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Whenever people are involved in
making decisions and interpreting data, there is always the problem of personal
viewpoints to consider. This is especially true when looking at the results of
archaeological and anthropological findings, since both are based more on
personal interpretation than any truly scientific (factual) basis. The
archaeologist, as an example, has a pattern of diffusion within which his work
is viewed—a pattern of development from stone age to pre-pottery, to pottery, in
determining the cultural stages regarding the ancient development of an area.
From chipping stone to hollowing out a gourd for drinking to making
ceramic pottery—these are the stages of archaeology
Mesoamericanists rarely mention
South America, even though the sites in South America are older and superior in
workmanship design, and function than those of Mesoamerica. In addition, anthropologists
in the South Pacific (Austeralia, New Zealand) and in Hawaii, champion the
movement of man across the Pacific from west to east, and the expansion of
Polynesia as far east as Easter Island without any acceptance of an east to west
movement, despite the work of Thor Heyerdahl and the known currents that move
in the opposite direction.
In addition, archaeology has
several stages--simply put and speaking generally, they are found in the
following categories:
• Paleolithic (old stone [age])—2.6
million to 12,000 years ago; when they claim humans developed from Homo bibilis to homo sapiens;
used wood, bone and the most primitive (knapped) stone tools; people lived
primarily in eastern Africa, grouped in bands, developed religious ritual,
buried their dead, began works of art; began moving into southern Europe and
Asia, China, Indonesia and the Mediterranean (this period covered nine distinct
classification of Paleolithic geoclimati episodes)
• Mesolithic (middle stone
[age]), sometimes called Epipaleolithic—10,000 to 5,000 B.C. (and as much as
20,000 B.C.), which is claimed to be the end of the Paleolithic and the start of the Neolithic; age of
purely hunting and gathering; initial stage of domestication of wild plants and
animals; lived in villages and huts, and beginning of walled cities; chipped
stone tools (microliths), moving toward polished stone tools, including burins
and end-scrapers; rise of agriculture and the introduction of farming and
herding of animals), lived in timber long houses.
• Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and B—8300
to 6000 B.C.; absence of pottery vessels; domestication of wheat and barley,
domestication of sheep, goats, cattle and pigs; emergence of settlements;
beginning of walls and structures.
• Pottery Neolithic—5500 to 3800
B.C.; invention of the kiln and movement from gourds to pottery; development of
wood-carving, basketry, weaving etc.; spread of food-producing communities in
large numbers; the rise of urban civilization, the emergence of towns and large
settlements with satellite villages; beginning of wealth and power centers.
• Bronze Age (Early,
Intermediate, Late)—3300 to 1300 B.C. Primary form of metalworking. Smelting
copper and alloying with tin; first writing (cuneiform and hieroglyphs).
• Iron Age (Early, Middle and
Late)—1300 B.C. to 700 A.D. Earliest texts in manuscript form; Sanskrit and
Chinese literature flourished, along with the oldest parts of the Hebrew Bible.
Forging began in metalworking.
In addition, archaeologists
depend heavily on radiocarbon dating to aid them in determining dates; however,
radiocarbon dating, better known as carbon-14 dating, is itself a questionable
science, though highly accepted, dating method. It is not that the system is
based on faulty premises for the concept of the carbon leakage to date once
living organisms is sound; however the problem lies in its calibration, i.e.,
the way the data provided is interpreted. Take its beginning, when its
developer, physicist Willard Libby, found from his own experiments that the Earth was less than 20,000 years old;
however, decided that every one knew the Earth was billions of years old, and adjusted
his findings accordingly, thus providing readings of millions of years instead
of hundreds, making all subsequent measurements determined on the wrong age basis.
Add this to the preconceived
ideas, beliefs, and standards of the archaeologist and anthropologist, we find
today an exaggerated understanding of the Earth’s age, and all things upon and
within it. We also find that science has preset concepts as to how man
developed, where he originated, and over what routes he migrated. We also have
prejudicial attitudes about 1) religion, 2) God’s role in our lives and
development, and 3) the abilities or lack thereof regarding accomplishments of early cultures. Thus,
while the one, based upon error and bias notions, and the other rejected out of
prejudicial attitudes, we find ourselves in a world of inaccurate and bias
views of the past and how man came to be and how he arrived at the places in
which we find him anciently.
In this regard, no one in the
professional fields determining these beliefs accepts that ancient man was
capable of sailing across vast oceans in the types of canoes attributed to
them, nor that they were capable of building ships that only appeared thousands
of years later. As a result, science claims that man’s migrant route came over
non-existent land bridges, along routes that make little, if any, sense, and
spread over thousands of miles of land instead of settling where they were. As
an example, what would cause a people to travel northward from their warm clime
into the cold country of the north, leaving the warmer climes of their
homelands, to pass over a so-called Siberian land bridge in the age of glaciers
that covered the northern continents, somehow finding an ice-free corridor, and
then coming into warmer lands, such as what is now Canada, the United States,
Mexico, etc., yet continue to travel clear to the southern regions of South America?
