A New Landing Site for Lehi – Part VII

Continued from the previous post regarding additional coverage of the Heartland Theorists claim that the Chattanooga area of Tennessee being the city of Nephi and the area of Montrose, Iowa, being Zarahemla. In the list of reasons why these theorists believe that Chattanooga was the city of Nephi, they list several points. In this second category of points, the first three (along with our responses) were covered in the previous post:
4. “Resources that prehistoric people needed were deer, small mammals, turtles and other reptiles and amphibians. Abundant wetland wildlife. Fish, molluscs. Hardwood bottomland trees, fruits to nuts and acorns. Thick forests.”
Response: This list is obviously self-serving. Turtles are not needed, wetlands around river mouths occur, and unless one is pre-historic in nature, there are better and more productive ways to catch fish. Deer, are plentiful and found just about everywhere, but are not specifically needed—most species of mammal serve the same purpose. While family cervidae (deer, elk, moose) need not specifically be available, antelope are of the family Bovidae, which includes Bison (Buffalo), gazelle, goat, sheep, and cattle. The point of animals are to provide food—which food is not the critical issue.
    In addition, Hardwood bottomland trees specifically, would not be needed, so long as there are trees of various species. As an example, there are 60,065 tree species in the world, according to the Journal of Sustainable Forestry complete global database, which was compiled by thousands of botanists over a period of centuries. Of the top three countries with the most tree species, two are in South America—the other is Indonesia.
    Hardwood bottomland trees are gum, oak, bald cypress that grow around floodplains along large rivers and lakes, and the maple, hickory, birch, beech, elm, ash, black walnut, cottonwood, locust, magnolia, poplar, red alder, royal paulownia, sassafras, tupelo, willow and cherry hardwoods. These trees are widespread in the Western Hemisphere as well as elsewhere.
    Just because Apalachicola in northwest Florida is the area these theorists want to push have certain trees, that certainly does not rule out other areas with these and other types of trees. If one is going to isolate certain trees, then ones that work well building a ship would be worthwhile, not manufacturing honey.
5. “This river valley is the only place in the world where Tupelo Honey is produced commercially.”

The tupelo tree grows (left) in swamps and boggy areas; (center) valleys, where the ground is constantly moist, with slow moving water; and (right) in low, wide open spaces where it can spread

Response: What kind of bee the Jaredites had or what type of bees they brought to the Land of Promise, is unknown; however, we do know that the Jaredite bees were called “deseret,” which word “by interpretation, is a honey bee; and thus they did carry with them swarms of bees.”
    Now, there are almost 20,000 species of bees in the world that have been identified to date. One genus under which all honey bees fall, Apis, contains all the known species of honey bee forming at least 44 sub species; the Apis mellifera lingustica, or “Italian honey bee,” is widespread across North America, and the Apis mellifera scutellata, or “African Honey Bee,” is widespread across the American southern states. On the other hand, Tupelo honey is produced when honeybees collect nectar from the blossoms of the white Ogeechee tupelo (Nyssa ogeche) tree. These trees are distributed along the borders of rivers, swamps, and ponds that are frequently inundated, mainly in the remote wetlands of Georgia and Florida.
    It might also be on interest to know that there are ten bee-friendly tree species and scores of trees with that list that attract honey bees and are good sources for food pollinators, as well as hawthorns, tuliptrees, southern magnolias, and pivets.
6. “Wind Currents. Leaving Oman in Sept (after honey and fruits are ripe), wind currents flow toward horn of Africa, not towards India.”
Response: Actually, the current flows in a circular manner toward the west (Horn of Africa), then curve down toward the equator. South of that, the current is picked up again flowing south, then southeast, then drops into the Southern Ocean and flows east until it reaches the outer shelf of South America, and then the northern part flows into the Humboldt Current and up the coast of South America, where it dies down around the Tropic of Capricorn at the 30º south latitude where the current, which is weak at this point, can then be crossed and the inland uplift moves the ship into the Bay of Coquimbo in Chile.
7. “Similar 30° 26′ 17″ N (Tallahassee, FL) and 31° 46′ 48″ N  (Jerusalem) Seeds would grow.”

North and South Latitudes are similar in the Köppen Climate classification, but the longitudes are not. What is important about longitude is being on the West Coast, which La Sernea, Chile, and Jerusalem are; however, Tallahassee is on the South Coast, which gives it a completely different climate

Response: We discussed this earlier in this series. Once again, it is the climate type, not the latitude that determines seed growth.”
8. “In navigation, the Phoenicia 2009 Expedition proved Lehi could have traveled around Africa and could land in the Gulf near Apalachicola.”
Response: It so happens that when the “Phoenicia” reached the southern cape of Africa, known as the “Cape of Storms” before it was changed to “Cape of Good Hope,” where the area is known as the “Graveyard of Ships,” because of the nearly 3000 ships that have been sunk there, the Phoenicia hit a storm that store apart their sail and did such damage, they had to set in for repairs. As we have stated many times, it was as late as the 19^th century, an area where hardened mariners feared. Doubtful the Lord would have directed Lehi in that direction. Besides, Mormon tells us that the Sea West of the Land of Promise is where Lehi landed as we earlier stated.
     The cultures of northwest Florida during the Woodland period are known as
• Deptford (2500 B.P.-A.D.100),
• Santa Rosa (A.D. 100-300),
• Swift Creek (A.D. 100-300),
• Weeden Island (A.D. 300-900).
    As elsewhere in the Southeast, these post-Archaic cultures are characterized by the appearance of elaborate ceremonial complexes, mound burial, permanent settlements, population growth, increasing reliance on cultigens, and increasing socio political complexity—but not anything like stone buildings, stone walls, or evidence of the “many highways cast up, and many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place” (3 Nephi 6:8).

When we think along the lines of reality, we can discard beliefs, speculation, and wishful thinking. As an example, the first published account of archaeological remains in northwest Florida is found in William Bartram's(1928) description of his travels along the northwest Florida coast in the 1770s. Other early accounts include descriptions of shell mounds at Inerarity's Point near Pensacola (Sternberg 1876) and sites on East Bay and Choctawhatchee Bay (Walker 1880a, 1880b, 1883, 1885). The work of Clarence Moore (1901,1902, 1903a, 1918) and W.H. Holmes (1903) formed the basis for Gordon Willey's (1949a) classic Archeology of the Florida Gulf Coast. Forty years of archaeological investigations by universities and museums in Florida, Alabama, North Carolina, and Ohio, as well as by the Florida Division of Historica Resources and CRM firms, have made northwest Florida one of the most studied areas in the state. Unfortunately, the Woodland period has not been as intensively investigated as the Mississippian and historic periods. Over the last ten years or so, the requirements of CRM-related work have helped to focus attention on some of the lesser known Woodland cultures.
    Thus, we see, that after all these years of extensive study as one of the studied areas in the state, not a single piece of evidence regarding an advanced civilization coming from the 1000-yer-old Hebrew culture in Palestine has been evidenced in ruins, synagogues, palaces, roads, or any ceramics, pottery, advanced weaponry, swords, slings, stones, etc., that could be defined as Nephite. Nor can the ruins of a temple built like that of king Solomon, which Nephi built, be found. Certainly with all the study, archaeological work, and effort, something that would have been found that could relate to the Nephite development that Mormon described.