I Rode through the Desert: Equestrian Adaptations of Indigenous Peoples in Southern Hemisphere Arid Zones
I Rode through the Desert: Equestrian Adaptations of Indigenous Peoples in Southern Hemisphere Arid Zones
Peter Mitchell 0 1 2
0 St Hugh's College , Oxford OX2 6LE , UK
1 GAES, University of the Witwatersrand , Johannesburg , South Africa
2 School of Archaeology, University of Oxford , Oxford , UK
One of the most profound consequences of the BColumbian exchange^ set in motion by Europe's fifteenth- to nineteenth-century expansion overseas was the introduction of the horse to parts of the world where it had previously been absent. Alongside the internationally well-known Plains of North America, these regions included several southern hemisphere drylands: Patagonia; the Karoo and Kalahari of southern Africa; and the deserts of Australia. This paper explores the equestrian adaptations developed by the Indigenous inhabitants of these three areas and tries to explain the variability apparent in the speed and consequences of their adoption of the horse.
Horse; Columbian exchange; Arid and semi-arid environments; Southern hemisphere; Indigenous peoples
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Horses (Equus caballus) are a relatively recent introduction (or, in South America,
reintroduction) to the southern hemisphere. Their arrival in the Southern Cone of South
America, southern Africa, and Australia formed a key part of the Columbian exchange
of human, animal, plant, and microbe populations set in motion by Europe’s
fifteenthto nineteenth-century expansion overseas (Crosby 1986, 2003). That arrival did not
only contribute to a series of longer-term ecological modifications of southern
hemisphere ecologies that continues today: it also facilitated the eventual colonization
and conquest of all three southern continents by populations of European origin, and—
the subject of this paper—profoundly impacted their Indigenous inhabitants. For the
arid and semi-arid regions of the southern hemisphere (mean annual rainfalls of <250
and 250-500 mm respectively) the recency—and near-simultaneity—of the horse’s
arrival makes its relationships with the peoples already living there a rewarding topic
for comparative study. Strangely, however, but at least partly because of the language
limitations of many Anglophone scholars, few, if any, such comparisons have been
attempted previously. In this paper I therefore first review the historical trajectories
linking people and horses in Patagonia, the Kalahari and Karoo regions of southern
Africa, and arid zone Australia (Fig. 1). I then explore some themes of common interest
that unite these three southern hemisphere dryland regions: the conditions that may
have been necessary for equestrian societies to develop; the ways in which people
imagined and visually represented the horse; and the effects that having horses had on
how people acquired food for themselves. I also ask how evidence from the world’s
southern deserts can help us understand the broader circumstances in which novel
equestrian adaptations arose in the Americas, Africa, and Australasia after horses went
global post-1492.
Southern Hemisphere Horse Histories
South America’s Southern Cone
Patagonia extends over more than 1,000,000km2 of South America’s Southern Cone,
from the Río Colorado in the north to the Strait of Magellan in the south. Given the much
higher rainfall of the areas lying west of the Andes in what is now Chile, my discussion
focuses on the much larger, Argentine part of Patagonia between the continental divide
and the Atlantic Ocean. Argentine Patagonia is mostly a region of arid, steppe-like plains,
with trees confined to the foothills of the Andes, sheltered basins, and areas around the
Strait of Magellan. Punctuating the steppe-lands, a series of major rivers runs broadly
west-to-east to empty into the Atlantic and offer possible corridors for human movement
(Borrero et al. 2009): the Colorado, Negro, Chubut, Deseado, Santa Cruz, Gallegos, and
others. Patagonia’s climate is markedly seasonal in character. Although the piedmont zone
Fig. 1 Map of the world showing the drylands of the southern hemisphere and specific archaeological sites or
localities named in the text. These are numbered as follows: 1 Bickerton Island; 2 //Khauxa!nas; 3 Laguna
Condor, Lake Strobel; 4 Laura; 5 Paredón Lanfré; 6 Río Cisnes; 7 Río Senguer
parallel to the Andes receives sufficient rainfall to support forest and woodland,
immediately to its east precipitation drops to no more than 150-300 mm p.a., winds intensify,
and temperatures become more extreme; Maquinchao, for example, at an elevation of
888 m a.s.l. and in the middle of northern Patagonia (41°S) has recorded maxima and
minima of 38 °C and −26 °C respectively. The coast has a more moderate temperature
regime, but still shows a significant increase in cold on moving south. It is almost entirely
lacking in water and firewood because of the offshore presence of the cold Malvinas
(Falkland) Current (Orquera 1987), though the upwelling associated with this does sustain
rich fisheries and associated b (...truncated)