However, science clings to this
ridiculous idea since it is the only way they can justify a movement from the
Old World to the New World. In the same token, since they cannot accept the
movement of people by sea across the wide expanse of oceans until at least around 1000 A.D., they claim man moved from Indonesia
eastward (against all known winds and currents), sailing from island to island
on short trips eastward and eventually, spreading all across the Pacific Ocean—eventually reaching and
settling the Americas, specifically South America.
Massive settlements and huge cities span hundreds of acres and many square miles that rival the best construction found in the Old World and built in B.C. times, are scattered all over western South America
How else could they account for
the development of civilizations in South America that built such awe-inspiring
cities and empires as the Spanish eventually found there in the 16th
century? The fact that all known criteria to determine settlement shows a
movement across the Pacific in the opposite direction, anthropologists and archaeologists
bend over backward to develop an opposite movement than the known facts
indicate.
In addition, those Polynesian
archaeologists and anthropologists (New Zealand to Easter Island to Hawaii) are
bias toward movement from west to east across the Pacific and settlement of
South America, since it is their ancestors they are describing and attributing
far greater achievements to them than they actually achieved (see the last
post).
So widespread is this belief of
west to east movement that cultural anthropologist Richard Scaglion of the
University of Pittsburg claims in the face of incontrivertable evidence to the
contrary, “But most researchers see few signs of Amerindian excursions into the
Pacific.” That is, those of South America moving westward into the Pacific. Instead
he argues that “Polynesians may have arrived at the southern coast of South
America and sailed north using the prevailing current to the Ecuadorian port of
Guayaquil, the only sheltered port in South America north of the rocky southern
coast of Chile. The Canara people once lived from this area of the coast into
the Andes highlands, making the sweet potato accessible to coastal visitors.
And here the current veers sharply west. Computer simulations show that the
most successful return (westward) from the coast would be from Guayaquil to
the Polynesians.” Scaglion then adds, “making this area a possible focus of
trans-Pacific contact.”
Isn’t it interesting that the
most likely point of movement is from the advanced civilizations along the west
coast of South America, using the currents that flow directly down to
Polynesia. But to reach South America, Polynesians would have to drop far south
into the West Wind Drift currents of the Southern Ocean to reach the Humboldt
(Peruvian) Current to sail up the coast of South America as Scaglion claims.
Using Scaglion’s own map, consider movement from (Yellow Arrow) South
America (Bay of Guayaquil) westward, which currents take a ship out and down
into Polynesia, as opposed to leaving western Polynesia (White Arrow) and
dropping far south to the (Green Arrow) Southern Ocean, to then cross thousands
miles to South America and the Humboldt (Peruvian) Current to travel northward.
Which seems the more likely for a people to do?
Would people most likely travel
in “exceedingly large” ships built by Hagoth, sailing from the Bay of Guayaquil
westward into the Pacific (Alma 63:5,8) to the Marquesa Islands of Polynesia,
which is about 4000 miles of open ocean. Or is it more likely that people
sailed from Tonga southward in outrigger canoes beyond New Zealand to the
Southern Ocean, then eastward with the only eastward moving current in the
South Pacific to South America across 7100 miles of open ocean, then upward
along the coast to the Bay of Guayaquil for a total of 10,673 miles overall.
Which seems the most likely that would have been attempted by an early culture?
When one’s mind is made up
before one starts, they are not likely to come up with an accurate answer. Nor
are they likely to see the truth lurking somewhere behind their pre-conceived
ideas.
Continuing with Arthur
Budvarson’s six questions asked of Dr. Roberts of the Smithsonian Institution
about the Book of Mormon, their
answers and our evaluation. The first five questions were covered in the last five
posts. Here is the sixth and last question:
6. “What are cureloms and cumoms? Have they ever been discovered? I have
referred to numerous dictionaries and encyclopedias and I cannot find any
reference to either of them?”
Budvarson's sixth question concerning
the identity of cureloms and cumoms borders on the ridiculous. One
might wonder why the question was asked of Dr. Roberts in the first place, since
the names used in the Book of Mormon were so used by Joseph Smith because he
had no idea what animals these were—so he used the original Jaredite names,
which, of course, would not have survived over the centuries since both the
Jaredites and Nephites were annihilated.
It is likely, therefore, that Budvarson
probably had this in mind, believing these were made-up animals that "only
existed in someone's imagination,” as he writes elsewhere.
Why he referred to "numerous
dictionaries and encyclopedias" to find out about them when these two
animals were obviously not household words in the Americas at the time Joseph
Smith translated the plates, and being as he was raised on a farm and knew
animals, these were obviously not known animals within his experience. And
doing what any translator would do when not knowing what animal these words
described, transliterated their original (Jaredite) names.
Certainly Budvarson understood this,
having a background in the LDS faith, and having studied to some extent the
Book of Mormon as he claims. The point is, it can only be concluded that these
were not animals known in the United States, but fairly common to the Land of
Promise, since they are described as being more useful to man than “cattle, oxen, cows, sheep,
swine, goats, and many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of
man...and also horses and asses.” In fact, they were as useful as elephants
(Ether 9:18-19).
