breaking: a big hurdle is getting a horse to accept something they’re innately afraid of- having an animal on their back, which in the wild is usually the harbinger of a bloody death. I agree, and I’ve also read that getting them to pull a cart, which means something noisy is following close behind them, is hard for the same reason. **NOVA** had an episode on years ago about chariots. Some people built a chariot just like those made in ancient times. Then they hitched large ponies to them, which had never been trained for riding or pulling anything, and the ponies promptly kicked to pieces the object which had taken weeks to build. (Choosing untrained animals wasn’t to show that they used untrained ones back then, BTW, it seems to have been because they bought the first horses they could find which would fit their harness.) ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/26 "2015-10-17T23:52:56Z")
What was the size of the ancient American horse around 11000 years ago or around the time humans and the ancient American equus would have coexisted? A large dog? An alpaca? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/27 "2015-10-18T00:43:02Z")
Upon reflection, it seems to me that the domestication of horses is roughly contemporary with the development of herding. Before, if you were just hunting herd animals, horses would be one of them. But once you have sheep/cattle/etc. tamed, then horses would be a big help in keeping up with the herd. ---
**Author:** ![jimbuff314](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c57346/32.png) [@jimbuff314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimbuff314)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/28 "2015-10-18T00:58:57Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > What was the size of the ancient American horse around 11000 years ago or around the time humans and the ancient American equus would have coexisted? A large dog? An alpaca? You’re using “ancient” in an extraordinarily recent sense. The oldest example of _Equus_ dates to 3.5mya and weighed 450kg, about the size of an Arabian horse today. From this [Wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_horse). The ancestors of horses haven’t been dog-sized for many millions of years. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/29 "2015-10-18T01:17:25Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > More to the point, it’s possible that the first arriving Amerinds found woolly mammoths, horses, and other megafauna which would soon go extinct. But this was thousands of years before any humans anywhere were domesticating anything. Don’t forget dogs. At least 15,000 years ago, and maybe more like 40,000. But dogs are unique. I think all other domestication of animals came AFTER the advent of farming or at least a herding lifestyle. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/30 "2015-10-18T03:09:26Z")
> [@jimbuff314](#): > > You’re using “ancient” in an extraordinarily recent sense. The oldest example of _Equus_ dates to 3.5mya and weighed 450kg, about the size of an Arabian horse today. From this [Wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_horse). The ancestors of horses haven’t been dog-sized for many millions of years. I’m interested to establish whether these caballine horses would even have been of any use as draught animals had been domesticated. Their miniature size 11000 years ago (dog size? cat size?)may have precluded them from any such use. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/31 "2015-10-18T03:25:04Z")
Re-read what he wrote - 11,000 years ago horses were horse-sized. Around 990 pounds if the 450 kg throws you off. That’s a small-to-medium sized horse these days. Capable of carrying a human being or performing light draft duties like pulling a small cart, a travois, or hauling a load of stuff on it’s back. Mustangs are about that size today, it’s apparently a good size for a wild/feral horse, a nice compromise between speed/strength and not needing too much high-quality food which wild horses might have trouble finding reliably. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/32 "2015-10-18T03:36:49Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > I’m interested to establish whether these caballine horses would even have been of any use as draught animals had been domesticated. Their miniature size 11000 years ago (dog size? cat size?)may have precluded them from any such use. As noted they weren’t miniature 11,000 years ago - [_Equus scotti_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equus_scotti) and [_Equus lambei_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equus_lambei) were about the last of the North American horses and they were roughly the same size as modern wild ponies. The proportions were a little bit different than a wild mustang. But size wouldn’t have been an issue. _Temperament_ on the other hand, could have been. For all we know they could have been more tractable than even our modern _Equus ferus_ or twice as ornery as our modern _Equus zebra_. We’ll never know. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/33 "2015-10-18T03:59:38Z")
