Where Do We Find Accurate Dates? – Part V

Continuing with Joseph L. Allen’s descriptive information in his book Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon, that poses as Land of Promise discussion but really is meant to solidify his Mesoamerican model. As concluded in the previous post, it cannot be said that the Jaredites lived until sometime after Mulek landed. Nor does the condition of the artifacts found by Limhi’s expedition prove anything, for there are several answers to this concern, such as:

•  Copper is one of the oldest known metal ores used for making objects, including instruments of war. It was first smelted from ore around 4000 B.C., and use of molded copper soon followed. While it can be bent, it cannot be chipped.  Cold-hammering of copper results, after a time, in stressing the metal until it cracks and breaks; however, once annealing (heating) was learned, copper became easy and useful to join together, fashion, form, and shape. That copper has longevity is shown by the artifacts that have been found all over the world, dating back to prehistoric times.  One such artifact is a cow of copper found in Mesopotamia dating to 2500 B.C.  Also in Mesopotamia, the area from which the Jaredites came, the firing of bricks for use in kilns was developed, rather than using mud bricks. This allowed for higher kiln (oven) temperatures and, thus, better molded products.
•  About the time the Jaredites left Mesopotamia, a subtle change was taking place there in the field of metallurgy.  Smiths were finding that greater control of copper could be achieved with the addition of tin which created bronze. This may explain why the Jaredite copper breastplates were still sound hundreds of years later, for pure copper does not deteriorate like steel or iron. 

•  Also, if steel or iron was used in the sword handles, which was common in Mesopotamia in 2500 B.C., it would show why the handles had perished, but the sword remained (Mosiah 8:11), though cankered. The Jaredite brass mentioned in Mosiah was made of zinc and copper, and like copper, was likely to hold its form and durability over hundreds of years. Though after time, the zinc or tin could canker (rust or oxidize), a term typically applied in Joseph Smith's day to the small ulcer-like rust or oxidized pockets in certain metals.
•  It is probably true that preservation within Mesoamerica is poor because of the tropical atmosphere, etc., as Allen points out.  However, South America, in the Andean regions, boasts one of the great archaeological areas of the world. Here, sites show remains abetted in some geographical zones by incredible preservation.  The desert coast, as an example, has a dryness of climate that has created an American Egypt, an archaeologist's paradise. At Puruchuco-Huaquerones, a site of antiquity on the eastern outskirts of Lima, recent discoveries of mummies in a graveyard have produced exceptional finds because of their preservation in the bone-dry soil. A pre-Inca copper star, part of a warrior's ensemble, was found in almost perfect condition, preserved by the dry climate that has helped maintain numerous treasures. These regions provide conditions for preservation probably as good or better than any place in the world. Obviously, if this is the location of the Land of Promise, as we claim, then weapons, bones and buildings would be well preserved for long periods of time--certainly hundreds of years.
    There is also the fact that the Lord may well have preserved these bones, buildings and weapons of war despite the time frame involved for the sole purpose of impressing upon those who found them of a previous civilization who it was learned, once the plates were translated, were wiped out because they would not remain righteous.

Continuing, Allen states: “The people of Zarahemal (Mulekites) cared for the last Jaredite king, whose name was Coriantumr, which requires the Mulekites to be in the Promised Land. That could not have been prior to the destruction of Jerusalem (586 BC). The last Jaredite battle could not have been later than 200 B.C., because the people of Zarahemla had already cared for Coriantumr prior to the coming of Mosiah.”
    As mentioned earlier, this does not mean that the Jaredite nation overlapped the Mulekites. It only means that Coriantumr was alive when, and just after, the Mulekites arrived in the land. Based on the suggestions above, the last Jaredite battle could have taken place prior to the arrival of the Mulekites. And since Ether, himself, living during Coriantumr's lifetime and surviving the last, great battle, twice stated in the future tense that Lehi and those who would inherit the land from the Jaredites, it might be suggested that the Jaredites were gone from the Land of Promise prior to the arrival of Mulek. While this might seem a minor point, it should be kept in mind that Ether wrote of these events as yet to occur, Moroni translated that future tense into the record and Joseph Smith, with the help of the Spirit, translated it future tense. 
    All we glean from the record is that Coriantumr was alive when the Mulekites were in the Land of Promise.
    Allen further states: “We can appeal to the Mesoamerica calendar system to see if it can aid us in understanding more precisely some of the Book of Mormon dates.” 

It would be well worth someone's while to read Allen's explanation of the Maya calendar (pp 15-19).  While Mesoamericanists love this calendar, it seems fraught with difficulty interpreting it, and there is no way to know for sure if the interpretation is accurate or not.  Let's state just one area of difficulty:  According to Allen, the Maya calendar, contrary to popular opinion, was not functional as our calendar dating is today. It was necessary therefore, to number both the day symbols and the month symbols and then to correlate them with the Baktuns—Baktun is a symbol interpreted to mean 144,000 days (that's 4,800 30-day months, or about 400 years, and according to this calendar system, the Maya used a 20-day month, 18 months to the year, with a 5-day month carry over to make up the exact rotation of the planet. That would make it 7,200 months, or 400 years—the Katuns (7,200 days)—the Katun is a symbol interpreted to mean 7,200 days (that's 240 30-day months, or about 20 years, and in the Maya calendar, that would be 360 months, or 20 years)—including other numbers such as Tun (360 days), Uinal (20 days), and Kin (one day). 
    Thus, the date reading 6 BEN and 16 XUL—interpreted to mean 16 December 36 B.C.—means that on the 6th calendar rotation of the day BEN (Reed) with the 16th calendar rotation of the month XUL an event happened. Because these rotations continue on forever in their calendar, they placed numbers in front of each day name and each month day.