So to identify such animals one must look to where the Book of
Mormon lands were located and find two animals that were relatively unknown in
the United States in 1830, but very useful for the indigenous peoples of that
land, especially in the era before any type of technology. This suggests some
type of beasts of burden, yet ones that provide food and clothing—no doubt some
type of pack or draft animal, an Equidae
(horses, donkeys, etc.) or ungulate such as elephants, camels, yak, reindeer,
goats, water buffalo and llama and alpaca.
Of all the possible animals located in the Western Hemisphere,
few would qualify as unknown in the United States in the 1830s. John L.
Sorenson has suggested the sloth or giant ground sloths and the tapir. However,
these animals would not qualify based on the scriptural account as to their value
to man—neither the sloth nor tapir (about the size and shape of a pig) have little
value to man other than meat and hide.
In fact, the tapir does poorly around man, is highly affected by
any changes in its habitat, lives in moist, dense forests, especially around
water, and thrives only where man is not present. They are extremely shy
animals, and other than their meat and leathery skin, they have little or no
value at all to humans.
Left: Giant ground sloth; Center: regular sloth;
Right: Tapir
Of the five species of Sloth, not one has much value to man,
spends most of its time hanging upside down in trees and cannot exist outside
the tropical rainforest; the giant ground sloth was extremely dangerous to man
and is believed to have been extinct for 10,000 years or more
There were, of course, other ungulate animals of Central and
South America, such as the Peccary and Javelina, medium-sized hoofed mammals
(Tayassuidae), but again, these do not fit the criteria established in the
comment found in Ether, regarding their “use unto man,” being more than horses,
asses, goats, sheep, cattle, oxen and cows.
No other unknown land animals seem to have existed in the
Western Hemisphere that have been suggested as the cureloms and cumoms the Jaredite animals brought to the promised land. A
new carnivorous mammal species was discovered in the cloud forests of Ecuador
and Colombia recently, called the Olinguito,
which is a member of the raccoon family, but certainly would not qualify as
important to man.
Since horses, asses (donkeys), goats and elephants are already
mentioned in the record, that leaves camels, yak, reindeer, water buffalo,
llama and alpaca from the earlier list. Camels probably would have been known to Joseph Smith in 1830, as well
as reindeer; however, yak, water buffalo, llama and alpaca probably not.
Left: Yak;
Right: Water Buffalo. Both are similar to oxen and have the same value to man
as beasts of burden and draft animals
The Yak is found on the Tibetan Plateau, Himalayas and south
central China, Mongolia and Russia. When domesticated, they provide milk, meat
and clothing and are used as beasts of burden; however, their habitat has never
been in the Western Hemisphere. The Water Buffalo, also a valuable animal for
milk and meat and as a beast of burden, are found almost entirely in Asia,
specifically India and China, and were not introduced into North and South America,
Europe, Mediterranean and Australia, until the mid to late 1800s. Like the yak,
they were not found in the Western Hemisphere in antiquity.
That leaves the llama and alpaca (Lamoids). As has been presented here numerous times, the llama and
the alpaca, are both camelids (lamini),
and exist only as domesticated animals—descended from the wild vicuñas (vicugna) and guanaco. They have been widely used as
meat, clothing and willing pack animals by Andean cultures since pre-Hispanic
times, are very intelligent and can learn simple tasks, are friendly and
pleasant to be around, and serve effectively as “watch dogs” for livestock. Their
attributes make them durable and dependable and their wool has numerous uses, with
their undercoat used for handcrafts and garments, and the coarser outercoat
used for rugs, wall-hangings and rope, and leather made from their hides.
Left: The Llama
(Lama glama); Right: the Alpaca (Vicugna pacos)
The llama and alpaca are native to the Western Hemisphere and
date back in South America to Jaredite times. They were, however, not native to
Central or North America since after the Flood. Known to the Jaredites as the cureloms and cumoms, these are names unknown after the demise of the Nephites,
and certainly would not have been known to the Smithsonian or any
archaeologist—a fact Budvarson would have known before he posed his questions
and his misleading and superfluous comment about searching dictionaries. But
this is the typical attempt that critics make in trying to mislead the issue of
the accuracy of the Book of Mormon. As a result, and understandably, Dr. Roberts reported in his
answer to the question that the two animals, cureloms and cumoms were unknown
to the Smithsonian.
These, then, are the six questions Budvarson asked
the Smithsonian, and the answers given by Dr. Roberts of that institution. They
neither support nor reject the credibility of the Book of Mormon.
Continuing
with Arthur Budvarson’s six questions asked of Dr. Roberts of the Smithsonian
Institution about the Book of Mormon,
their answers and our evaluation. The first four questions were covered in the
last four posts. Here is the fifth question:
5. “Has there been any Hebrew or Egyptian writings
found in the ancient ruins discovered on the American continent?”
It is interesting that a front
page story dated April 5, 1909, in the Arizona Gazette recounted the discovery
of a series of bizarre caves
and artifacts in the Marble Canyon region of the Grand Canyon. The report
claimed two Smithsonian-funded archaeologists, Prof. S. A. Jordan and G. E.
