A Question for the Editor:* Sir: I have been told that the horse was unknown among the American aborigines until the coming of the Europeans. Yet the Book of Mormon mentions horses in its area, and actual remains of ancient horses are supposed to have been found at the La Brea tar pits, in Tierra del Fuego, etc. Could you straighten me out on this point?—L.B.D.

Answer. It is true that the horse was unknown in aboriginal America at the coming of the Europeans. The Indians were generally terrified by these strange four-legged beasts out of whose backs seemed to grow manlike figures. But horses soon escaped from the Spaniards, and it was not long after the Discovery until such groups as the Plains Indians of North America and those of the Argentine pampas became expert horsemen.

It is also true that actual remains of horses have been found at numerous ancient sites such as La Brea in California, Tierra Del Fuego at the southern tip of South America, and Lagos Santa in Brazil. These have often been found in direct association with human remains, thus demonstrating the contemporaneity of the two. But these human groups invariably possessed only a simple hunting type of culture and are believed to date to a very early time horizon—before the rise of the agricultural civilizations. Moreover, these early hunters did not ride the horses or make them pull loads; they simply hunted them and ate them.

A crucial question in the early history of the New World is whether the horse existed and was domesticated by man during the time of the advanced pre-Columbian agricultural civilizations. In our present state of knowledge, no fully satisfactory answer can be given. It is generally believed however, that the horse disappeared from among the native American fauna soon after the end of the damp Pleistocene climate in which the early hunting cultures thrived. But actually, the extinction date of the horse cannot be unequivocally established. If the horse did die out at that time, this would mean that it did not exist in America contemporaneously with the advanced pre-Columbian civilizations, that is, say, between 3000 B.C. and A.D. 1500.

But at this point at least a few shreds of contrary evidence have come to light: for example, a wheeled toy vehicle from Oaxaca in the possession of the American Museum of Natural History, showing a man mounted on an animal, possibly a horse. Actually, very little is known about the fauna of the early stages of the New World civilization. I do not believe that anyone has ever made a comprehensive study of the animal life associated with the earlier (“pre-classic” or Book of Mormon-period) civilizations of Mesoamerica.—R.T.C.