Now, what if there was a miscalculation or deliberate error incorporated into the interpretation of the Maya calendar, as there is in the case of Carbon-14, or the tree of life Stela (left)? While each numbering system would produce an accurate date, that date would be based upon inaccurate determinations. Further, the day symbol, called Kin, actually means sun; the month symbol, called Uinal, actually means man; and the year symbol, called Tun, actually means stone.
    In addition, one of the important discoveries from these ruins is that the Maya had several calendars. One is known as the Long Count Calendar,  which is reset to day 0 every 1,872,000 days, which is a period of about 5128.7 years, and known as The Great Circle—that is, their calendar time was a circle, repeating itself about every 5,128 years). The last reset date, by some calculations, was December 21, 2012 (when many claimed the Maya thought the world would end on that day).
    Obviously, this calendar is of no interest to the Maya any longer, since their civilization collapsed over a thousand years ago. (Though there are people today who are the descendants of the Maya and the culture lives on through them). The Mayan glyphs and hieroglyphs aren't crystal clear about what the calendar means—and though many had interpreted it to mean the end of the world will occur on December 12, 2012 (which, of course did not happen), the Maya could not even predict their own demise some 500 years earlier. This Maya Long Count calendar begins on August 11, 3114 B.C.—just as our own calendar begins on January 1 of the first year of the Christian era. Presumably, the Maya attached some significance to their own day zero, but we don't know what it was (Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Viking. New York, 2005, p167).
    In addition, the counting system of the Maya was based on multiples of 20, thus a month has 20 days, not 30 or 31.  One of the more interesting ideas in this, is that beyond year, the Maya used concepts beyond even our present counting system.  That is, today we use hundred, thousand, million and added in recent years, the word trillion—the Maya, on the other hand, with a far more primitive need for numbering than present day man with computers, financial empires and huge government debt, yet had two words to describe numbers beyond million. All of this might cause one to wonder at the accuracy of the interpretation of the Maya calendar, especially when it began, supposedly, in 3114 B.C. No date in Hebrew, Jaredite, or Nephite history suggests such a date, even remotely, other than perhaps events during Enoch’s time.

One last thought. Another, perhaps extremely important point, is that even though the Maya calendar supposedly has a start date of 3114 BC, the oldest long count in the Maya calendar is the one given earlier about 6 Ben and 16 Xul, or 36 B.C.  That would be just about the year that Hagoth's immigrants sailed northward from his shipyard on the Sea West and landed in the Land which was Northward and never heard from again. If this land northward was, in fact Central America, going north from Andean South America, then it might be understood that they would indicated that date of some importance, i.e., landing in their new home.

Where Do We Find Accurate Dates? – Part IV

Continuing with Joseph L. Allen’s descriptive information in his book Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon, that poses as Land of Promise discussion but really is meant to solidify his Mesoamerican model.

While the Lord dictated to Moses what he wrote in Genesis, including the dates of the Patriarchs, which give us the dates of the Flood (2344-2343 B.C.), the Aculhua ruler, Ixtlilxochitl Ome Tochtli (left), who lived in Mesoamerica in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and the last of the native Mayan kings, who Mesoamericanists love to quote, places the date of the Flood within 60 years of the above date.
    The Flood lasted one year and 3 days, which means it was over in 2343 according to the Biblical record.        
    Second, in discussing the tower, the following dates are involved.  Shem was 100 years old when Arphaxad was born, two years after the Flood (Genesis 11:10), or 2341 B.C. Arphaxad was 35 years old when Salah was born and 65 when Eber was born and 95 when Peleg was born.  In the time of Peleg, who lived 239 years (Genesis 11:18-19) the earth was divided.  Since the earth was divided after the Tower (Genesis 11:8-9,16-17), the Tower was built and the language confounded sometime between 2343 BC and 2247 BC. The latter date is the most likely since Nimrod, the architect and chief builder of the tower, was Ham's sixth son (Genesis 10:6-8).  Nimrod had to have been a man of some stature before building the Tower. He was a mighty one in the earth, he was a mighty hunter, he became the leader of all the people in the land (Genesis 11:1), his kingdom stretched across the land of Shinar, including Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh (Genesis 10:9). 
    Thus, we can place the date of the Tower within a hundred years, and likely close to 2250 BC.  We also know that the Jaredites were led across the wilderness, northward (Ether 1:42) into the valley called Nimrod (Ether 2:1), into a quarter of the land where no man had ever before been (Ether 2:5), and across many waters large enough to need barges to carry them (Ether 2:6). Obviously the earth had already been divided by the time the Jaredites reached the Great Sea.  This, then would put the Jaredite landing in the Land of Promise during Peleg's time, from 2247 B.C. to 2008 B.C..  Splitting the difference, we have chosen to use the date of 2100 B.C. for the Jaredite landing. which as we said above, is within 100 years of any date within that Peleg lifetime.

This suggests, then, that Jared (above left), his brother, and those families that went with them whose language was not confused, lived for some time either in their homeland, or in the wilderness between their homeland (area of the Tower) and the Great Sea after their confounding of languages.  As an example, the confounding of the language probably took place around 2250 B.C., and the arrival of the Jaredites in the Land of Promise was probably around 2100 B.C., suggesting Jared, his brother, and friends, lived some 150 years between the confounding of the language and their arrival in the Land of Promise. Given the ages of these men as listed in Genesis and the Pearl of Great Price, such longevity is well within reason.
    Continuing with Allen’s comments, he writes: “The Book of Ether records a 30-generation lineage count from the beginning to the end of the Jaredite history. The date of the final internal battle, wherein the Jaredite nation fell, is not given in the Book of Mormon. We do know that it has to be sometime between the coming of the Mulekites, after the captivity of the Jews by the Babylonians (586 BC), and the discovery of the 24 gold plates by the Limhi Expedition (121 BC)
    First, Allen makes an assumption that is not supported by scripture, i.e., that the Jaredite demise happened after the Mulekites landed in the Land of Promise.  That, of course, is a possibility, but not the only possibility. In the days of Coriantumr, son of Moron, many prophets came among the Jaredites prophesying their utter destruction and that the Lord God would send or bring forth another people to possess the land by his power, after the manner by which he brought their fathers (Ether 11:21). Notice that Ether writes this in the future tense—others would be brought forth, not that the Lord already had and they were already in the Land of Promise.  Moroni quotes Ether as seeing a vision in which Lehi should come to the Land of Promise (Ether 13:5), again using future tense in Ether's time frame.  Thus, we might deduce that in Ether's day, his visions and understanding of the people who the Lord would bring to replace the Jaredites in the Land of Promise had not, as yet, arrived. 