Kinkaid, are responsible for the find. However, the Smithsonian claims that no
record exists of Kincaid or Professor Jordan within the Smithsonian's
Department of Anthropology, nor is there a paper trail at the Smithsonian
detailing the artifacts gathered on the expedition. When asked directly about Kincaid's
claims, a Smithsonian representative said, “The first thing I can tell you, before we go any
further, is that no Egyptian artifacts of any kind have ever been found in
North or South America. Therefore, I can tell you that the Smithsonian
Institute has never been involved in any such excavations.”
Some
claim that the Smithsonian destroyed all such records, and no data outside the
article substantiates the existence of Professor Jordan or Kincaid outside of a
follow-up article in the newspaper on March 12, that Kincaid was in Yuma,
Arizona. Whether this story or beliefs about the Smithsonian are true or not,
there has been a long-standing acceptance of Egyptian influence in the Americas,
some of which attributed to Smithsonian involvement.
There are
also certain similarities between these three areas: Egypt, Peru and Mexico all
mummified their dead; believed in underground burial tombs; worshiped a
single, eternal God; built stepped pyramids; and had a sun god named Ra, Raymi
and Rana respectively. Egypt and Peru both used gold fillings for teeth; had
similar technologies of working and building with stone with extremely close
tolerances between them.
Top: Stone work in Egypt; Bottom: Stone work in Andean Peru. Both
structures are built with large stone and fitted perfectly with no more than
1/50 of an inch tolerance in motarless precision
In fact,
where rituals and practices play an
important part in any culture, between Egypt and Central and South America
there were many rituals and practices that were alike, such as circumcision,
astrology, and having annual agricultural fairs. It is also obvious that the
South American culture developed later than the Egyptian, and the Central
America later than that.
It should also be noted that Egyptian hieroglyphs have been found on ancient
ruins in southern Chile near the Atlantic coast, a stone carving of a
griffin-sphinx was found near Cuzco in Peru, and a statuette of the goddess
Isis and one of an unknown pharaoh have been excavated near San Salvador.
In fact, work has been done to show that the
ancient Andean language in South America (Quechua), has its roots in Egyptian
hieroglyphics. Dr. Charles
William Johnson, a full-time, tenured researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, UNAM, (“The Sound of Meaning
Language Series” of Science in Ancient
Artwork, 2009), has shown where Runa
Simi (Runa Shimi), also popularly
known as Quechua (Qhichwa Simi), with
over 45 dialects, said to be grouped in at least seven languages, constituting a
family of languages, traces its roots to Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Showing that one language
supports and clarifies the phonemic/morphemic expressions in the other
language, Runa Simi, which literally
means “people mouth,” and translates as “the mouth (language) of the people.”
This is similar to the Egyptian hieroglyphs ReMaMa-T,
literally “people word,” or “word of the people.” Where one language (Egyptian)
shows the “word” (symbol), the other (Quechua) clarifies it to mean “spoken
word.”
Numerous comparison root meanings
exist between Egyptian hieroglyphics and basic Quechua—a few are shown here:
In addition, Aele Berkerie, in Ethiopic, an African Writing System (Red
Sea Press, 1997) claims that the Quipus
knots of South America show parallel features with some of the Ancient Egyptian
writing systems, particularly the signs or symbols for life and the Ethiopic
syllographs S and H, thereby signaling a possible historical connection between
Ancient Egypt and ancient America.
In 1933, Frank C. Hibben
discovered a 90-ton rock in New Mexico with ancient Hebrew writing, listing the
Ten Commandments. A form of hieroglyphics shows up in Easter Island off the
coast of Chile in the undecipherable Rongorongo language. In The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing
(2001) by Stephen D. Houston, pictured symbols of glyphs of the Toltecas,
Aztecas, Huaztecas, Skeres, Panos, etc., are considered similar to the earliest
Egyptian glyphs. Carolyn A. Krebs in Groundbreaking
Scientific Experiments, Inventions and Discoveries (2003), also links
Egyptian hieroglyphics with those found in South America.
In addition, cone-shaped skulls
are found in both Egypt and South America; building techniques were very
similar in Egypt as they were in Peru. Take the stone clamp sockets used in Dendera,
Egypt, which clamped together most of their ashlar masonry, with that of
Ollantaytambo and Puma Punku, where sockets were carved into adjoining blocks
of stone and fitted with clamps.
Stones with clamp sockets: Left: Ollantaytambo, Peru; Center: Puma
Punku, Peru/Bolivia; Right: Dendera, Egypt
It should also be noted that Roman ships sailed east to
India, China, Cambodia, and Vietnam. They also appear to have visited the New
World. There is no mistaking the shorelines of Florida, Brazil, the Gulf of
Mexico, and Peru on ancient maps dating back to the Roman era. On the
5th-century Macrobius map the northern region of the Antipodes (South America)
is called ‘perusta’, a name referring to the hot, dry climate. On the Albertin
de Virga map of 1414 the Peruvian coast is referred to as Ca-paru, and on the
Andrea Bianco map of 1436 this region is called the Land of Per. Clearly Peru
was named before the arrival of Pizarro in 1521, who supposedly named the
country after a local river (Gunnar Thompson, Secret Voyages to the New World, pp. 42-3).
