The term "Horse culture" is used to define a tribal group or community whose day to day life revolves around the herding and breeding of horses. Notable examples are the Mongols of Mongolia, and the American Indians of the Great Plains, after horses were imported from Eurasia, particularly from Spain, during the 16th century.
History offers many examples of horse cultures, such as the Huns and other peoples in Europe and Asia. Horse cultures tend to place a great deal of importance on horses and by their very nature are nomadic and usually hunter-gatherer or nomadic pastoralist societies.
As the natives progressed throughout the plains, so did their culture. The natives stumbled onto something that would revolutionize their entire world, the horse. As the horse was integrated into the lives of the natives it also transformed the vision of the plains for them. For the natives, the horse was a very valuable resource. They used horses for transportation as well as for breeding and trading purposes. The use of horses revolutionized hunting for the natives and was used successfully and efficiently in warfare. The main advantage to this revolved around increased mobility: the ability of the horse to cover a lot of ground in a very short period of time. In a sense the horse offered the natives liberation and allowed them to easily move place to place, bringing on a nomadic shift in their culture. However, there were also disadvantages to adopting horse culture. These included the risk of horse theft as well as the responsibility to care for the horses and keep them healthy. Adoption of this culture also required the natives to live in smaller groups, as opposed to the larger groups which had existed for hundreds of years. This allowed room for horses to graze and feed easily.