At this point, Coriantumr was king over all the land and Ether was the prophet of the Lord (Ether 12:1-2).  During this time, there were continual wars going on among the Jaredites (Ether 13:15). But Coriantumr would not repent of these wars and try to bring an end to them. In the second year of this last, great war, Ether was commanded to deliver a prophecy to Coriantumr that if he would repent, and all his household, the Lord would give unto him his kingdom and spare the people (Ether 13:20). If they did not do this, then they should be destroyed and all his household save it were himself. And he should only live to see the fulfilling of the prophecies which had been spoken concerning another people receiving the land for their inheritance; and Coriantumr should receive a burial by them; and every soul should be destroyed save it were Coriantumr (Ether 13:21). 
    This should underline for all time the fact that Coriantumr and the Jaredites were not aware of any other group in the Land of Promise, were not in the Land of Promise at the same time as the Mulekites and the Nephites, and that the Land of Promise was for them if they would repent and live righteously. But Coriantumr did not repent and the war went on and a great curse settled over the land (Ether 14:1), many thousands died by the sword (Ether 14:4), including women and children (Ether 14:17,22) and Coriantumr continued to do battle with those who tried to usurp his crown. 
    By the time Coriantumr remembered the words Ether spoke, there had already been killed two millions of mighty men, plus their wives and their children—a figure that could be upwards of 6 million dead:  2 million men and their wives (another 2 million) and their children (at least another 2 million or so). Though Coriantumr was thinking of repenting, he was stirred up to anger by the people (Ether 15:6) and the war continued.
    After all the Jaredites were gathered in to battle (Ether 15:14), all were killed on both sides (Ether 15:23,25,) except for Coriantumr and Shiz (Ether 15:29). In this single, hand-to-hand combat between the king and the would-be usurper, Coriantumr was victorious (Ether 15:30) and remained, as prophesied, the last survivor of his people—the last man standing. 

What happened between the time Coriantumr killed Shiz and the time he was discovered by the people of Zarahemla (Omni 1:21) is not known.  However, several possibilities present themselves as has thoroughly been covered earlier in this work. One example could be found in Moroni surviving the final battle of 385 A.D., and at least living through 421 A.D., a total of 36 years, hiding and avoiding the numerous Lamanite civil wars. Coriantumr would not be hiding from anyone for there was no one left for him to fear, but he could have lived many years afterward.
    The point is, it cannot be said that the Jaredite people lived until sometime after Mulek landed. That Coriantumr did, is certain, but this could have been in the circumstances previously outlined.  One of the arguments against the Jaredite demise prior to or at the time of Mulek's landing is the fact that copper and brass breastplates were found in "sound" condition, when Limhi's 43-man expedition found the Jaredite remains.  Because of the condition of what was found, it might be assumed it was a recent demise of the Jaredite civilization.  There are several answers to this concern:
(See the next post, “Where Do We Find Accurate Dates? – Part V,” for more of Allen’s descriptive information that poses as Book of Mormon discussion but really is meant to solidify his Mesoamerican model, and specifically how the weapons and armament of the Jaredites could have been "sound" when found by Limhi's expedition)

Where Do We Find Accurate Dates? – Part III

Continuing with Joseph L. Allen’s descriptive information in his book Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon, that poses as Land of Promise discussion but really is meant to solidify his Mesoamerican model.

Based on archaeology of Mesoamerica, what is called the Classic Period is an archaeological label used to denote the quality and quantity of buildings and monuments that were built during a period. Whereas Postclassic is represented by a decline in both quality and quantity of construction. and Preclassic consists of the foundation of settlements before extensive building. It is applied in the Mesoamerica model to the Nephites to suggest their most vigorous building period. According to Allen, “The Classic Period is so named because of both the quality and quantity of buildings and monuments that were built during the time period 200 AD to 900 AD.”
    According to Book of Mormon dates, by the beginning of Mesoamerica Classic Period (200 A.D.), the Nephites were in the last 100 years of their building period.  By just after 300 A.D., they were likely through and within 22 years, were embroiled in wars that would last until they were annihilated in 385 A.D. Thus, we should recap the height of Nephite building and construction to show that their most impressive period was long before that of Mesoamerica.
• This was the period of time just after Nephi  and “those who would go with him” resettled in what they called the Land of Nephi, sometime around 570 B.C., in which Nephi taught his people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance (2 Nephi 5:15).
• Another period of time was around 399 B.C., when  Jarom reported that the Nephites had multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceeding rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron, and copper, and brass and steel (Jarom 1:8).

• Another period was when Mosiah discovered the People of Zarahemla (Mulekites) and

the settlement grew into the nation’s capital with extensive building just after 200 B.C. Around 100 B.C. it is noted the Nephites were spreading all over the land, including moving into the Land Northward during that century to inherit the land, many believe as a result of over-crowding in the area of Zarahemla. “The people began to be very numerous, and began to scatter abroad upon the face of the earth, yea, on the north and on the south, on the east and on the west, building large cities and villages in all quarters of the land (Mosiah 27:6).

About 30 to 50 years later, immigrants began flooding into the Land Northward (Helaman 3:5), and after a time they received building materials from those in the Land Southward, and began building many cities, both of wood and of cement (Helaman 3:11), and the records of the Nephites included their building of ships, and their building of temples, and of synagogues and their sanctuaries (Helaman 3:14). 
    In 34 AD numerous cities were destroyed (3 Nerphi 9:2-10), but were rebuilt over the next 30 years (4 Nephi 1:7), though some of the destroyed cities were sunk into the earth, etc., and could not be rebuilt (4 Nephi 1:9).  By 200 AD, the Nephites were filling up the land once again in such numbers (4 Nephi 1:23) that obviously building was going on to accommodate them. 
    Then, for the first time in over three hundred years, wars broke out between the Nephites and Lamanites once again (Mormon 1:11), and from that time forward, until 385 AD, when the Nephites were entirely wiped out (Mormon 6:15) and not one Nephite was left other than Moroni (Mormon 8:7), there would have been no building going on. And certainly following this period, the Lamanites were embroiled in a bloody civil war that lasted for at least 36 years, and no doubt much longer according to what Moroni wrote, so the idea that the Classic Period of Nephite development being from 200 A.D. to 900 A.D. is absolutely fallacious and cannot be considered—if that was a building period in Mesoamerica, it certainly was not the Nephites of the scriptural record in the Land of Promise given to Lehi.
    Consequently, any Classic period, showing the height of Nephite building quality and quantity would not have continued beyond about 300 A.D., and was begun around 570 B.C., when Nephi showed his people how to build with great workmanship, including a temple to rival Solomon's (2 Nephi 5:15-16).  As a result, while Mesoamerica may show a building peak in the 200 B.C. to 900 A.D. period, the Land of Promise would not. There, on Lehi's Isle of Promise, building began in 570 B.C. and reached its height in the first century B.C. and continued on until sometime after 200 A.D., coming to a complete standstill around 300 to 330 A.D.
    This should show ever Mesoamericanist how archaeology’s pre-determined dating periods do not apply to the Nephite record; however, Allen goes on to say: “Book of  Mormon history occurred throughout the Preclassic Period (2500 BC-200 AD) and during the first half of the Classic Period (200 AD to 900 AD).”
    However, as has been shown, based on Biblical dates, the period from 2500 to about 2100, there would have been no one in the Land of Promise. The Jaredites could not possibly have arrived prior to about 2100, and before that, Moroni tells us “after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof” (Ether 13:2). The first people we know of that the Lord blessed to come to this choice land were the Jaredites. And according to Moses' dates shown above, that means the Jaredites did not arrive much before 2100 B.C. This date is shown by the Biblical time period which the Lord dictated to Moses for his writing in Genesis and the Pearl of Great Price. 