As for finding ancient Egyptian
hieroglyphics found on ancient ruins in the Americas, there would have been
none found in South America, for most of the buildings, as mentioned earlier,
were made of adobe brick, which has deteriorated extensively over the
centuries, and Central America (Mesoamerica) was not where the Book of Mormon
Nephites were located.
However, another point is that Egyptian hieroglyphics
were not the language used by the Nephites—they wrote in Hebrew. Lehi and his
family came from the area of Jerusalem (1 Nephi 1:4), though he knew and
understood “the language of the Egyptians” (1 Nephi 1:2). Evidently, Egyptian
was the language used only for the sacred record (the plates of Nephi and those
Mormon engraved) and, as Moroni acknowledged, “And now, behold, we have written this record according to our
knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian,
being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. And if
our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but
the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in
Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record”
(Mormon 9:32).
From this, it would appear that the Nephites for a
thousand years wrote their sacred records (what we have as the Book of Mormon)
in Reformed Egyptian, but the rest of their writing was in Hebrew. How many
Nephites even understood (could read or write) Egyptian is unknown, however, an incident in Helaman suggests that few were taught Reformed Egyptian, when Helaman "caused that [his sons] should be taught in all the language of his fathers, that thereby they might become men of understanding; and that they might know concerning the prophecies which had been spoken by the mouths of their fathers, which were delivered them by the hand of the Lord" (Mosiah 1:2)--an obvious reference to the scriptures, which were in Reformed Egyptian; however, it is not likely that most were so taught since Hebrew was their native and daily language (lingua franca), and the sacred records were only in the hands of a
few that recorded upon them and kept them current.
With all these similarities, one might wonder why the Smithsonian has not spent some effort in looking into possible connections between the Americas and Egypt. One also might wonder if there is a reason why no such effort has been made in the past by an Institution that claims to be so interested in American archaeology and anthropology.
Continuing
with Arthur Budvarson’s six questions asked of Dr. Roberts of the Smithsonian
Institute about the Book of Mormon,
their answers and our evaluation. The first three questions were covered in the
last three posts. Here is the fourth question:
4. “Does the Book of Mormon have any value in
connection with scientific investigation and archeological discoveries?”
Before
delving into Robert’s answer, let us consider the importance of this question
and the response found within the scientific community.
The criteria of the Book of
Mormon, of course, covers certain events of great interest:
1) People from the Old World
sailing to the Western Hemisphere and landing on the American continent;
2) The first recorded information
of a settlement in the Western Hemisphere, leading to the beginning of the
American aborigines;
3. The background, heritage and
religion of these first American aborigines;
4. The beginning and parentage,
the wars and their causes, the interactions and social events, of the first
indigenous inhabitants of the Americas;
5. Prehistory dates of events
that took place in the Americas, the background and construction of defenses,
walls, and settlements;
6. Answering the centuries-old
questions about who built Sacsayhuaman,
Pachacamac, Tiahuanaco, Machu Picchu, Chan-Chan, Chagin de Huantar, Sipan,
Caral, etc., and all the other ruins in South America as well as all those those
found in Central America;
7. Answering who the ancient
ancestors were of the Aztec, Maya and Inca civilizations, including those of
Easter Island, and most likely those of Polynesia.
With all of this in mind (and so much
more), one can only wonder why every archaeologist, anthropologist, historian
and researcher in the field is not beating a path to the various involved
departments at Brigham Young University, and learning all that has so far been
done along these lines, and studying the Book of Mormon geography and
everything they can get their hands on. After all, if someone claimed to have
uncovered a record of an ancient people, written by them, that discussed their
beginning, life achievements, accomplishments and failures relevant to an
ancient civilization that everyone knows once existed but no one has any
knowledge about, don’t you think scientists would be chomping at the bit to get
their hands on such information?
What if information suddenly
became available about the beginning of Stonehenge, or the fifteen monuments
recently discovered underground there by ground-penetrating radar. What if the
information suddenly surfaced regarding the origination and meaning of the
famous Nazca lines? Or the mysterious monument recently found underneath the
Sea of Galilee? Or who actually built the Pyramids along the Giza Plateau; or
who the builders were of the stone age tunnels beneath Germany and Austria; or
information about the Gobleki Tepe in southeastern Turkey?
Recently discovered temple complex in Anatolia called the most
important archaeological discovery of modern times found in Turkey that
pre-dates pottery, writing, the wheel and metallurgy that was built thousands
of years before Stonehenge
If any of these items, or the
thousands of other historical mysteries yet to be understood, were suddenly
exposed, there would be a mad dash of science toward opening up and digesting
these secrets. So why not a single non-LDS archaeological or anthropological interest regarding the indigenous beginnings
of the Americas found within the pages of the Book of Mormon?
