00:00Researchers were ecstatic when, in 2018, landscapers unearthed the skeleton
00:05remains of a horse in a backyard in Lehigh, Utah.
00:09At the time,
00:10scientists thought the horse dated to the last ice age because the bones were buried in sediment dating to about
00:1516,000 years ago, but now a new study shows they were way off by a lot.
00:20It turns out this horse didn't live in the last ice age.
00:23Instead, radiocarbon-
00:25radiocarbon dating shows its bones are no older than 340 years old.
00:29The team found-
00:30that the horse lived sometime after 1680, but likely before Europeans permanently-
00:35settled in the Great Salt Lake area in the mid-1800s.
00:38Despite this epic-
00:40mistake.
00:41It's still an exciting find, the researcher said.
00:43An analysis of the horses and-
00:45anatomy and DNA indicate that it was a domesticated horse likely raised, ridden, and cared
00:50for by the indigenous people.
00:52Quirzas have a long history in North America.
00:55They lived here from about 50 million to 10,000 years ago, disappearing about the-
01:00same time as other large animals, including mammoths, short-faced bears-
01:05and giant sloths that went extinct at the end of the last ice age.
01:08It's likely that these big animals-
01:10went extinct as they dealt with a combination of climate change and human interactions.
01:15However, horses were reintroduced to the Americas in the 16th century, when the-
01:20Spaniards brought them over.
01:21Many indigenous people who lived in the Americas swiftly integrated horses-
01:25into their cultures and economies.
01:27And that's how this horse fits into the picture.
01:30A genetic analysis showed that it was a domesticated horse-
01:33scientifically known as Equis-
01:35Caballus that was raised by indigenous people in what is now Utah, possibly by the Utes or-
01:40Shoshone cultures.
01:41The Lehigh horse shows that there is an incredible-
01:45archaeological record out there of the early relationship between indigenous people and horses.
01:50a record that tells us things not written in any European histories, said study lead author-
01:55William Taylor, a curator of archaeology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History-
02:00An analysis of this horse's bones, showed that it was a female and about twelve-
02:05years old when it died, meaning it was an older mare.
02:08The horse's spine had fractures-
02:10indicative of horseback riding-
02:12meaning someone likely rode this horse bareback or with a soft saddle-
02:15pad and banged up and down on the horse's back while riding.
02:18The horse also had a number of-
02:20maladies, including arthritis.
02:21So, why keep around an old horse?
02:25The hunter said that it's possible that indigenous people cared for this mare because they wanted
02:29to breed her-
02:30the stallions in the herd.
02:35And yet, you're in the kryptonite of the drug on these
02:37and that was a dream.
02:38You
02:40have a great time to do this.
02:41For the rest of you,
02:42we're the only one of the best-
02:43forces of the country in Europe.
02:44We have a great time to do this.
02:45The first-
02:55the first-
02:56the first-
02:58the first-
02:59the second-
03:01the second-
03:01the third-
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