In the 400 years prior to the Jaredite landing, there was no one on the Land of Promise, a land which had been preserved by the Lord for this chosen people (Ether 13:2,8).  Thus, the Jaredites were the first people after the Flood to occupy the Land of Promise, and that started in about 2100 B.C. Then, another people were led here, and the last Jaredite King, Coriantumr, was told by a prophet of the Lord that he would live long enough to see another people inherit the land. These people, the Mulekites, among whom Coriantumr lived the last nine months of his life, arrived in the Land of Promise sometime after 585 B.C.—the last year of Zedekiah’s reign was in 586 B.C. Mulek, his youngest and only surviving son, left Jerusalem at this time and ended up, with those who came with him, in the land of promise. Since it took the Lehi Colony about 10 years before sailing for the Western Hemisphere after leaving Jerusalem, it can safely be assumed that the Mulekites landed in the area of Zarahemla between 585 B.C. and 575 B.C.
    So the Book of Mormon period does not cover very much of Allen's Preclassic period.

In his attempt to lessen the importance of the Biblical dates Moses gives us, Allen states: “The information that is given about the beginning of the Jaredites is associated with the building of the great tower at the time the languages were confounded.  The Bible makes reference to what is undoubtedly the same event, but the date of the Biblical tower is also lacking.”
    First, let's deal with the Flood.  Noah's age is set by following the dates of the birth of each Patriarch and the date of the birth of his son in the Patriarichal Order. Figuring Adam was ejected from the Garden of Eden in 4000 B.C.
• Adam was 130 years old [3870 BC] when Seth was born (Gen 5:3
• Seth was 105 years old [3765 BC] when Enos was born (Gen 5:6)
• Enos was 90 years old [3675 BC] when Cainan was born (Gen 5:9)
• Cainan was 70 years old [3605 BC] when Mahalaleel was born (Gen 5:12)
• Mahalaleel was 65 years old [3540 BC] when Jared was born (Gen 5:15)
• Jared was 162 years old [3378 BC] when Enoch was born (Gen 5:18)
• Enoch was 65 years old [3313 BC] when Methuselah was born (Gen 5:21)
• Methusalah was 187 years old [3126 BC] when Lamech was born (Gen 5:26)
• Lamech was 182 years old [2944 BC] when Noah was born (Gen 5:28-29)
    In this way, we find that Noah was born 1056 years after time began for Adam. Using a 4000 B.C. starting time of life (when Adam was ejected from the Garden of Eden), we find that Noah was born in the year 2944 B.C. Noah was 500 years old when he began the Ark, which would have been 2444, and 600 years old when the rains came (Gen 7:6), which would make it 2344 B.C.
(See the next post, “Where Do We Find Accurate Dates? – Part IV,” for more of Allen’s descriptive information that poses as Book of Mormon discussion but really is meant to solidify his Mesoamerican model)

Where Do We Find Accurate Dates? – Part II

Continuing with Joseph L. Allen’s descriptive information in his book Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon, that poses as Land of Promise discussion but really is meant to solidify his Mesoamerican model. 
    The first of his four points to consider was covered in part in the first post. The other three questions we should ask are, 2) what is meant by “time periods”? Are we discussing the Book of Mormon and Biblical time periods, or are we discussing archaeological time periods attributed to Mesoamerica?  3) what is meant by being in existence, are we discussing the actual dates of known ruins?  Or are we discussing the estimated dates of carbon-14, the Maya calendar, or glyphs on stones?  And 4) what is meant by Book of Mormon correlations, are we discussing actual dates found in scripture of the Book of Mormon, Bible and Pearl of Great Price? Or are we discussing the dates archaeologists and Mesoamericanists have created to fit their model? 

It should be note here that the calendar dates, etc., that Allen uses is the Maya Calendar (left), which begins in 3114 B.C. To justify or explain that beginning date, Mesoamericanists claim the Maya began their calendar following a cataclymisc event, such as Noah’s Flood. However, the Maya calendar beginning at 3114 B.C. has no rationale associated with it other than there must have been some reason to begin then and that reason must have been associated with a cataclysmic event and no other such event other than the Flood is considered—thus Mesoamericanists place the Flood at 3114 because of this calendar rather than from the revealed word of a prophet of God. Such thinking is rampant throughout Allen’s work and that of all other Mesoamericanists.
    So let's take a look at each of these four points:
1)  The trouble with trying to match Mesoamerican cultures with Book of Mormon cultures is that when they don't align in time and area (which they typically do not), the Mesoamericanists want to alter the scriptural record of time and area to meet their Mesoamerican model.  A case in point is that their Olmecs (who they consider the Jaredites) lived both in their Land Northward and their Land Southward when, in fact, the scripture account shows they were only in the Land Northward (Ether 10:21-22).  But because the Olmecs were on both sides of their Narrow Neck of Land, they have to change the Jaredite record as found in the Book of Mormon. 2)  The Biblical time frame of the Flood is quite specific. From the dates shown in Abraham, Moses and Genesis, it seems fairly certain that the flood came approximately 1656 years after Adam's ejection from the Garden of Eden. As an example, figuring that Adam was ejected from the Garden of Eden in 4000 B.C., then the Flood occurred in 2344-2343 BC. For the Flood to have occurred in 3114 BC, as Allen claims, one of two things would have to exist: (1) Adam was evicted from the Garden of Eden in 4770 BC, about 770 years before Earth life was supposed to have begun (if it began as Allen says, we would now be well into the Millennial period, with about 230 years left in that 7th Day), or (2) the 1656 years from Adam to Noah entering into the Ark as described in Genesis 5, would have to be incorrect.  Since this latter information was given to Moses directly from the Lord, it seems unreasonable to consider this to be in error.