One would think that the modern
archaeological world would be extremely interested in how the Western
Hemisphere became inhabited. One would think that a written guideline as to how
the ancient ruins scattered about Central and South America came to be built
would be of some interest to archaeologists, as would the social development of
this first American civilization to anthropologists, including the social and
biological sciences as well as the humanities and physical sciences.
Take Sociocultural Anthropology, which is the examination of social patterns and
practices across cultures, with a special interest in how people live in
particular places and how they organize, govern, and create meaning. A hallmark
of sociocultural anthropology is its concern with similarities and differences,
both within and among societies, and its attention to race, class, gender, and
nationality. One might wonder why no sociocultural anthropologist (outside of
BYU perhaps) has ever spent any time studying the Nephite and Lamanite
cultures, or the Jaredite civilization before them, as to their grappling with
practical problems of everyday life and with basic philosophical problems of
knowledge, truth, power, justice and religion in the ancient world of the Americas.
On the other hand, one of the areas
of work associated with Biological (or Physical) Anthropology is the study of
prehistoric people (bioarchaeology), and what virgin territory the Book of
Mormon peoples of the Jaredites, Nephites, Mulekites and Lamanites would
provide this field of endeavor. Yet one of the greatest untouched and untainted
areas for such work, the peoples of the Book of Mormon, have never been studied
by the anthropological world.
One can only wonder what
prejudicial attitudes have existed for the past hundred or more years to keep
such work at bay in any and all of these fields. Certainly, there is much work that can be done
here with a record that spans one thousand years with one group, and about 1500
years with another.
Consequently, the question: “Does the Book of Mormon have any value in connection
with scientific investigation and archeological discoveries?” should be answered with a
resounding “yes.” However, as Dr. Roberts so clearly stated: “Unfortunately, I
am not well versed in the Book of Mormon.” Thus, where science demands the
ignoring of such anthropological records as the Book of Mormon’s thousand plus
years history of man’s development in a pristine environment, there is little
chance that such will ever take place.
Dr. Roberts answer, of course, was
that he had not found that any of the archaeological data as known by him and
his associates correspond with the subject matter of the Book of Mormon.
However, true to his lack of knowledge and that of science in general, he added
that he is “not thoroughly versed in the Book of Mormon.” In addition, his
response was directed to the question posed to him regarding the Americas, but
translated as “Mexico and Central America,” which is the location to which Budvarson
directed his question.
Again, all of this was obviously known and
understood by Budvarson before he wrote the Smithsonian regarding this
question. Consequently, the fact that the Book of Mormon has never, and likely
never will be, used for “scientific investigation and archaeological
discovery,” the issue again is a moot point and has no place in a discussion
about whether or not the Book of Mormon purports an actual truthful record
of an indigenous people in the Americas.
Continuing
with Arthur Budvarson’s six questions asked of Dr. Roberts of the Smithsonian
Institution about the Book of Mormon,
their answers and our evaluation. The first two questions were covered in the
last two posts. Here is the third question:
3. “Has the Book of Mormon ever been used or recognized as a guide in
archeological explorations?”
First of all, Dr. Roberts’
answers to Budvarson’s questions state that he has not found that any of the
archaeological data as known by him and his associates correspond with the
subject matter of the Book of Mormon. However, Dr. Roberts honestly admits that
he is "not thoroughly versed in the
Book of Mormon,” nor does he discuss the possible value of the Book of
Mormon when archaeologists really begin to excavate in American sites that are
admittedly of "pre-classic" significance, that is, come in the area
and time of which the Nephite record speaks;
Second, once again it needs to be
pointed out that Budvarson’s attention and his questions were directed to the
Smithsonian about Mesoamerica. At no time has there been from Budvarson, nor
answered from the Smithsonian, regarding the archaeological sites and work done
in South America;
Third, the fact that the Book of
Mormon is a religious work, containing God’s dealings with man on the American
continent, in and of itself, would disqualify it in our society today as a guide for non-religious
study and archaeological or anthropological work. It would seem that Budvarson
knew this before he ever posed the question to the Smithsonian;
Fourth, since almost all
sciences, including the Smithsonian stance, centers around man coming across
the Bering Strait Land Bridge as the means for settling the Western Hemisphere,
it is unlikely that any work supporting an opposite view, such as man settling
the Western Hemisphere via sailing across the Pacific (or Atlantic) in
antiquity is likely to be used in such work;
Fifth, since the chance that a
non-LDS archaeologist would be sufficiently schooled in the Book of Mormon
sufficient to feel it could be a basis for study and field work is extremely
unlikely;
Sixth, the chance that an
LDS-archaeologist finding such matches between the scriptural record and field
work that verified the Book of Mormon, would be believed and accepted by the
scientific community is also extremely unlikely (which has been the case many times);
Seventh, the chance of the
scientific community accepting any work, no matter how credible, outside of its
own accepted fields, beliefs and dogmas, as the basis of any accurate and
honest archaeological or anthropological work is also extremely unlikely;
Eighth, the chance that the
scientific community would accept uncovered evidences by even non-LDS works
that support the opposite of their long-held scientific beliefs is so unlikely
based upon their past ignoring of break-through discoveries about elephant
remains found in the Americas, which verifies the Book of Mormon account of
such, that it is not even worthy of discussion;
Ninth, the likelihood that the
scientific community would rather accept and believe in almost impossible
scenarios that support their long-help beliefs rather than look into reasonable
answers to long studied problems has been shown to be true in case after case;
Tenth, the likelihood that the
scientific community would reject long-held and time-worn beliefs in evolution
rather than accept that God had a hand in anything is so evident today, that
any God-oriented answers, no matter how likely and how evidenced, would stand a
chance at penetrating the cloak of “superstition” surrounding scientific dogmas
is as unlikely as any of the above scenarios;
Eleventh, even though
archaeological assumptions about field work discoveries is not proven (it is
simply the archaeologist’s interpretation of what he finds), it is accepted
generally without question, unless it has something to do with the Book of
Mormon, and/or flies in the face of commonly held scientific beliefs;
Twelfth, since the scientific
community does not accept Noah’s Flood as recorded in Genesis 6-9; it does not
accept that God created man, but insists it is scientifically proven that man
evolved from a single-cell amoeba; science does not accept that the Earth is
around 13,000 years old as illustrated in the Bible and even Willard F. Libby‘s
highly accepted radiocarbon (Carbon-14) time clock verified to be less than
20,000 years old, before he ignored his own findings and test results, and reset
the clock to measure in thousands and millions of years, it cannot be
considered very likely that science is going to accept anything stated in the
Book of Mormon.
