Feral Horses Origin: Assateague's Horses May Finally be Revealed with Century-Old Tooth

The baffling discovery in modern-day Haiti of a 16th-century horse tooth has given faith to an age-old folk story about the origins of feral horses on an island off the coast of Maryland and Virginia.

Origins of Chincoteague Ponies of Assateague Island

Wild Assateague ponies and foals swim in the Assateague Channel 30 July 2003 crossing to Chincoteague, Virginia, where several of the foals will be auctioned off to support the local fire department in the 78th Annual Pony Penning. The traditional round-up of wild ponies since the 1800's maintains the size of the herd at about 150 which is deemed appropriate by natural resouce officials to not overrun the delicate coastal barrier island. AFP Photo/Paul J. RICHARDS PAUL J.RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images

For centuries the wild Chincoteague ponies have levied on the island of Assateague, a barrier island on the coast of the Atlantic. However, no one is sure how the ponies got on the island. In 1947, a book inspired by local legend suggested that the ponies originated from Spanish horses that swam towards the island after a Spanish ship wrecked off the Virginia coast, reverting to its feral state over the years.

But recent research published in the journal PLOS One, titled "Analysis of the earliest complete mtDNA genome of a Caribbean colonial horse (Equus caballus) from 16th-century Haiti" by researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History provides new scientific support for the old theory based on the discovery of the oldest known DNA of domesticated horses in the Americas.

Nicolas Delsol, a postdoctoral researcher, researched cow bones from a 16th-century site to understand the introduction of domesticated cows to the Americas during the colonization of Spain. He then conducted DNA sequencing on a huge collection of archaeological remains from Puerto Real, a Spanish town in Haiti. The town established by Spaniards in 1507 was abandoned by 1578, reports CNN.

In an interview, Delsol explains that one of the bones he believed was from a cow was, in fact, misidentified. A small fragment of toothache was actually from a horse. The discovery was unexpected, and Delsol quickly realized that the tooth fragment may have been the first domestic horse genome we had from the early American colonies.

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Oldest Genome of Domestic Horses

Delsol explains that the genetic analysis done on the 16th-century horse tooth sample confirms historical documents stating the first horses were brought on boats from the Iberian peninsula, southern Spain.

Horses were a vital part of Spanish society. It is so important that Spanish colonizers brought them despite the grueling and logistical challenges of the journey across the Atlantic Ocean.

However, the genetic analysis also helped Delsol identify the closest living relative of the earliest domestic horses: the Chincoteague ponies. The genetic similarity between the two breeds gives credence to the belief that the infamous ponies are descendants of early Spanish horses.

Delsol says it might show some truth behind the legend, rooted in actual events.

On the other hand, just because the feral ponies of the Assateague Islands descended from Spanish horses does not mean they came from a shipwreck. One theory is that the Spanish left the horses on the island, similar to how they left pigs and cattle to breed and have local stock.

The discovery provides more evidence for how far north Spanish colonizers reached in the Americas.

Delsol and his team plan to expand their research on the Puerto Real specimens and explore how early colonizers depended on horses for cattle ranching in the Americas.