You Can’t Beat an Extinct Horse - Livestream

A November 2023 episode of Science Friday, an NPR show beloved by many, including myself, included a short episode dedicated to the environmental problems caused by wild horses on the landscape of the western United States. In this episode, the host presented the view of Yvette Running Horse Collin rejecting the standard archaeological/paleontological conclusions that horses evolved in North America, died out, and were reintroduced to Native Americans by the Spanish. Instead, she claims that horses never became extinct in North America, but existed continuously, and were domesticated by Native Americans before the advent of Europeans. SciFri appeared to give equal weight to her views and the standard model, which was referred to as “western science” - a phrase which itself is problematic. I’ll discuss Collin’s position - derived from her dissertation - through the lens of archaeology, and why her conclusions are based on poor or nonexistent data, and pseudoscientific assumptions.

Speaker: Carl Feagans, US Forest Service

Watch the lecture here.