The fact of the matter is,
however, that evidences of the Book of Mormon story line can be found in
numerous places throughout the Land of Promise when one looks into Andean South
America and not Mesoamerica. There are still a few areas that have not yet been
verified, but the number of areas that have far outweigh those that have not.
The problem, as stated above,
lies not in finding anything to verify the Book of Mormon, it is in finding
people who will accept what has been
found without trying to ignore it, claim it does not exist, or simply
disbelieve the evidence.
Even with those scientists who do
accept such information, it is the story of “the elephant in the living room”—a
term that refers to a
question, problem, solution, or controversial issue which is obvious to
everyone who knows about the situation, but which is deliberately ignored
because to do otherwise would cause great embarrassment, or trigger arguments
or is simply taboo (originally used by George Berkeley in discussing whether or
not there is "an invisible elephant
in the room" in his debates with scientists on the nature and elements
of the external world in 1862).
Everyone knows the elephant is
there, but no one wants to talk about it. In the case of the issue at hand, scientists
can be blackballed (not receive contracts, funding, time on computers, not get
published, etc.) if they work on matters unacceptable to the scientific
community, especially if they involve anything to do with God. This elephant is
not going to go away by ignoring it, but what is the alternative? Few
scientists are going to point to the elephant if it means their career. They
simply have no alternative—they have no choice but to ignore the elephant in
the living room, even if it means accepting theories to which they do not
agree.
Consequently, it is not very
likely that anyone is going to use the Book of Mormon as a guide in
archaeological explorations—a fact that Budvarson undoubtedly knew before
asking the Smithsonian.
Continuing
with Arthur Budvarson’s six questions asked of the Smithsonian Institution about
the Book of Mormon, their answers and
our evaluation. The first question was covered in the last post. Here is the
second question:
2. “Does true archeological data of the New
World agree with the subject matter of the Book of Mormon?”
This
is an interesting point. However, while the answer is a simple “yes,” from one
viewpoint, it is a little more complex than that. First of all, when artifacts
are taken from the ground, they are interpreted by those who study them, and
since they do not come with descriptions or any history, these researchers
simply give us an interpretation that makes sense to them. As an example, take
the area of a written language.
Maya hieroglyphics are carved on some
of the ruins in Mesoamerica, but they have no connection to the Nephite
language
There
is evidence of literacy in Mesoamerica and none in South America; however, the
writing found in Mesoamerica does not match anything even remotely resembling
Hebrew or Reformed Egyptian. More importantly, we have a written record (Book
of Mormon) of the period telling us why no writing evidence should be expected.
Mormon
tells us: “having been commanded of the Lord that I should not
suffer the records which had been handed down by our fathers, which were
sacred, to fall into the hands of the Lamanites, (for the Lamanites would destroy them) therefore I made this record
out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records
which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were these few
plates which I gave unto my son Moroni” (Mormon 6:6, emphasis mine). In addition,
Mormon states: “whatsoever lands we had passed by, and the inhabitants thereof
were not gathered in, were destroyed by the Lamanites, and their towns, and villages, and cities were burned with fire;
and thus three hundred and seventy and nine years passed away” (Mormon 5:5,
emphasis mine).
The point is, Mormon makes
it quite clear that the Lamanites destroyed anything Nephite, especially any
written record. And since the entire Nephite nation was annihilated by the
Lamanites, all that was Nephite was destroyed—nothing would have survived the
hatred the conquerors had toward the Nephites in their 1000-year civil war of
annihilation. Think of what happened when the Spanish conquered the Maya in
Mesoamerica—they burned almost every written record they found. Of the
thousands that existed, only four have survived.
