Interesting Question

Although I am not familiar with the writings of Colquhoun, I would agree with him.

Mitch, Saber Tooth Tiger and Wooly Mammoth bones were also found at the same site in Mexico. We're talking long before the Spanish. Let me explain a little bit based on my understanding. The Ice Age wiped out that species of horse. The species I am referring to would be Eohippus (Hyracotherium) known as the Dawn Horse which did exist on the continent of North American. It did not survive the Ice Age as it is believed this early horse was adapted to a tropical climate. Those early horses were a part of an ecosystem and environment long gone. Given the Ice Age started about 70,000 years ago, I think it would be safe to say those horses were extinct. Tens of thousands of years went by in which no species of horse was present to co-evolve and therefore the introduction of the Modern Horse resulted in unforeseen consequences. Every free-ranging horse in the United States is a descendant of an escaped or abandoned horse. Feral modern horses take an incredible toll on vegetation and water sheds.

If horses were extinct in the new world, the the Quarter Horse would be the same as the Arabs and Barbs that the Spanish used. The Quarter Horse and our wild horses are larger and some have more white markings then are found in the Arab as well as coming in different colors. "Feral horses" would be small Arabs and Barbs that were used by the Spanish.

This is my understanding but there are those who may have a different understanding whom I would encourage to post- All modern horses, to include Equus przewalski poliakov, can be traced back to Equus przewalski gmelini. I am relatively sure Equus przewalski poliakov never set foot on North America. Reference being to prehistoric horses that fossil remains indicate were here. All horses, equines, present on this continent now are descendants of Parahippus. There's a lot of confusion out there because horse evolution doesn't appear to follow a straight line. There are numerous branches of acknowledged horse evolution. The familiar Equus is but only one twig on the tree of equine species. You might be thinking straight line evolution because Equus is the only twig that has survived. Next, horse evolution also doesn't appear to have been smooth and/or gradual. Different traits evolved at different rates, didn't always evolve together, and occasionally reversed direction. horse species did not always come into existence by gradual transformation of their ancestors. Sometimes new species split off from ancestors and then co-existed with those ancestors for some time. Some species arose gradually, others suddenly. Paleo Man contributed substantially to the extinction of one species of horse and many other species of fauna but there were other factors present and that horse would not have been Equus przewalski poliakov. Whatever the reasons for extinction, the horse did not reappear on the continent until the Spanish lost a few and natives got their first fateful look at a "medicine dog". "Thousands of years went by in which no species of horse was present to co-evolve and therefore their introduction resulted in unforeseen consequences." Actually, depending on the source, anywhere from 15,000 to 12,000 years went by with no species of horse on North America. There is something out there that is pretty bizarre. Horses were apparently extinct on the continent of Europe until a species we had at one time migrated over the Bering Strait which then left us "horseless". Incidentally, those Kiger Mustangs out west are believed to be direct descendants of the original escaped Spanish horses. They are finely bred, have tiger stripes on the legs, and the dorsal stripes of their ancestors. It's all quite mind boggling if you ask me and as time goes on and more dna evidence becomes available, we will all learn more.

That is more then I ever knew about the horse... when I was in Mexico City they showed us a set of horse bones 700-800 years old they claimed found in the ruins.. there is an write up about it in the National Geo... but looking online I cannot find anything else about it but I will look up the article in the NG and see what it there.

.Actually, the Quarter Horse is the first horse to be considered native to America. It came about by the interbreeding of the other types of horses brought over by the Spaniards. I teach Science, including the theory of evolution (note I said theory) and my daughter is a vet who owns several horses. In much of the world it is referred to as the American Quarter Horse. Yes, they are descendents of the Arabians, along with several other breeds.

http://www.imh.org/imh/bw/quar.html

I'm no vet but I have Arabs myself. I should refer to them as aging pasture pets. Sure do wish you daughter was my daughter because my vet bills get ugly some times.

From your link-

Artificial hybrids, domesticated forms, and cultivated varieties aren't native to anywhere. They don't naturally occur anywhere, and hence no place is within their natural range.

If you really want to use the word "native" in that context, maybe you could say they're native to gardens or stables. That's about as far as it goes, though.

