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Understanding the Translation Process: Did Joseph Smith use the Urim and Thummim & Gold Plates or Rock in a Hat? (And why the 116 pages weren’t retranslated)
/in Archaeology, works in progress/by MormonBox.
Now the first that my husband translated, was translated by use of the Urim, and Thummim, and that was the part that Martin Harris lost, after that he used a small stone, not exactly, black, but was rather a dark color. (Emma Smith to Emma Pilgrim, 27 March 1870,” in Early Mormon Documents, 1:532)
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UNDERSTANDING THE TRANSLATION PROCESS.
The 116 pages were nearly verbatim translations of the ancient record, through the Urim & Thummim (crystal seer stones attached to metal frames, hidden with the plates). The Book of Mormon we have today, on the other hand, may not be a tight translation (with the exception of proper names). Book of Mormon researcher Royal Skousen has shown its language to date from the 17-19th century which some posit, suggests it is mor of an anglicized, “modernized”, “channeled”, euro-Christianized version of the ancient record summarized by spiritual beings, and given to Joseph through mediumship/ revelation.
My hunch from both research, intuition and the above quotes is that after the theft of the 116 pages, the accomplices (probably family members) read through the text to satisfy their curiosity and judge its authenticity. But to the surprise of the angelic beings helping to bring forth the book, this group of conspirators as well as the ‘scholars’ I believe they took the work to, not only didn’t believe that the book was a legitimate ancient record, but they saw some of the foreign religious concepts of the book as as pagan, unchristian, devilish and evil. (Because the religion taught in the book was from pre-exilic Jews and was much more like what’s found in the Kolbrin.) Because of this, the group of conspirators began to hatch a plan on how to steal the supposed Gold Plates, turn Martin Harris against Joseph and destroy Joseph’s reputation by altering the manuscript in clever ways working with the scholar they had shown, and telling everyone that it didn’t match with the version they had stolen and show everyone the “pagan” and forged nature of the text with their alterations.
This unexpected reaction and turn of events prompted the spiritual overseers to change course and give Joseph Smith a summarized and puritanized, “preparatory” (see 3 Ne 26:9–10) version of the record which was more friendly to the Euro-Christian culture of Joseph’s day. The nature of this ‘preparatory’ anglicized version of the book is obviously not a tight translation when comparing the language and ideology of the Book of Mormon with ancient texts. However, much like the Kolbrin (British Israeli history) and the early Israeli record vaults mentioned therein, the 116 pages and gold plates will be found/revealed in the final dispensation, sometime within the next 150 years.
“1 Now, behold, I say unto you, that because you delivered up those writings which you had power given unto you to translate by the means of the Urim and Thummim, into the hands of a wicked man, you have lost them.
6… even the man in whom you have trusted has sought to destroy you.
7 And for this cause I said that he is a wicked man, for he has sought to take away the things wherewith you have been entrusted; and he has also sought to destroy your gift.
8 And because you have delivered the writings into his hands, behold, wicked men have taken them from you…
12 And, on this wise, the devil has sought to lay a cunning plan, that he may destroy this work..
43 [but] I will not suffer that they shall destroy my work; yea, I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil.” (D&C 10)
After this betrayal and conspiratorial plan to steal the plates, the angelic overseers of the plates instructed Joseph to put them back in the stone crypt (or possibly a new location) & bury/hide it with ample dirt and leaves. Joseph used vague wording to the effect of “god took the plates back”, so no further attempts would be made to search or find them would be made. (an account not solidified until 1853, read Lucy Mack’s history here). In fact the angel translators make plain that this was their plan in their loose translation of the ancient Native American prophet Nephi’s prophesy about the latter-day translation of the record:
22 Wherefore, when thou hast read the words which I have commanded thee, and obtained the witnesses which I have promised unto thee, then shalt thou seal up the book again, and hide it up unto me, that I may preserve the words which thou hast not read, until I shall see fit in mine own wisdom to reveal all things unto the children of men. (2 Nephi 27:22)
This is also why the three witness were shown the plates only in vision. Joseph Smith first retrieved the Book of Mormon on Sept 22, 1827, at age 21, and translation on the 116 pages took place using the actual plates in late 1827 and early 1828 when the manuscript was stolen. Joseph was castigated in D&C 10 and the plates returned to the hill sometime by early summer 1828. In April 1829, he met Oliver Cowdery, who replaced Harris as his scribe, and resumed dictation–this time channeling the account through revelation while occasionally using the rock in the hat to aid his focus. They worked full time on the manuscript between April and early June 1829. The three witnesses were then shown the plates in vision or ‘with an eye of faith‘ on June 28, 1829. The finished manuscript of the current channeled or revealed summary of the Book of Mormon was finished about July 1829.
