perverse to popular depiction in Hollywood movies , it seems the individuality of the first cowboys of America were far more diverse than previously assumed . In fact , the evidence suggests the first examples of these westerly icons were actually from Mexico and the Caribbean , and most of them were enslaved peoples .
Prior to 1492 , so the established narration explains , there were no cow in the Americas . These large mammals ( Bos Sanchez ) were first transported to the new continent during the 16thcentury when small number were carried to the Caribbean island from the Iberian Peninsula ( via the Canary archipelago ) . Once they arrived , domestic cows were bred topically and then imported to other areas , such as Mexico , Panama , and Colombia , as Europeans continued to colonise and explore .
However , the findings of a Modern study direct by researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History add novel details to this approximation .
Despite their import today , short is really known about the first cattle to make it across the Atlantic and how they moved around in the former post - Columbian world . As such , the researcher analyse the signatures in the DNA of 21 cows discovered in five Spanish sites in Mexico and Haiti that dated to the 16thand 18thcenturies . They then compared these signature to those from known European and African breeds .
The initial findings were uniform with the traditional narrative as seven of the earlier samples had genic tie that come from Europe . However , one specimen found at a site shout out Bellas Artes in Mexico had a lineage that appears to strain immediately from Africa and would have arrived in the Americas in the other 17thcentury .
" This determination supports recent trends in the history of bondage and the key office of African enslaved worker in the implementation of cattle ranching , " Nicolas Delsol , a postdoctoral zooarchaeology specialist and co - author of the study toldLive Science .
This sample distribution happen about 100 class before the first documents related to African cows appear in the historical record .
The go hypothesis at this stage is that , as cattle ranching expanded in the 16thcentury , the need for skilled ranchers who could handle cattle grew with it . The Indigenous populations had no experience with cattle , or any other domestic European brute , prior to Europeans arriving in the New World , so they were not worthy . As such , the historical record shows that slave traders turn to Western Africa where they abducted masses with cattle herding experience . It is possible the oxen and the enslaved people were taken together .
“ The question of the likely African source of some compound cattle is of vast historical significance and has inscrutable societal and ethnic ramifications , especially when considering the fundamental function play by African workers in setting up the ranching manufacture in the colonial Americas ” , the authors wrote .
“ Our archeological transmitted grounds of oxen parallels these documented aspects of the early Spanish Empire in the Americas : the organization of the colonial labor organisation , the timing of the African hard worker business deal , and the eminent specialization of enslave workers in Bos taurus management . ”
“ Our data , while not in full conclusive , further affirm the hypothesis that cows were also import from Africa to the Americas , spotlight the central function of African herders in the emergence of the Modern agricultural landscape painting mainly based on cows ranch . ”
The survey is bring out in the journalScientific Reports .
