Were there horses before columbus came to the usa to explore?

Question

Were there horses before columbus came to the usa to explore?

Answer 1

In the movies it shows Indians riding pinto ponies hunting down Buffalo's!

But i do remember reading something about Spaniards bringing horses to the new world.  Was that before Columbus?   I don't know?

Answer 2

There was a prehistoric horse in the Americas which died out long before the Native Americans came here.   The Native Americans did not bring horses from Asia when they made the crossing either.  

The first horses were introduced by Cortez a few years after Columbus.  

Answer 3

Columbus never got to the USA

Answer 4

i dont think so, I believe the Spanish brought them  

Answer 5

Yes, there were horses in many parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe.  An early proto-horse developed in the Americas and moved to Asia a few million years ago.  Horses were reintroduced by Europeans to the Americas.

Answer 6

yeah i think the spanish brought them

Answer 7

AMERICAN INDIANS HAD PLENTY OF DOGS, BUT SPANIARDS INTRODUCED HORSES TO CONTINENT

When the Spaniards first penetrated into the continent of North America the only domesticated animal found was the dog. Some western tribes assert that their ancestors had the horse long before the white man was seen, but it is more probable that the Indian pony long extensively used by the tribes on the plains is descended from the animals brought over by the Spaniards. When Cortez and DeSoto invaded the continent they found no horses, wild or domesticated. The Indians who had in South America domesticated the Llama, the alpaca and the dog, knew nothing of the horse and were astonished at the sight of the strange animals, which the strangers rode. The horses abandoned by DeSoto near the Texas border are believed to be the progenitors of all the wild horses of North America. These horses, running wild, flourished and increased greatly, showing how well the country was adapted to their needs.

Answer 8

There were horses in prehistoric times, but they became extinct.  It is thought that they may have been hunted to extinction by the native americans.

Answer 9

columbus brought the horses to the US

Answer 10

nope, there wasn't any in America and they scared the indians =) xoxoxo

Answer 11

horses were not indigenous to America (there was no USA when columbus got here).  They may have been brought here before Columbus, if not, soon after.  

Answer 12

yeah - I though wild horses were pretty much everywhere

Answer 13

No horses existed on the American continents before the time of Columbus

Answer 14

the horses were spousedly brought over by the spanish when the occupied mexico

Answer 15

yes the indians were there first and they were the largest horse traders

Answer 16

No, the Spaniards introduced horses.

Answer 17

ever played Cowboys and indians, the red indians had tanks so no..........

DUH!!!!

Answer 18

Please IGNORE most of your answers....NOT ALL, some were correct.

There WERE horses in the Americas BEFORE Columbus.......BUT they went extinct.

Most of the evolutionary development of the horse (54 million years ago to about 10000 years ago) actually took place in North America, where they developed the very successful strategy of grazing (eating grass) rather than browsing (eating softer succulent leaves). These grazers had evolved specialized teeth for processing the stiff and coarse grass that was at that time becoming very plentiful on the Great Plains of North America.

The first primitive horse that had a single toe and hoof on each leg, like our modern horses. These small horses lived in North America some 6 million years ago, when they might have been preyed upon by Borophagus, the large, hyena-like dog.

Horses (Equus)continued to evolve and develop for another six million years after Pliohippus and became very successful, spreading throughout North America. At some point some of them crossed into the Old World via the Arctic-Asia land bridge. Then, suddenly, no one is absolutely certain why, between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, Equus disappeared from North and South America. Various theories have been advanced including destruction by drought, disease, or extinction as a result of hunting by growing human populations. At any rate, the horse was gone from the western hemiphere. The submergence of the Bering land bridge prevented any return migration from the Old World or Asia, and the horse was not seen again on its native continent until the Spanish explorers brought horses by ship in the sixteenth century.

Critics of the idea that the North American wild horse is a native animal, using only paleontological data, assert that the species, E. caballus (or the caballoid horse), which was introduced in 1519, was a different species from that which disappeared 13,000 to 11,000 years before. Herein lies the crux of the debate. However, the relatively new (27-year-old) field of molecular biology, using mitochondrial-DNA analysis, has recently found that the modern or caballine horse, E. caballus, is genetically equivalent to E. lambei, a horse, according to fossil records, that represented the most recent Equus species in North America prior to extinction. Not only is E. caballus genetically equivalent to E. lambei, but no evidence exists for the origin of E. caballus anywhere except North America.

Answer 19

in the barn!?

Answer 20

No, horses were brought over from Europe. The native Americans called them big dogs because they had no word for horse.

Answer 21

Columbus didn't bring horses to the mainland (as he never actually reached North America) - the Spaniards did when they began their conquests of Mexico and explorations into the Southwest

Answer 22

No because the horses came with the European Spaanish conquerors