this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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I've heard some indigenous people say that horses never went extinct in North America pointing to the fact that although Spanish horses were released in NA in the 16th century, 17th century European explorers documented great plains tribes with advanced horse cultures which would be hard to attribute to a handful of releases from the 16th century expeditions.
In fairness it only took like 30 years to develop advanced car culture.
The utility of the horse and the breeding and lack of predators would’ve made them pervasive in no time.
Also, most existing indigenous civilisations had collapsed due to genocide and the diseases imported by the European invaders. It was literally a post-apocalyptic scenario. The survivors were basically Mad Maxing it, only cars hadn't been invented yet so they had to use horses.