Patrick Alexander

Horse people, myself included, take great pride in our American Quarter Horse being "home grown". Patrick; it's sort of hard to explain although I do realize that cattle, sheep, and feral horses have all taken an incredible toll on many ecosystems since their respective introductions.

Lauren

Oh, yes, Patrick! That is something I learned. My daughter has a couple of Arabians and loves them dearly. But she worked the horse stables during the Olympics in Atlanta, GA and we nearly had WW111 when someone made a nasty remark about Quarter Horses! I learned my lesson well from that. You would have thought that she personally had bred it. Yep, horse people are proud of the American Quarter Horse.

Back to the meaning of ”native”. Just how far back are we going? We no longer say “Indian” but “Native American.” Well, actually there is no evidence that they were on this continent until about 10,000 years ago when they crossed the Bering Strait and slowly migrated down, evidently all the way to South America. As someone said earlier, all evidence is that human beings began in Africa and slowly migrated out from there. Skin color and other features changed as they adapted to new climates.

If you study Plate Tectonics you know that at one time all land was one huge land mass and most have moved from their original positions.

I am very interested in planting “natives” and have to research since I have only been in SC forty years. J I figure if it has been here 3 to 5 hundred years and isn’t invasive, that is close enough. I don’t think the original Cherokee were into writing down wildflower names and even if they were, I have a feeling they called them something different from what they are called now.

I feel for ya, I'm very interested in native plants too and I've only been living where I live for around 40 years too.

Perhaps paalexan would share with us how far back he believes native will go and why. I suspect I will be in total agreement with what ever he shares and I suspect he won't go all the way back to Pangea.

That sounds like a plan. The fossil record shows that there have been mass extinctions on earth about every 26 million years, meaning that approximately 23 mass extinctions have occurred since the beginning of the earth. Some have been caused by the earth being hit by an asteroid, a couple by huge volcanic eruptions, and some by unexplained climate changes. Well, now I figure I cannot control a couple of those things but I can, perhaps, not speed up the change in our climate by being careful with my fuel use and I can prevent some of my beautiful plants from being wiped out by some plant we know that man brought over here just a few decades ago. I, personally, would like to avoid being the next species wiped off the face of the earth. I know…it is all about me, me, me!

Thank your Molliee for starting my day with such a big smile on my face!

Glad to bring you a smile! I am off to save my rose and do battle with Kudzu! Have a good one!

When it comes to the human issue, I may have been born in Alabama, but I do not consider myself as native to North America. I am a person of European descent living outside my native range and always will be. If I were to call myself native to a Creek Indian, it would spark a heated debate.
When it comes to plant life, I take such a passion in the invasive issue because it affects everything around us. What was the reason our forefathers wanted to make a home here in North America? It was the beauty of this continent. When they first arrived here they found ancient forest of chestnut trees in the east and open pine savannas in the south, free from wisteria, kudzu, privet, etc. It looked like heaven on earth to them. When I see old black and white photos of what this continent used to look like, I can only dream that someday we could get some of it back the way it used to be.



This message was edited Jul 24, 2006 3:32 PM

A couple things.. one horses are in terms of evolution, like man unsuccessfull.. there is no diversity all but one twig has failed to thrive.

Horses
Hyracptherium.. 55 million years ago in the forrest of the americas the 4 toed arose.. it was small toothed, agile, living on berries and young leaves, it is the source for all horses, zebras, and asses to follow.
37 million years ago as north america warmed Mesohippus arose, classically described as the "size of a fox terrier" (the use of that description over the years is the subject of a wonderfull essay by Gould) and is horse like in most ways, size and toes being the exception.
about 27 million years ago an age of horses arose when horses would have the most species ever in their evolution, only to start a slow decline the ended with the mass extictions of American Horses in the last ice age.. Horses now had their future in the few groups the has left their homeland and moved into asia.. It would be up to the Europeans to bring the horse back the new world.

Humans
People have in this tread said humans came to north america 10 years ago.. the date for the "Clovis First" view of immigration to the Americas.. this is wrong and no longer excepted as fact. DNA studies put the date at 20,000 years ago. with the disputed site of Topper, SC turning up radio carbon datings so old as 50,000 years. Interestingly the only proto-clovis culture is from france and dna studies are begining to point to non-asian dna in a very small number of native american tribes.

