One More Time-The Mounds of North America Were Not Nephite!

Theodore Brandley, like nearly all the other North America Land of Promise theorists, tries to tell us that the Mounds found throughout the Mississippi Basin, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, are evidence of the Nephite nation in the Land of Promise. The problem is, not only is there no mention of mounds in the Book of Mormon, there is no history among the Jews in Jerusalem or anywhere round about that they ever built or knew of such mounds.

The main purpose stated by archaeologists is that these mounds were for religious and ceremonial burial, as well as elite residential purposes. It is claimed these mounds, included the Pre-Columbian cultures of the Archaic period; Woodland period (Adena and Hopewell cultures); and Mississippian period; dating from roughly 3400 B.C. to the 16th century A.D. and living in regions of the Great Lakes, the Ohio River valley, and the Mississippi River valley and its tributaries. Beginning with the construction of Watson Brake about 3400 B.C. in present-day Louisiana, nomadic indigenous peoples started building earthwork mounds in North America nearly 1000 years before the pyramids were constructed in Egypt.

While this all sounds well and good, we need to keep in mind that the Nephites did not arrive in the Western Hemisphere until about 587 B.C. and died out in 385 A.D. Not even the Jaredites had arrived here until around 2000 B.C.

According to archaeologists, these burial and ceremonial structures were typically flat-topped pyramids or platform mounds, flat-topped or rounded cones, elongated ridges, and sometimes a variety of other forms. They were generally built as part of complex villages that arose from more dense populations, with a specialization of skills and knowledge. The early earthworks built in Louisiana in 3400 B.C. are the only ones known to be built by a hunter-gatherer culture.

Monks Mound at Cahokia Indian Mounds across the Mississippi River from St. Louis in present-day Collinsville, Illinois

The best-known flat-topped pyramidal structure, which at over 100 feet tall and the largest pre-Columbian earthwork north of Mexico, is Monks Mound in Illinois. At its peak about 1150 A.D., Cahokia was an urban settlement from 600 A.D. to 1400 A.D., 120 earthwork mounds over an area of six square miles with 20,000-30,000 people; this population was not exceeded by North American European settlements until after 1800. Yet, it could not have been Nephite! They were gone a little over two hundred years before Monks Mound was begun!

Serpent Mound located on a plateau of the Serpent Mound crater along Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio

Some effigy mounds were constructed in the shapes or outlines of culturally significant animals. The most famous effigy mound, Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, is 3 feet tall, 20 feet wide, 1,348 feet long, and shaped as an undulating serpent. Such effigy mounds were primarily built 350 to 1300 A.D., again, after the Nephite period and long after the Jaredite period.

Effigy Mounds National Monument, Marquette, Iowa

In fact, most effigy mounds were built in the Wisconsin area and numbered between 15,000 and 20,000 mounds. These mounds have been found to contain grave goods and funerary items along with human remains.

Rock Eagle prehistoric effigy mound near Eatonton, Georgia

Built atop a natural rock outcrop, the Rock Eagle mound in Georgia is estimated to have been constructed 1,000 to 3,000 years ago. The earthwork was built up of thousands of pieces of quartzite laid in the mounded shape of a large bird, about one foot high, 102 feet long from head to tail, and 120 feet wide from wing tip to wing tip. Although it is most often referred to as an eagle, scholars do not know exactly what type of bird the original builders intended to portray.

Etowah Mound, Bartow County, Georgia

Again, while all of this sounds interesting, it does not suggest that such mounds were ever built by the Nephites, or even the Jaredites. In fact, the word “mound” does not appear at all in the Book of Mormon, nor is there any mention anywhere of building up large acreages of dirt or earth for any purpose what-so-ever! Nor, in fact, were there ever any mounds built in all of Israel, and no mention of them in the Bible. It was not a Jewish or Hebrew custom! Nor was it a near east custom! 

Mounds have been found all over Europe, and many places around the world, including China. There have been pyramids found in Egypt, there is Stonehenge in England, the Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, and the mysterious Nazca Lines in Peru. None of this has anything to do with the Nephites, ancient Jews or Hebrew cultures. They simply exist, created by ancient civilizations of which we know little or nothing about (see previous posts on this subject)

Silbury Hill, England. Largest man-made mound in the World at 130 feet height, covering 5 acres. It is claimed it took 150 years to complete

At Glauberg, Germany (near Frankfurt) are located elite burials covered by mounds

As for the Nephites, there are only five places in the Book of Mormon, all in Alma, where piling up dirt or earth is even mentioned, and in each case it was to create defensive walls around cities and other defensive positions:

Alma 48:8  “He had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land.”

Alma 49:2-4:  “They had cast up dirt around about to shield them from the arrows and the stones of the Lamanites; for behold, they fought with stones and with arrows…the Nephites had dug up a ridge of earth round about them, which was so high that the Lamanites could not cast their stones and their arrows at them that they might take effect, neither could they come upon them save it was by their place of entrance.”

Alma 49:22  “They began to dig down their banks of earth that they might obtain a pass to their armies, that they might have an equal chance to fight; but behold, in these attempts they were swept off by the stones and arrows which were thrown at them; and instead of filling up their ditches by pulling down the banks of earth, they were filled up in a measure with their dead and wounded bodies.”

Alma 50:1-4  “He caused that his armies…should commence in digging up heaps of earth round about all the cities, throughout all the land which was possessed by the Nephites. And upon the top of these ridges of earth he caused that there should be timbers, yea, works of timbers built up to the height of a man, round about the cities. And he caused that upon those works of timbers there should be a frame of pickets built upon the timbers round about; and they were strong and high. And he caused towers to be erected that overlooked those works of pickets, and he caused places of security to be built upon those towers, that the stones and the arrows of the Lamanites could not hurt them.”

Alma 53:4  “Should build a breastwork of timbers upon the inner bank of the ditch; and they cast up dirt out of the ditch against the breastwork of timbers; and thus they did cause the Lamanites to labor until they had encircled the city of Bountiful round about with a strong wall of timbers and earth, to an exceeding height.”

Note that there is not a single hint that there were mounds built, or that any structure other than a wall, was ever built upon these heaps of earth thrown up round about the cities of the Nephites. Since Nephi and Sam came from Jerusalem where houses and cities were built out of stone, where they were quite familiar with splendid construction, such as Solomon’s Temple and the many Palaces and synagogues, all built of stone, one can only wonder why anyone would think that Nephi, when he taught his people to build, would have shown them how to build in anything other than what he was familiar with—stone buildings. Nor would he have had any reason to build mounds, either for burial, or other purposes. The idea of such is ludicrous!