So, according to Moses, who was writing the record of the Flood as part of Genesis as the Lord was dictating this history to him, placed the Flood at 2344 B.C. This is found both in Genesis and in the Pearl of Great Price. Thus, the commencement of the flood in the year 2344 B.C., as shown in Genesis and Moses, would be accurate.  
    The flood lasted 1 year and 3 days (from the time Noah stepped into the Ark until he and his family left it), which means the flood ended in the year 2343 B.C.
3)  Carbon-14 is undeniably the measurement of choice of almost all archaeologists, anthropologists and Mesoamericanists; however, as is thoroughly pointed out in our book Scientific Fallacies & Other Myths, C-14, in fact all dating methods, are far from accurate, and anything before the time of Christ is bound to be several hundreds and even thousands of years off.  C-14 also has a plus or minus factor, causing as much as a 300 to 500 year swing; and typically, two or more measurements of the same item in C-14 testing yields extremely different results.  The developer of the Carbon-14 clock, Dr. Willard F. Libby, by his own admission had to go against the findings of his own testing in order to come up with the basis of the measurement and, had he not gone against his own findings, the time frame in all C-14 testing would yield far younger measurements than now is found—typically showing the Earth is between 10,000 and 12,000 years old.         
4)  As stated above, the Maya calendar began in the year 3114 B.C. according to those who have determined its interpretations.  This date has been attributed to the time of the Flood by Mesoamericanists, since no other calamitous or singular event fits that date in their mind. Thus, to make this date correct and that event its beginning, and the calendar effective, several things have to fit in place: a)  The Flood had to have occurred in 3114; b)  The Tower of Babel had to have occurred within a couple of hundred years afterward no later than about 2900 B.C.; c)  The Jaredites had to have landed in Mesoamerica by 2700 B.C. at the latest. This means, to the Mesoamericanists, that any date in scripture that does not fit in to these events, must be wrong and should be changed. And that is exactly what they have done, pushing the Flood forward in history some 800 years and, therefore, claiming the Jaredite landing occurred about 700 years or so before it happened so that the Book of Mormon agrees with the Maya calendar.
    Allen also adds: “Dates are very elusive and, as a result, allow a great degree of flexibility. We run into the same problem (elusive dates) as we attempt to correlate Book of Mormon dates with secular dates of Mesoamerica.” Wow, how difficult is it to be to choose between those of the scriptures or those of the secular world? However, dates in scripture are not at all elusive. The dating time frame of all Nephite, Lamanite and Mulekite history is specific, extensively foot-noted in the Book of Mormon to show when events occurred. Dates regarding such things as the Patriarchs, their birth, death, and the age at the time of their son's birth, are specific in Genesis and the Pearl of Great Price.

Thus any date up to and including the Flood are specific, and those dates afterward are also specific. There are no dates of these events that are not known connected with known events as recorded by Abraham and Moses, or that can be arrived at through reasoning out other, surrounding dates.
    Nor is the Jaredite dating as elusive as Mesoamericansts would like us to think. The Jardites left Mesopotamia at the time the Lord confounded the languages of the Tower builders. This date can be arrived at within 100 years without difficulty, considering the time of the Flood, the time the earth was divided (Peleg's time) and the birth of Nimrod (the architect of the Tower), etc. The date of the Jaredite demise is open to argument, but it had to have happened sometime around 600 to 500 B.C. as the scriptures point out. The only reason Allen and other Mesoamerican Theorists consider Book of Mormon dates elusive is that they do not agree with the Mesoamerican Maya calendar.
    This seems obvious considering the Nephites of the Book of Mormon were not in Mesoamerica.  It is surprising that this fact has not occurred to Mesoamericanists who, true to their archaeological background, want to find reasons why something does not match their model, rather than considering their model might be in error because it does not match scripture. Undaunted by this lack of match, Allen adds: “Many times the dates in the Book of Mormon are peculiar in nature.”
    What he means is that the dates of the Book of Mormon do not agree with the Maya Calendar and Maya dated events. On the other hand, all dates in the Book of Mormon are peculiar to the Nephites, Lamanites, Mulekites or Jaredites.  One would not expect to find those peculiar dates consistent with any other cultures or people other than the four groups mentioned once each left the area of the Old World where dates can be compared against the Bible. The fact that Olmec, Zapotec, or Teotihuacan, etc., do not match Book of Mormon dates in specific areas should suggest that those cultures were not the same cultures as discussed in the Book of Mormon.
(See the next post, “Where Do We Find Accurate Dates? – Part III,” for more of Allen’s descriptive information that poses as Book of Mormon discussion but really is meant to solidify his Mesoamerican model)

Where Do We Find Accurate Dates? – Part I

In trying to determine accurate dates for the Book of Mormon, Mesoamericanist Joseph L. Allen claims that other information, dates and cultures are important.  He claims that: “To develop a format for reliable Book of Mormon correlations with other cultures, we must be aware of the time periods in which the other cultures were in existence” (Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon, S.A. Publishers, 1989, p13)

These are the only people we have any knowledge of from the Book of Mormon that occupied the Land of Promise given to Lehi and his descendants. There is no other suggestion in the scriptural record of any other people

