Using strictly the scriptures, I
would like to ask the following questions of those many Theorists who claim their pet theories about the
location of the Land of Promise are consistent with the scriptural record.
This twenty-third question is
directed to John L. Sorenson and his Mesoamerican Theory, as well as all other
Mesoamerican Theoris
The question to ask
is quite simple and strictly scripturally based:
23. “Where are signs of early metallurgy found in Mesoamerica,
dating to both the land in the north during Jaredites B.C. times, and also in
the land in the south dating to Nephite, 500 B.C. to 300 A.D. times?”
First, while
metalworking in South America Andean societies date as far back as 1936 B.C.,
the story is quite different in Mesoamerica—according to Dorothy Hosler, in the
American Anthropologist (1988, 1995), “The emergence of metallurgy in
pre-Columbian Mesoamerica occurred relatively late in the region's history,
with distinctive works of metal (use of smelting casting, and alloying of
metals) apparent in West Mexico by roughly AD 800, and perhaps as early as AD
600.
Second, according to
David M. Pendergast, in the World
Archaeology (27), writing about metal artifacts in Prehispanic Mesoamerica,
claims, “Metallurgical techniques likely diffused northward from regions in
Central and South America via maritime trade routes; recipients of these
metallurgical technologies apparently exploited a wide range of material,
including alloys of copper-silver, copper-arsenic, copper-tine, and
copper-arsenic-tin.”
Third, West Mexico,
where metallurgy first shows up in Mesoamerica, worked primariy in copper
during the initial period, with some low-arsenic alloys, as well as occasional
employment of silver and gold. Lost-wax cast bells were introduced from Central
or South America along with several classes of cold-worked ornaments and
hand tools, such as needles and tweezers.
Metallurgy reached a high degree of accomplishment in Andean Peru long
before it was ever found to have existed in Mesoamerica
Fourth, “The prototypes for
these small, often utilitarian items appear rooted in southern Ecuador and
northern Peru.” In fact, according to Mark
Aldenderfer, Nathan M. Craig, Robert J. Speakman and Rachel Popelka-Filcoff
(2008), “four-thousand-year-old gold artifacts from the Lake Titicaca basin in
southern Peru” have been found. They also state that “Metallurgy in
pre-Columbian America is the extraction and
purification of metals, as well as creating metal alloys and fabrication with
metal by Indigenous peoples of the Americas to European contact in the late
15th century. Indigenous Americans have been using native metals from
ancient times, with recent finds of gold artifacts in the Andean region dated
to 2155–1936 B.C.”
According to archaeologists, there is no
question that metallurgy in the Andean area of South America was far superior
to anything found elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere and rivaled that of the
Old World
Fifth, indigenous
South Americans had full metallurgy with smelting and various metals being
purposely alloyed long before any metallurgy was even known in Mesoamerica.
According to Scattolin, M. Cristina, M. Fabiana Bugliani,
Leticia Cortés, Lucas Pereyra Domingorena and C. Marilin Calo, these
South American metallurgists developed in the Andean region of modern Peru,
Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, with gold and copper being hammered and shaped
into intricate objects, including ornaments.
Sixth, by 1000 B.C. to
200 B.C., metallurgy had spread completely through the Andean societies, with
evidence of remarkable works from the sites at Waywaka, Chavin and Kotosh,
according to K. O. Bruhns, (1994), Ancient South
America, Cambridge University Press.
Seventh,
extensive use of portable smelting kilns in the vicinity of Puma Punku, Bolivia and
at three additional sites in Peru and Bolivia to manufacture, in situ,
"I" beams as connectors to large stone blocks during the construction
process represent a seemingly anomalous function for metal smelting. The
reported chemical analysis of these metal pours is 95.15% copper 2.05% arsenic,
1.70% nickel, .84% silicon and .26% iron. The estimated date of these pours is 8000 B.C. to 500 A.D.
Eighth, it should be
kept in mind that the Jaredites were involved in metalworking. Ether tells us,
“And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver,
and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the
earth; wherefore they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold,
and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine
work” (Ether 10:12; 23—see also Ether 9:7; 17).
Ninth, the Nephites
also were involved in extensive metalworking. 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). Later, Jarom writes much the same
thing about the Nephites having these natural resources (Jarom 1:8). Noah taxed
and adorned his spacious buildings with these previous ores and resources
(Mosiah 11:3; 8). Alma also tells us that the Nephites had all these resources
(Alma 1:29; 4:6). Helaman goes further, claiming the Nephites had these
precious ores and resources in both the land northward and the land southward
(Helaman 6:9, 11—see also 12:2; 3 Nephi 6:2).
So we again ask the
question, “Where are signs of early
metallurgy found in Mesoamerica, dating to both the land in the north during
Jaredite B.C. times, and also in the land in the south dating to Nephite, 500
B.C. to 300 A.D. times?"
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