Ancient Mesoamerican sites are very well
preserved, all constructed from stone
And while writings were
carved into the block walls in Mesoamerica, most of South American ancient
buildings were of clay and adobe brick, which has not survived well enough to
preserve any writing anyway, though none
would have survived the purges of the Lamanite destruction.
Ancient
Nephite sites in South America did not preserve as well as those in
Mesoamerica—if there had been any writing on the walls in South American buildings like in Mesoamerica, they did not survive
the deterioration of the centuries
What has survived and is of
major concern to this question are the buildings and the numerous segments of
history recorded in the scriptural record as well as the geographical settings
described by Mormon. We have listed in these pages over the years showing the
20 main factors of scriptural descriptions that only matches the Andean area of
South America, an area not addressed by either Budvarson’s questions and
interest, or that of the Smithsonian, both of which addressed themselves solely
to Mexico and Central America (for example, see the post: “So Where is the Land of Promise?” Parts 1 thru 12, posted
between December 26, 2013 and January 7, 2014)
The point being, that when
archaeologists uncover a site like Pachacamac (25 miles southeast of Lima,
Peru) that is considered by them to have been a religious center of a
civilization that existed in Nephite times, they do not look to the Book of
Mormon for any reference. Yet Pachacamac, which would have been the Nephite
capitol of Zarahemla, is recognized by archaeologists as:
1. The most important area
of indigenous peoples of the central Andes before the Inca period, dating back
to occupancy of at least 400 B.C.;
2. Had a giant Temple
(built of 50-million sun-dried bricks) of great significance and was considered
the principal religious center of pre-Columbian Andes;
3. An enormous site covering
several square miles, with a large population befitting a leading social center, many
of the dwellings still remain;
4. Located on a promontory within
easy walking distance of the ocean (West Sea) where the Mulekites would have
landed and settled;
5. Northward from the area
of the city of Nephi (Sacsayhuaman) from which Mosiah came before discovering
Zarahemla;
6. There are at least 17
pyramids, suggesting a huge administrative and government center;
7. The temple and site were
a religious center honoring Pacha Kamaq, the creator god (“Earth maker”), the
god of the area for may centuries;
8. Considered the central
city of the kingdom;
9. The site attracted
visitors from all over the Andean area during Nephite times;
10. There were wide streets
within the site recently unearthed, suggesting much traffic and activity.
The ancient city of Pachacamac outside Lima,
Peru. During Nephite times it was the social, religious and government center
of the Andean area and matches much of what we know about the ancient Nephite
capital of Zarahemla
The materials used and the construction
techniques are considered very complex for the time period. Stone walls served
as base for the amazing structures made of "adobitos" (small adobe
bricks). Investigation, excavation and restoration is still ongoing at the
Archaeological Complex of Pachacamac as more areas and greater understanding of
the site are discovered.
The point is, all of this fits the Nephite
period perfectly, the description and place in Nephite history of Zarahemla as the nation's capital, and the center of Nephite activity for hundreds of years, yet none of the archaeologists who discovered and restored
the site, like Bandelier, Middendorf, Uhle, Glesecke, Tello, Strong Corbett and
Borja, would ever think to make any attempt to match one to the other.
As Amaleki tells us: “And
they journeyed in the wilderness, and were brought by the hand of the Lord
across the great waters, into the land
where Mosiah discovered them; and they had dwelt there from that time forth”
(Omni 1:16, emphasis mine). To one well acquainted to the Book of Mormon and
the story of the Mulekites, the landing site along the coast of South America
(see the book Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica) with a settlement on the bluff
overlooking the coast within easy walking distance of their landing makes a lot
of sense. To an archaeologist, it is not connected in any way. Yet, the entire
circumstances surrounding the history of Pachacamac verifies the scriptural
record of that city and it fits well into the information listed.
The landing site of the Mulekites would have
been along the coast, and their settlement within easy walking distance from
their landing—this bluff overlooking the coast, and the city that dates to
about that time make a reasonable match
Thus, there are two
problems in making the claim that “true
archeological data of the New World agree with the subject matter of the Book
of Mormon.”
The
first is that, while all sorts of matches can be found, the problem lies not in
finding them, but in the archaeologist recognizing the matches to that of the
Book of Mormon. Few archaeologists outside the Church would even know much
about the Book of Mormon, let alone be searching for matching evidence. It is
not that matches and verification cannot be found—the problem lies in
archaeological data being used for that purpose by the archaeologist. And that
is simply not likely, which renders the question moot before it is even asked.
The
second, and most critical problem, is to stop using Mesoamerica as the criteria
or basis for finding archaeological evidence. As Robert’s answer to Budvarson’s
second question was a resounding “no,” his statement in support of this was: “the absence of iron, steel, brass, gold
and silver coins, metal, swords breastplates, arm shields, armor, horses and
chariots, and silk, in pre-colonial sites of ancient America,” which is true
for Mesoamerica! However, all of these are found in Andean South America,
dating back to Jaredite and Nephite times. Obviously, Budvarson needed to look to the location where that
evidence is boundless, and that is in the Andean area of South America--not Mesoamerica!