    The first question this raises is “What other cultures?” There are no other cultures that we know of other than the Jaredites, Nephites, Mulekites and Lamanites that were in the Land of Promise during Book of Mormon times about which we know. If other cultures were there, certainly in the historical part of the Book of Mormon and Mormon’s complete abridgement no other culture or people is mentioned or suggested in any way.
    The second question we should ask, is “What time periods?” is he suggesting? The Jaredite time period, or the Nephite time period? If either of these, then again, in the historical part of the Book of Mormon and Mormon’s complete abridgement no other time period is mentioned or suggested in any way.
    So, if you are not a Mesoamericanist and a believer that other cultures occupied the Land of Promise before and during the time frame of Lehi’s landing and the existence of the Nephite Nation, but accept the Lord’s promise to Lehi, in which the patriarch expressed to his children: “notwithstanding our afflictions, we have obtained a land of promise, a land which is choice above all other lands; a land which the Lord God hath covenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of my seed. Yea, the Lord hath covenanted this land unto me, and to my children forever, and also all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord” (2 Nephi 1:5, emphasis added).
    To make sure this is understood, three areas above were italicizd for emphasis:
1. For the inheritance of my seed. This Land of Promise was for Lehi’s descendants, and for at least 600 B.C. to about 220 A.D., they were a righteous people (at least part of them) and were the recipients of that promise.
2. Covenanted this land unto me, and to my children forever. This was no temporary covenant, but one that would last forever. Meaning that Lehi’s seed, at least those numerous generations that lived in the Land of Promise for upwards of 800 years earned that inheritance.
3. Those who should be led out of other countries. The promise regarding the inheritance of the Land of Promise also extended to other people or groups who would be led out of other countries. Note the future tense: who would be led. This suggests that the Land of Promise that Lehi and his descendants occupied was not occupied by anyone else during that 800 years or so.
    This means that if Mesoamerianists are correct in there being other cultures in the land that was promised to Lehi at the time he arrived in the land, then the Lord is lying. Since that is not a possibility, then it can only be understood that no one else was in that land that was promised to Lehi before he arrived!
Thus, Mesoamerica cannot be the place of Lehi’s landing and the Nephite Nation’s territory!
    In addition, Lehi was also promised:

Just before his death, Lehi taught his family about the promises the Lord made to him about dedicating the Land of Promise to his seed forever

“Wherefore, I, Lehi, prophesy according to the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord” (2 Nephi 1:6).
    Now Lehi went on to say again, in the future tense, that none would come into the Land of Promise, unless led there by the hand of the Lord. From Nephi’s earlier vision we learn who those would be that the Lord would lead into the land:
1. Columbus: “I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land” (1 Nephi 12:12);
2. Gentiles (Europeans): “I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters…and I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten” (1 Nephi 12:13-14);
3. Gentiles (Settlers): “And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain” (1 Nephi 12:15).

The American continent (North and South America) was considered to be the Land of Promise in Nephi’s vision, for he saw Columbus landing in the Land of Promise and Columbus never set foot in North America or Mexico, but did in South America) and this entire Western Hemisphere was dedicated to these Gentiles for their settlement. North America would obviously be included, and specifically what is now the United States, as Nephi added: “I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles who had gone forth out of captivity did humble themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them… And I beheld that the power of God was with them, and also that the wrath of God was upon all those that were gathered together against them to battle… And I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles that had gone out of captivity were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations…And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that they did prosper in the land; and I beheld a book, and it was carried forth among them” (1 Nephi 12:17-19).
    So we see that through Lehi’s promises and Nephi’s vision, that the Land of Promise overall meant the Amrican continent, i.e., North and South America; but the portion dedicated to Lehi’s seed was a much smaller area in along the western Andean shelf of South America.

The latter part, i.e., Nephi’s vision, is also included in the final statement of the Lord’s promise to Lehi: “Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever” (2 Nephi 1:7).
    Therefore, the Mesoamericanist who tries to convince us that other cultures lived in Lehi’s area of the Land of Promise do themselves and others a disservice by trying to tell us that the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotect, and numerous other cultures existed at the same time in the Land of Promise given to Lehi as the Nephites did. There were no others there at the time—again, if there were, then the Lord’s promise to Lehi was being violated even as the covenant was being made and that is not the way the Lord operates and those theorists who want to claim he does need to rethink their position on this for the Lord is not a God of confusion, nor is he one to break his own covenants.
    Thus, Allen’s quote: above ““To develop a format for reliable Book of Mormon correlations with other cultures, we must be aware of the time periods in which the other cultures were in existence.” Again, the above should tell us that no other cultures were in existence during the time of the Nephites in Lehi’s portion of the Land of Promise, none other than the Jaredites, who had their own promise of the Land Northward, were anywhere around at the time Lehi landed and thereafter until at least 200 A.D., and probably not before 421 A.D.
(See the next post, “Where Do We Find Accurate Dates? – Part II,” for more of Allen’s descriptive information that poses as Book of Mormon discussion but really is meant to solidify his Mesoamerican model)

The Industrious Smith Family

In answer to some of the comments we have received about accusations made by neighbors in the Palmyra area of the Smith family, referring to them as lazy , indolent, and not well respected, in the working of their farm, the following information is provided. 

The area along the Palmyra-Manchester border where Joseph Smith, Sr., built the log cabin in which the family of 10 lived for about 8 years was in a wooded forest like this that had to be cleared—30 acres were cleared in the first year--a back-breaking work

    Almost all of the allegations regarding the Smith family character, not necessarily associated with the Book of Mormon, gold plates, or their claim to angels and revelation, but just about them as neighbors, farmers, and workers, the claims of laziness and not working their farm comes from four families that were neighbors, all coming from ten families belonging to the same overall four families—the Staffords, whose name was given to the road on which the Smith’s lived along the Palmyra-Manchester border, and the  Stoddards, Chases, and Caprons.  
    Willard Chase’s irritation, no doubt, claimed he was the one that found the stone while digging with Joseph and though he let him have it, Chase wanted it back when he found out what it could do. William Stafford had on two occasions gone hunting treasure with Joseph, Sr., and the father of Dr. john Stafford, Joshua Stafford, claimed to have had a seer stone of his own. In fact the lore of buried treasure in the area went back many centuries and most of the families of the area spent some time digging, at least on their own property, for such finds—sometimes hiring others who had a reputation for finding things as did Joseph, Jr.
    As for the farming, it should be of interest that only one farm of these ten families in this four-family group as properly assessed by the county as being more valuable than the Smiths, though the Smiths had the property far less time and began with 100 tree-filled acres, no house or cabin, barn or other equipment on hand—in other words, they began from scratch and built a property worth more in assessment than nine out of the ten in this group who complained about the Smiths being lazy, and not improving their farm.
    To be perfectly clear about this, the Smith farm was assessed or evaluated at $13.00 per acre compared to a mean value for 176 farms of 50 acres or more in the Manchester Township of $12.85, with a high of $18 and a low of $8, with 71 farms valued at a higher rate per acre than the Smith farm, 90 valued below theirs, and 14 were valued at the same level. Of the five families in the Stafford family group, none had a higher appraisal than the Smiths. 
    Abraham Stafford’s100 acres at $12.96, Abraham Stafford’s 162 acres at $12.50, Joshua Stafford’s 123 acres at $12.20 per acre, David Stafford’s 20 acres at $11 per acre, and John Stafford’s 60 acres at $10 per acre (Assessment Rolls 21–22). Only Edmund Chase of the Chase family group was still farming in Manchester Township in 1830. His 29-acre farm, bordering east on the Smith farm, was valued at $10 per acre (Assessment Rolls 6).

