Cana Foundation hails groundbreaking collaboration between Lakota traditional ecological knowledge and modern genomics science to trace history of indigenous relationship with horses

LOCUST VALLEY, N.Y., April 3, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A new paper published last Thursday by the scientific journal Nature https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adc9691 presents a comprehensive analysis of the dispersal of horses among indigenous peoples in the western US beginning in the early 16^th century.

The paper uses a previously unexploited source for historical documentation---the modern science of genomics, or the study of genetic material (DNA) using the latest molecular tools. The research was overseen by molecular biologist Dr Ludovic Orlando, a leading authority on horse evolution located at the university of Toulouse in southern France. But unlike most such studies, the paper's authorship includes not only biologists and archeologists from European and American universities, but also a number of indigenous researchers utilizing traditional sources of knowledge (TEK). Cana Foundation has supported the application of TEK in its research program, which concerns the use of wild horses as a keystone species in helping to rebuild grasslands.

The new paper references research supported by the Cana Foundation that reveals that horses survived in northern North America as late as 5-6000 years ago. This late surviving population did not leave a persistent genetic trace, however, as less than 1% of their ancestry can be found in modern horses. There are several possible reasons for this, including very low population numbers, restriction to the subarctic, and final extinction before the arrival of European horses.

Archeologist William Taylor, the lead author of the new paper, has stated publicly that the story of late horse survival has yet to be fully explored: "DNA recovered from soil in the Arctic suggests horses might have survived until at least 5000 years ago in parts of North America, where people hunted them and fashioned their bones into tools".

Perhaps the memory of that early relationship survived for millennia and is preserved in the oral tradition of the Lakota and other groups—who then reestablished a connection with domesticated horses in the past few centuries. "It would be crazy to dismiss this idea without testing it further," Taylor says. "And now we can start to do that. More radiocarbon dates and DNA, along with other methods, might even document an intersection between ancient horses and the Lakota and other groups."

Dr. Ross MacPhee from the American Museum of Natural History underlines Taylor's important message: "It needs to be emphasized that, apart from the fact of their existence, almost nothing is known about these late surviving horses. Premodern horse macrofossils (bones and teeth) younger than 10,000 years have yet to be found anywhere in North America, and the existing DNA evidence---isolated from sediments, not bones---remains very limited. These gaps in our knowledge need to be closed, and thanks to Cana Foundation's programs the hunt for their remains continues."

SOURCE CANA Foundation