The Puebloan discussion is very…odd. It focuses on the Pueblo Revolt (1680) as a magical demarcation point for Puebloan contact with the horse, based on two 10

The Puebloan discussion is very…odd. It focuses on the Pueblo Revolt (1680) as a magical demarcation point for Puebloan contact with the horse, based on two 100-year-old Anthropological papers that I’ve never seen referenced in the New Mexicana literature I’ve read. Nor have I ever read the Pueblo-Revolt-horse-first thesis mentioned in any New Mexico history texts from the 1800s, or 1900s. It reads like a straw man argument to me. Nowhere near “the earliest date accepted by Western science” argued (without support) in the conclusions. Anthropologists might have been that foolish, but no professional Western historian ever was. (I stand to be proven wrong, however.) European contact (riding European horses) for Puebloans would have started with Coronado’s expedition in 1540, and certainly extended with Oñate’s colonization starting in 1598. The Pueblo revolt was 1680. That is at least 80 years of intimate (read up on encomienda/repartimento and Mission churches for more details) Hispano/Pueblo contact prior to the Revolt. What historian would think Puebloans were uninvolved with horses pre-Pueblo-Revolt, when they were in physical partnership (a highly unequal partnership) with horse-riding Europeans for 80 years prior to the Pueblo Revolt. Why would a horse bone at Paa’ko in the early 1600s, when there were already many Spanish colonists in Northern New Mexico, be a surprise? [There is, however, no mention of Puebloans using, or even being aware of, horses prior to any European contacts in any historical chronicle of the period, and this was such a crucial point for the Conquistadors that someone would have mentioned it, since the horse was perhaps the major strategic military advantage they had from 1540 through 1680. Evidence of that early an awareness would be significant if true. Very unlikely, given the European historical records that report no horses in any Pueblos encountered over those many years, but not impossible.] Also, arguing “broad use of the horse” in Pueblo culture from a single Paa’ko horse bone dated to the period when many Spanish colonists were also in the 240000 sq mi “Kingdom of New Mexico” (Santa Fe de Nuevo México) is a bit of a stretch. It wouldn’t surprise me, or many others, that horses were in more common use by the Comanche, Apaches, etc. in the 1600s than previously thought. It would add credence to the notion that availability of horses led to an increase in raiding parties from such tribes on the Pueblos after the Revolt and was one reason the post-Revolt Reconquista was so surprisingly successful.