Stafford Road looking south from the Palmyra-Manchester line showing the land before the Smiths cleared their acreage

    Russell Stoddard, the man who, according to Lucy Smith, cheated them out of their farm, lived a mile and a half south of the Smiths in a frame home with a barn, outbuildings, an orchard, a handsome cedar grove, and a small sawmill. His 98-acre farm was considered “number one quality” and was valued at $16 per acre (Assessment Roll 21). Stoddard owned other farms, speculated in land, and built houses. After Alvin’s death, he contracted with the Smiths to complete their frame home enough to allow them to move into it. When fully “enclosed” after the Smiths moved away, it was comparable in size to Stoddard’s home (Research File). The 150 acre farm of Squire Stoddard, Russell’s brother, lay immediately south of the Smith farm and was valued at $12 per acre. Joseph Capron’s land, a five-acre parcel situated within 200 yards of the Smith home, was valued at $10 per acre (Assessment Rolls 5, 22).
    The average size of the township’s 253 farms was 85 acres. The mean was 63 acres. Sixty-two of the 253 farms were larger than the Smith farm. They ranged from 105 to just over 300 acres. Twenty-two farms were the same size as the Smith; 168 were smaller and decreased in size from 98 to 10 acres.

Top: The log cabin Joseph Smith, Sr., built in 1818 after clearing 30 acres of thickly wooded ground that first year; Bottom: A short distance down the road to the south from the log cabin Alvin Smith built this frame house and farm outbuildings for his parents and the family. Each shows professional ability for the day, hard work, and attention to detail

    William Smith recorded that it took the Smith men six or seven years to completely clear the land. The Smith “neighborhood” farms are of particular interest because their owners included some of those who accused the Smiths of being “lazy, indolent and shiftless.”
Forty-two families resided in the “neighborhood,” that is, the area along Stafford and Canadaiqua Roads extending three miles south from the Palmyra-Manchester town line. Of these 42, eleven had larger farms than the Smiths, ranging from about 125 acres to 215 acres. Four had farms the same size. Twenty-five were smaller, ranging downward from 98 to 14 acres. The average size farm in the “neighborhood” was 83 acres and the mean was 71 acres.
    The Smith farm had a perimeter of one and 2/3 miles. To fence that distance with a standard stone and singer fence required moving tons of stone from fields to farm perimeter, then cutting and placing about 4,000 ten-foot rails. This does not include the labor and materials involved in fencing the barnyard, garden, pastures, and orchard, which, at a conservative estimate, required an additional 2,000 to 3,000 cut wooden rails. Clearly, this work alone—all of it separate from the actual labor of farming—represents a prodigious amount of concerted planning and labor, especially when only 4 males, ages 14 to Father Smith, were involved.
    According to Lucy Smith, they Smiths cleared 30 acres the first year and 60 acres the second.
    William Smith asserted that “whenever the neighbors wanted a good day’s work done they knew where they could get a good hand.” Eight wells in three townships are attributed to the Smiths. They likely dug and rocked others, including some of the 11 wells dug on the farm of Lemuel Durfee, who lived a little east of Martin Harris. The Smiths did considerable work for this kindly old Quaker; some of their labor served as rent for their farm after it passed into his ownership in December 1825.

An overview of the area from the Hill Cumorah, looking northward toward Palmyra—White Arrow: Hill Cumorah; Red Arrow: Entrance to the Hill Cumorah visitor’s center and Pageant area; Black Arrow: Route or highway 21S; Green Arrow: Stafford Road; Yellow Arrow: Smith Log Cabin home; Blue Arrow: Sacred Grove; Orange Arrow: Township of Palmyra

    In comparison to others in the township and neighborhood, the Smiths’ efforts and accomplishments were superior to most. In the township, only 40 percent of the farms were worth more per acre and just 25 percent were larger. In the “neighborhood,” only 29 percent of the farms were worth more and only 26 percent were larger (Assessment Rolls 1–34).

It is hard to justify a label of lazy or that they did not actually work their farm. Those who made such claim were notorious about signing affidavits regarding the Smith family being liars and diggers of treasure and lacked character in articles denouncing their claims of revelations and development of Mormonism. As for lengthy and detailed articles showing the fallacy of such claims, see articles on the subject by Hugh Nibley and Emma Smith, as well as one by Richard L. Anderson. There are many others that set the record straight on this subject.

Punin Man

The settlement of Punin is about seven miles due south of Riobamba in Ecuador—an area that might have been the city of Moron in the Jaradite Empire—and an area 100 miles south of Quito. In this remote mountain highlands at 9,000-feet, in a ravine’s alluvial river bank were found some odd shaped skulls, with "archaic" appearance, by a team from the American Museum of Natural History. The skulls had an apparent antiquity that led some scientists to believe that they were of an Australoid origin (ancient African descent)—perhaps even predating the current Amerindians of Asian origin.

Working more than 90 years ago in 1923, the team led by field assistant G.H.H. Tate, were exploring the Chalan ravine close to Punin, in Chimborazo near Riobamba, Ecuador, when they uncovered the skulls. According to one of the scientists, E. H. Anthony, the skulls were damp and fragile, but once removed from the bank about three feet from its top, the skull dried and hardened. According to the scientists, it was a startling discovery due to its archaic appearance perhaps due to its "exceptionally pronounced supra orbital robusticity,” that is, its prominent brow (Joseph F. Powell, The First Americans: Race, Evolution and the Origin of Native Americans, Cambridge University Press,2005).
    The skull was ovoid (egg-shaped) and had a wide and short face with big teeth, but lacked its lower jaw. In addition, it was surrounded by bones of horses, camelids and mastodon situated within 50 to 100 feet from the skull—it was assumed the skull was very old since science claims such bones of these mammals were extinct from the Pleistocene (Quaternary period—2.5 million to 11,700 years ago).