Thank you all. Very helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/34 "2015-10-18T09:47:05Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > I would of assumed it was the domestication of horses that gave them ability to be nomads. Like, at one point they were settled… then domesticated horses, then became nomads. Once you learn the skill/habit of domesticating horses, then you can domesticate horses “in the wild”. > > I could be wrong about this of course. Some Australian aboriginies were seasonal nomads without having horses. And, it seems to me that they would not have automatically valued horses except to eat: reports are that, as nomads without pack animals, they placed a negative value on possesions that needed to be carried around. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/35 "2015-10-18T09:54:55Z")
> [@Ionizer](#): > > T It takes a lot of time (usually) plus knowledge of process to get a gentle compliant and trustworthy horse. I’ve listened to a stadium demonstration of a horse whisperer taming and saddleing a horse in about 30 minutes. A skill that would have been very valuable to some of our ancestors, but apparently wasn’t ever really developed. An interesting point is that, on an ad-hock basis, there were people who gentled their horse instead of breaking it, because I’ve read accounts of such. It just never became an efficient body of knowledge until recently. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/36 "2015-10-18T12:46:27Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > I would of assumed it was the domestication of horses that gave them ability to be nomads. Like, at one point they were settled… then domesticated horses, then became nomads. Once you learn the skill/habit of domesticating horses, then you can domesticate horses “in the wild”. > > I could be wrong about this of course. The relatively few nomadic hunter gatherers left move on foot. To stay in a single settlement you need either a location that provides food year-round without agriculture, or agriculture. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/37 "2015-10-18T15:47:47Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > I think dogs were domesticated easier than cattle, horses, goats, and similar animals because dogs would follow humans and scavenge food whereas in other situations that was not true, the animals did not follow humans. In other words, to domesticate (most) animals, you need to be in a permanent settled location, do you not? The new school of thought is that dogs domesticated _themselves,_ more or less. Or at least that the process of selection for lack of fear of humans began before human intention. Ancient proto-dogs, this theory posits, hung around our trash heaps; the ones least afraid of us got the most value from such behavior and thrived. The two species may have “moved in together” more than one conquering and taming the other. Hence domestication of dogs might not have prepared our ancestors for domestication of other species…and in fact, other species seem to have been domesticated much later. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/38 "2015-10-18T16:08:35Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Ancient proto-dogs, this theory posits, hung around our trash heaps; the ones least afraid of us got the most value from such behavior and thrived. Very similar for cats. Recent discoveries on Cyprus has pushed back their semi-domestication to at least ~8,000-9,000 years ago, which probably puts them after goats and sheep but in the same general range as cattle and pigs. And what seems to separate them from their wild kin are genes relating to [memory, fear-conditioning behavior, and stimulus-reward learning](http://www.pnas.org/content/111/48/17230.abstract). Basically the most likely scenario is that the boldest cats probably became commensal with early settled human populations, learning to feed on the abundant rodent pests that hung around communities while becoming tolerant of humans themselves. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/39 "2015-10-18T18:02:54Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > The new school of thought is that dogs domesticated _themselves,_ more or less. Or at least that the process of selection for lack of fear of humans began before human intention. Ancient proto-dogs, this theory posits, hung around our trash heaps; the ones least afraid of us got the most value from such behavior and thrived. The two species may have “moved in together” more than one conquering and taming the other. > > Hence domestication of dogs might not have prepared our ancestors for domestication of other species…and in fact, other species seem to have been domesticated much later. One school of thought, not “the new school of thought”. That’s been around for quite some time. But yeah, it’s quote possible that the post-dog domestications were a breakthrough quite apart from the domestication of the dog. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877/40 "2015-10-18T20:04:54Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Some Australian aboriginies were seasonal nomads without having horses. And, it seems to me that they would not have automatically valued horses except to eat: reports are that, as nomads without pack animals, they placed a negative value on possesions that needed to be carried around. Why didn’t they just domesticate kangaroos? Built-in saddlebags and everything! This is a joke post. I am aware that the pouch on a live kangaroo is not suitable for use as a storage compartment for anything other than a young kangaroo. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-ancient-american-horses-not-domesticated-for-transportation-purposes/734877.md?page=3)