sandii

Horses originally evolved in North America around 50 to 55 million years ago—starting as small, forest-dwelling creatures like Eohippus—before migrating across the Bering Land Bridge to Asia, Europe, and Africa... Forty million years ago, horses first emerged in North America, but after migrating to Asia over the Bering land bridge, horses disappeared from this continent at least 10,000 years ago. For millennia, Native Americans traveled and hunted on foot, relying on dogs as miniature pack animals. When Christopher Columbus brought two dozen Andalusian horses on his second voyage to the New World in 1493, he couldn’t have imagined how reintroducing the horse to North America would transform Native American life, especially for the buffalo-hunting Plains Indians, for whom the swift and loyal horse was a marriage made in heaven. Some scholars believe horses never truly went extinct in North America and were used by Native American tribes prior to Columbus’ arrival. Recent archaeological and genetic research shows that Indigenous peoples integrated horses into their cultures and trade networks across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains much earlier than old European records suggested—reaching regions like Wyoming, Idaho, and New Mexico by the early 1600s. The animal completely transformed Plains cultures, mobility, and the buffalo economy. . . . When Columbus and other Spanish explorers arrived in Hispaniola on horseback, the native Taíno of the Caribbean were terrified by what they saw as a half-man, half-beast, says Herman Viola, a curator emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution. “They had never seen a creature that had human beings riding on it.” As more Native tribes encountered the horse, that initial fear gave way to awe for the animal’s speed and power. With the dog as their closest reference, Indians gave this mythical new creature names like “elk dog,” “sky dog” and “holy dog.” “The Spanish quickly realized that the last thing they wanted was for Indians to have horses, because that would put them on equal footing,” says Viola, but that’s exactly what happened following the Pueblo Uprising of 1680. After enduring a century of harsh Spanish rule, otherwise peaceful Pueblo Indians violently drove the Spanish from Santa Fe and captured their prized horses, which they then traded with neighboring tribes. Horses quickly moved across trade routes to the Navajo, Ute and Apache, then to the Kiowa and Comanche of the southern Plains, and the Shoshone of the Mountain West. By 1700, horses had reached the Nez Perce and Blackfoot of far Northwest, and traveled eastward to Lakota, Crow and Cheyenne of northern Plains. As horses arrived from the west, the first guns were being traded from the east. By the time of French and Indian War in 1760s, armed and mounted Indian warrior was a formidable presence on the Great Plains. Buffalo are big, strong and fast. Before horses came to the Plains, Native hunters pursued large herds on foot, but it was dangerous, difficult work with low odds of success. One technique was to startle and chase an animal toward a cliff or dropoff called a “buffalo jump.” Once wounded, buffalo was easier to kill. “When horses were introduced, the modes of hunting changed,” says Emil Her Many Horses, a curator at Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and a member of the Oglala Lakota nation. “A favorite hunting horse could be trained to ride right into the stampeding buffalo herd.” 📷 : an 1844 painting titled Buffalo Hunt by the American painter and traveler George Catlin (1796-1872) #archaeohistories

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was a major English Romantic poet whose life was defined by radical political views, scandalous romances and a tragic early death... At age 19, Shelley eloped with 16-year-old Harriet Westbrook in 1811. They had children together, but the marriage grew unhappy. In 1814, Shelley abandoned Harriet and eloped with 16-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later known as Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein). In late 1816, Harriet died by suicide. Shelley and Mary married shortly afterward, though their lives continued to be plagued by financial debts and the early deaths of several of their children. On July 8, 1822—just a month before his 30th birthday—Shelley drowned when his schooner, the Don Juan, sank during a sudden storm in the Gulf of La Spezia off the coast of Italy. During his cremation on the beach, legend states that his heart allegedly refused to burn and was rescued by his friend Edward Trelawny, who gave it to a grieving Mary Shelley. Percy Bysshe Shelley's heart story is one of the most famous and gothic legends of the Romantic literary era. . . . In July 1822, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned when his sailboat went down in a storm off the coast of Italy. He was just 29. His body washed ashore days later, and under Italian quarantine laws it was cremated on the beach near Viareggio. His friend Edward Trelawny later claimed that one organ refused to burn, the heart, and that he pulled it from the flames with his bare hands. The relic eventually passed to Shelley's widow, Mary, the author of 'Frankenstein'. She never spoke of it publicly, but she kept it close for the rest of her life. When she died in 1851, her son Percy Florence and his wife opened her desk and found it wrapped in silk, folded inside a page torn from 'Adonais', the elegy Shelley had written for his friend John Keats just a year before his own death. Historians still debate what the relic really was. Some believe it was not his heart at all but his liver, which can survive fire when soaked with seawater. Whatever it was, Mary held on to it for almost three decades, a quiet, strange devotion from the woman who gave the world its most famous story about life, death and the human body. It was finally laid to rest in 1889, buried with their son. The fight over who would keep it. Trelawny first gave the heart to their friend, the poet Leigh Hunt, rather than to Mary. Hunt felt his bond with Shelley gave him the stronger claim, and he refused to hand it over. The quarrel became so bitter that friends had to step in. Only after Jane Williams, whose husband had drowned alongside Shelley, pleaded with him did Hunt finally give the heart up to Mary. #archaeohistories

The historic Sidford Packhorse Bridge located near Sidmouth in Devon, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧 This medieval packhorse bridge was built in 1100 AD and its history goes far beyond simply carrying travellers across the River Sid... In 1644, at the height of the English Civil War, a skirmish took place close to Sidford Bridge between Royalist and Parliamentarian forces. It was not a major battle, but that is precisely what makes the story so interesting. The Civil War was not fought only at famous places such as Naseby, Edgehill and Marston Moor. It reached deep into rural England, disrupting villages, roads and communities that found themselves caught between opposing armies. Sidford Bridge was an important local crossing point. Controlling bridges, roads and river crossings could determine how quickly troops, horses, artillery and supplies moved through the countryside. Across the West Country, seemingly insignificant pieces of infrastructure could suddenly acquire military importance. Today, the old bridge looks peaceful, but in 1644 the surrounding lanes would have witnessed armed men, uncertainty and violence as the wider conflict spread across Devon. It is a reminder that some of the most interesting traces of the English Civil War are not found on great battlefields — but beside quiet roads, ancient bridges and forgotten village crossings. #archaeohistories