The first skull belonged to a woman who was about 45 to 50 years old, and was found embedded in a stratum of volcanic ash, with megafaunal (very large animal) fossils. However, in the 1980s, the skull was re-evaluated by Don Brothwell and Richard Burleigh, and re-dated to 4,750 +/- 250 B.C. (Don Brothwell, Richard Burleigh, "Human Cranium from Punin, Ecuador, With Particular Reference To Morphology and Dating," Journal of Archaeological Science, 7 1, 1980, pp97-99).
    Thus, the human skull turned out to be not "ancient,” but quite "recent,” i.e., and while no tools or ceramic remains were found near the crania, it was determined to be "contemporary with the Late Paleoindian stage.
    It is interesting that though current animal bones were found next to the human remains, scientists determined that “the grave was probably dug into older strata (12-20,000 years old, with megafaunal fossils), though the woman was from 4.750 years ago.” This determination, of course, is because the animals were extinct!

Area where the skull and bones were found

    Another way of putting this (not the scientists way of course) is that either the human remains were older, like the extinct bones, or the bones were younger, like the skulls, and not extinct at all. But of course, that is not possible in the mind of the scientists, even though the bones of all were found basically together, since the animal bones are definitely of “extinct” animals, i.e., not such animals existed in the Americas after 11,700 years ago, right?
    Like all anthropology and archaeology, findings are subject to personal explanation, no matter what is found—there must be a way to explain the findings without violating the precepts of the geologic column and the "revered" dating sequence of the geologic epochs.
    On the other hand, one of the scientists, E. H. Anthony, thought differently about the dating of the findings. He believed that the skull's position in the soil was not the usual one for a burial as was the lack of other bones; he believed it was contemporary with the fossils found in the ash beds (Sullivan, Louis R., and Hellman, Milo, The Punin calvarium, Anthropological papers of the AMNH ; v. 23, pt. 7, 1925).
    The skull (shown above) definitely showed a “solid” bone behind the eyebrows, making it a contemporary skull, not an aboriginal of some partial human species as thought in the 1920s. On the other hand, even this discovery is not without its humorous side, for Arthur Keith (1886-1955) noted upon examination of the skull “its resemblance to the skulls of the native women of Australia [was striking] ...the points of resemblance are too numerous to permit us to suppose that the skull could be of a sort produced by an American Indian parentage. We cannot suppose that an Australian native woman had been spirited across the Pacific in some migratory movement and that afterwards her skull was buried in a fossiliferous bed in the high plateau of Ecuador...The discovery at Punin does compel us to look into the possibility of a Pleistocene invasion of Americas by an Australoid people."
    Of course, no scientist is going to come out and suggest that ancients from South America peopled the Pacific when they cannot accept there were ancients in South America capable of such travel.

It is interesting, however, that ancients in South America could build fabulous stone edifices that startle the common builders of our day who wonder how those ancients moved hundred ton stones and fit them perfectly together so not even a knife blade can be inserted between them though no mortar was used.
    But that is the dichotomy we face today. The evidence is before our eyes, but since it does not fit into the scientific paradigms that have been developed, it is not acceptable and must be denied while science looks for some other hair-brained explanation. In fact, without explanation, evidence, or anything to back up his statement, Harvard anthropologist Earnest Houghton stated "any competent craniologist would identify as Australian in type" and pointed out that ancient burials in America yielded more "Australoid-looking dolichocephals...than anything in the way of a skull that resembles a Mongoloid." Thus, the Americas were anciently peopled by Austronesians sailing against winds and currents who came from Australia, across the South Pacific from island to island, until they reached and peopled South America.
    To support this theory, Austin Whittail, in his work Patagonian Monsters, wrote: “These ‘Australoids’ were indeed part of the first wave of modern humans (Homo sapiens) to leave Africa about 100,000 years ago. They used watercraft to navigate coastal waters and could have easily sailed along the shores of Asia, across the Bering Strait into America long before the appearance of the Mongoloid type in Siberia 20,000 years ago. When the Mongoloid Asians later moved across Beringia into America, they advanced on those original Americans replacing them. A few remnants of the first wave survived extermination by the newcomers isolated in the remote Patagonian hinterland.”
    Isn’t it interesting, that these scientists always show an annihilation of a previous group by a new group, so that no evidence of the first group can be furnished. It is as though ancient man lived in a very small world, which allowed for their annihilation by invading groups—though we have no evidence of such annihilations of a people in such ways anywhere else in history. Even the Nephites left remnants behind, in their defections to the Lamanites who survived in very large numbers; nor did an invading force wipe out the Jaredites, for they did that to themselves.
    This theory of annihilation was first proposed by French ethnologist Paul Rivet (1876-1958), but its validity rests on the disputed navigation skills of the Australoids. To overcome this, Portuguese anthropologist Mendes Correia (1888-1960) proposed a migration route via Tasmania, the Antarctic and Drake Passage, instead of trans-Pacific route, entering South America at Tierra del Fuego some 8,000 years B.C., before the Antarctic ice cap formed. But this conception is highly disputed and lacks archaeological proof.

Nearly fifty years later, on September 8, 1972, a farmer named Lucas Antonio Paredes came across a burial in Pailapata, about a quarter of a mile from the site where Tate found the "Punin" skull. He promptly notified a trader in fossils and Inca relics, Florencio Samaniego Santillán, who came over and, that same day, started digging at the site. They uncovered the bones of perhaps more than one human being which was inside a layer of volcanic ash. They also uncovered a dolichoid skull, similar to the one found by Tate, which was promptly named "Punin 2" and exhibited in 1979 at the Central Bank's Museum.
    One of the bones (a femur) was dated at 1,240 B.C., and belongs to the Formative Period however there is no proof that the bone and skull belong to the same body. Once again, a primitive yet young skull.
    One thing seems certain, though seems to be lost on the scientists involved and that is a people existed in Ecuador prior to the coming to the Land of Promise by the Nephites and is consistent with Jaredite occupation, and the location is consistent with the city of Moron where the Jaredites settled. But don’t expect anyone to jump to the suggestion about the Jaredites. And, too, it seems quite evident that horses, camels, and mastadons (elephants) were around during the time when these skulls belonged to living beings, i.e., during Jaredite times. But don’t expect anyone to follow-up on that one, either—it is not part of any scientists’ paradigm.