Follow-up questions:

• My understanding (please correct if necessary) is that feral (modern) horses found their way to North America by way of the Spanish in the early 1500s and were re-domesticated by native populations. Did those people primarily live on the edges of the Plains and subsequently take advantage of this new "tool" to move there permanently? Or were they already permanently settled on the Plains?

• I gather some tribes like the Lakota were more or less pushed onto the Plains by other tribes, who were themselves pushed westward by advances of European colonists, and subsequently became full-time Plains-dwellers after learning to use the horse. Correct?

• How did native peoples hunt or otherwise take advantage of the Great Plains before the horse, whether or not they lived there year-round?

• Was farming ever a "serious" venture for natives on the Plains before colonial advances?

I did look through the FAQ, and while I learned quite a bit, did not see answers or comments that helped with these specific questions.

Apologies if I simply missed what I was looking for.

To the mods, please let me know if it is more appropriate to ask my follow-up questions as separate posts.

Thank you all in advance!

EDITS for grammar, spelling, clarity ...