Myths of Ancient Forrests and Praires in North America.
Nearly all ecosystems in North America are in geological terms.. babies many much less then 10,000 years old. Studies of the diets of peoples living in the southeastern US over the last 10,000 reveals a slow change from grassland to forrest.. a change that was halted by man from just east of the mississipi to the rockies. For the most part these plain existed only becuase of man, and one could debate how natural they were. In the early 1800s the indians were driven off the plains of western kentucky.. within a half of a generation they were gone.

Speed of Evolution and Diversity..
The diveristy of chiclids, a type of a fish, in the great rift lakes of africa is amazing, while no knows for sure it would appear that their are 1500 or more endemic species even more amazing is the oldest of these lakes are just 50,000 years old.. evolution and diversity happens are breakneck speed when stasis is interupted, until.a new balance is reached. as little as 3 years of drought in the galapogos islands resulted in 2 populations in some finches.. a larger one more able to survive the by eating seeds more common in drought years, and a smaller one able to surive by eating less. In Illinois we are seeing some red wing blackbirds changing by the presents of Amur Honeysuckles (the true spawn of satan). Those that breed and live in the honeysuckles are lossing their red markings and replacing them with yellow. interestingly their young are showing a prefernces to mate with other yellow marked birds. If man did nothing at all their is little doubt that a yellow winged amur blackbird would arise.


This message was edited Jul 15, 2006 3:48 PM

My point is being missed. The Barbs and Arabs couldn't on their own decide to be the larger native horses in a few generation, without any new genes added. Because no fossils have been found yet it doesn't prove they weren't here. If anyone found bones of a native horse would they bother to carbon date them?

EQ wrote:

"Horse people, myself included, take great pride in our American Quarter Horse being "home grown". Patrick; it's sort of hard to explain although I do realize that cattle, sheep, and feral horses have all taken an incredible toll on many ecosystems since their respective introductions."

Ok, so you can be proud that the American Quarter Horse is native to American stables. :-) But it still ain't native anywhere except cultivation (so to speak). You can also easily separate the idea of being home-grown from the idea of being native...

Mollie wrote:

"Back to the meaning of ”native”. Just how far back are we going? We no longer say “Indian” but “Native American.” Well, actually there is no evidence that they were on this continent until about 10,000 years ago when they crossed the Bering Strait and slowly migrated down, evidently all the way to South America."

Well, the two common ways of defining native in North American plants are:
1-- present here when Europeans arrived
2-- present here from the origin of the species onward

Going way back to Pangaea and all that isn't very helpful, since plants present in the US now didn't exist *anywhere* that long ago. Even the plant families are mostly younger than that.

Also-- I say "Indian". I figure that by now I'm as native as they are... which is to say, not native at all in a biological sense. Go back a few hundred years and Indian culture was native (originating here) but by now the way Indians live has been too deeply affected by European culture. If I see a guy hunting buffalo on foot with an atlatl and living in a teepee, I'll call him native. :-) And, for what it's worth, a Taos Indian friend of mine objects to "Native American" on the grounds that she isn't American.

Patrick Alexander

paalexan,
Well, there are a few members of the Navajo and Hopi tribes who would not agree with your friend. I spent a very interesting summer in Arizona and while a great many of the tribes were making their money off the tourists, there were also quite a few who still view us as invaders. The same could be said of the Cherokee that live in the Carolinas.

Actually the western part of the United States is much younger than the eastern part. And it has recently been proven that the lower part of SC (from Columbia to the ocean) was once a part of Africa. There is abundant fossil evidence to prove this.

We find little fossil evidence of any kind life form here in the Upstate simply because it has been destroyed in the mountain building process. That doesn’t mean it didn’t exist though.

Given the fact that the oldest rock has been found in Greenland and dated at 4.6 billion years old, man has been here a blink of the eye. What we brought or did not bring with us, Mother Nature will deal with in Her own way even though we struggle to make Her do our bidding.

I find this a fascinating discussion. I have a feeling that whatever higher power you believe in is having a good laugh at us! (It is so doggone hard to be PC anymore!)

