The Smithsonian “Early Horses” Article Does Not Prove the Book of Mormon True

    A Smithsonian Magazine article titled “Native Americans Spread Horses Through the West Earlier Than Thought” (2023) has been circulating in Mormon spaces as supposed proof that horses existed in the Americas during Book of Mormon times.

    The article summarizes a legitimate scientific study published in Science titled “Early Dispersal of Domestic Horses Into the Great Plains and Northern Rockies.” (2023) But when you read what the researchers actually found, it’s clear this does not support the Book of Mormon’s claims at all.

    What the Study Actually Found

    The research team, led by William Timothy T. Taylor, analyzed horse remains found across the Great Plains and northern Rockies. Using radiocarbon dating, DNA sequencing, and isotopic analysis, they discovered that the animals were of Spanish origin. In other words, these were not remnants of ancient, native North American horses that somehow survived extinction. They were the descendants of horses brought by Spanish colonists in the 1500s.

   The Key Finding:

    “Horses rapidly spread from the south into the northern Rockies and central plains by the first half of the 17th century CE, likely through Indigenous exchange networks.” (Science, 2023)

    The Smithsonian article emphasizes this point:

    “Researchers suggest Indigenous peoples had spread the animals through the American West by the first half of the 17th century.”

    “The centuries-old equines had largely Spanish ancestry.”

    The study provides strong evidence that Native American communities in the West adopted, bred, and managed horses earlier than most historians thought. They were skilled handlers, likely using horses for transport, trade, and ceremony long before Europeans wrote about it. But that’s where the connection to the Book of Mormon ends.

Here’s what the study does NOT claim:

    - It does not claim that horses existed in the Americas during the first millennium BC or AD.

    - It does not claim that any population of native horses survived from the Ice Age.

    - It does not support the idea that domesticated horses were already present when Lehi’s family supposedly arrived around 600 BC.

    Instead, it confirms what scientists have said for decades: native North American horses went extinct roughly 10,000 years ago, and that modern horses in the Americas descend from European stock.

Comparing the Findings to the Book of Mormon:

    The Book of Mormon refers to horses several times. For example:

    "And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals..." (1 Nephi 18:25)

    "And it came to pass that the people of Nephi did till the land, and raise all manner of grain, and of fruit, and flocks of herds, and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many horses." (Enos 1:21)

    "Now when king Lamoni heard that Ammon was preparing his horses and his chariots he was more astonished, because of the faithfulness of Ammon" (Alma 18:10)

    These passages place horses in the Americas between about 600 BC and AD 400. The Science study, however, identifies the earliest domesticated horses appearing in America in 1519, when Hernán Cortés arrived on the continent in Mexico.

    That’s a gap of about 2,000 years.

Why It’s Being Misrepresented

    The confusion comes from headlines like Smithsonian’s, which highlight that horses spread through Indigenous networks earlier than historians previously believed. Some readers take “earlier” to mean ancient, but the study’s “earlier” simply means a few decades earlier than European written records suggested. The new timeline still places the introduction centuries after Columbus, not before him.

The Bottom Line

    This study is fascinating because it deepens our understanding of how quickly Indigenous peoples incorporated horses into their cultures. It shows innovation, adaptation, and agency. But it offers zero evidence for horses existing in the Americas during Book of Mormon times.

    But no, there is not new evidence that supports horses in Book of Mormon times. The science remains consistent: the horses described in the Book of Mormon did not exist in the Americas during that period.