Horses and Humans in the Early Historic North American West with Dr Emily Jones 

In the centuries following Spanish colonization of the Americas, domestic horses revolutionized the world of the North American West, giving rise to the great horse cultures of the plains and deserts and forming the backbone of economically, politically, and militarily dominant Indigenous empires during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. However, how this process unfolded remains contested, with academics and Indigenous researchers often holding very different perspectives. In this webinar, Dr. Jones will discuss new results from the Horses and Human Societies in the North American West project, an initiative to integrate data from archaeological horse remains (radiocarbon dating, ancient DNA, stable isotopes, and ZooMS) with historical narratives and Indigenous knowledge to develop an interpretative framework for the dispersal of domestic horses across North America.