Mollie wrote:

"Well, there are a few members of the Navajo and Hopi tribes who would not agree with your friend. I spent a very interesting summer in Arizona and while a great many of the tribes were making their money off the tourists, there were also quite a few who still view us as invaders. The same could be said of the Cherokee that live in the Carolinas."

And even a lot of them making their money off tourists view us as invaders--they just know how to get a little financial gain from us! But, whether they like it or not, our arrival ended up fundamentally changing their way of life.

Also keep in mind that the Navajo are relative new-comers out here, too. They got to Arizona & New Mexico just before the Spanish. The Indians had been invading each other for millenia before the Europeans came in and invaded the whole place.

"Actually the western part of the United States is much younger than the eastern part."

And most of it was covered by an ocean for quite a while, too. But even though that's recent in a geological sense it's a whole lot older than most species...

"Given the fact that the oldest rock has been found in Greenland and dated at 4.6 billion years old, man has been here a blink of the eye. What we brought or did not bring with us, Mother Nature will deal with in Her own way even though we struggle to make Her do our bidding."

Yup. Unless we do something really drastic (worldwide nuclear war, for instance), things will sort themselves out quite nicely after we're gone. I just hope they're not too screwed up while I'm around.

Patrick Alexander

The Cherokee, genetically.. not cuturally have been very sucessfull since the arrival of Europeans.. a large number of Southerners have in their blood the genes of the Cherokees.. While, I have never been much a supporter of the selfish gene theories of people like Dawkins (genes are the driving force of evolution, and plants and animals are just vessels to achieive this), fact is genetically the cherokee have never been as wide speard or sucessfull as they are currently.

As for the Navajo, they were the first that came to my mind when I read your comment about an Indian not thinking of themselves as american.. In college I collected oral histories of world war II vets, as a part of this I read alot works on the subject and listened to a lot of oral histories. The Navajo Code Talkers, whose role in WWII was so vitual that it was classifed for decades after the war, most certainly think of themselves as Americans, and all Americans owe them a great deal of thanks.

Yes the changes to the Americas after Columbus were vast. The introduction of domesticed animals, disease, gun powder, and even the wheel were all changes that fundementally altered the lives of Native Americans. The changes however where not a one way street, agicultural products from the Americas changed to the core European life. Italy got tomatoes, Ireland got potatoes.. and thats just a start.

It would be more correct to say the world was changed by the arrival in numbers of Europeans to the New World.. no place on Earth was not effected by the event. It stands as on of the most pivotal in all of human history.

While changes in culture are easy to see, the subject of this post is the changes to the ecosystems. Man has been changing and altering the environment of north american since they got here. The first and biggest change was wiping out the megafuana of North America, which did not happen with the arrival of man, but the arrival of Clovis Culture. The burning of the plains was the seconds greatest change by man pre columbus, and probally a nessecary evil considering the megafauna prairie building animals had vanished. North America, before Europeans was as it is today.. a man manipulated evironment. The days of the romatized "Noble Savage" are a thing of the past, if archeology and antopology have taugh us anything over the last century it is that man alters the environment to suit them to the limit of their abilities. Only in the last half century, has man stopped to think about what they have done or are doing.

This message was edited Jul 15, 2006 8:33 PM

paalexan, I am with you. I figure this world was here long before us and will do well without us. But I prefer not to be around or to contribute to the end of mankind

Colquhoun, Yes, most Carolinians who can trace their generations back here will find some Indian blood in it. Many from tribes never heard of outside this state. I am a transplant but have been here for 40 years - originally from Ohio and sometime in the mid 1800's Germany and Switzerland. What do I consider myself? A transplanted Yankee. I love SC and won't go back. And I agree totally about the Navajos. What an amazing story that is. But, as you said, this is about the ecosystem. I think that most processes going on now have always gone on but man has speeded up those processes. Until and unless he learns that his life depends on that system, he needs to pay careful attention to what he is doing to it or it will no longer support him.

Tee he, yes... The American Quarter Horse is "native" to American stables. They misused the word entirely at that website in my humble opinion but I knew what they meant. I thought I did ok to midland pointing out that horses certainly aren't an indigenous/native species and that thoses that have escaped have wreaked a lot of havoc since the Europeans brought them back to this continent. I personally would like to see all feral horses rounded up and auctioned off and removed from Public land.

I would agree with this,