Note since writing the above, I’ve also found this quote in Wilford Woodruff’s journal that substantiates the idea that Joseph did not actually give the plates back to an angel.
President Young said in relation to JosephSmith returning the Plates of the Book of Mormon that He did not return them to the box from wh[ence?] He had Received [them]. But He went [into] a Cave in the Hill Comoro with Oliver Cowdry & deposited those plates upon a table or shelf…
(Wilford Woodruff Journal, 11 December 1869)
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TESTIMONY OF THE KOLBRIN
Much like the Book of Ben Kathryn, I was led to find the Kolbrin after my mission shortly after it was first published. The Kolbrin (Somewhat like a Book of Mormon for Great Britain), gives an account unbelievably similar to the box, records, and seer stones associated with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. Read more about the Kolbrin and its amazing Egyptian, Assyrian and British historical records at my article on it here.
“When I was young my grand-father told me that the Kolbrin had been brought back to light by his grand-father’s people in the place known to them as Futeril Cairn, beyond the pool of Pantlyn at Carclathan by way of Gwendwor in Wales.”
“I remember him saying it was originally written in the old alphabet of thirty-six letters. The books were stored in a tinker’s budget box, the lid of which was not hinged but held with flanges and lifted off after being heated, a cunning device of the wayfaring tinkers [Traveling MetalSmiths]. It was also secured with pins and stirrups. There were goblin heads at the corners and it was fastened by locking bars inside and out. I never saw it, nor did I know anyone who knew whether it still existed.”“I remember being told that inside the box was a clear glass roundish ball about the size of a large apple, which at one spot reflected all the colours of the rainbow. It was encased in a precious cagework inside a protective cover of horny hide which had raised swellings, the like of which my grand-father had never seen before. He knew a lot about animals and their hides, but could not tell what this was; he thought it might have been the hide of some kind of large, horny snakelike creature such as those which live in deep lakes.”
“There were two stones of dullish glass like rainstones, one being whitish at one end. Each was oval in shape and somewhat flattened and tapered towards one end. Grand-mother used to tell fortunes with these and they went to cousin Sarah in America. There were two other pieces of rounded glass set in something made of bone which had pretty designs engraved on it. The bone setting was falling apart and was of no conceivable use. There was also a bluish coloured cross with an opening at the top and its arms were forked at the ends. This was fastened by a small chain curiously worked, to piece of round brass about the size of a small plate which was engraved with figured, of which a bird, a wand, two billhooks, a whip and some heads could be made out. There were beads of blue and red and a brooch shaped like a hook and made of gold. There was a acorn-like cap such as Flamens wear.”
“There was also a longish brass object like a knife, with engraving, in a wrapping of rotten wood. That is all there was, except for the books which were not like books at all. I do not know what became of the other items. I saw the glass ball once when I was a small child but cannot remember much about it, except that it was hollow at one end and when I put a finger in the hollow it felt warm.
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HISTORICAL DOCUMENTATION
After the above came to me (in the morning waking from a dream and accompanied by a certain feeling which I associate with revelation instead of my own thoughts) it was interesting that I found an account which seems to corroborate the idea that only the first part of the Book of Mormon was translated with the Urim & Thummim. This is something I’d never read or imagined prior to my inspiration on the matter…
Now the first that my husband translated, was translated by use of the Urim, and Thummim, and that was the part that Martin Harris lost, after that he used a small stone, not exactly, black, but was rather a dark color. (Emma Smith Bidamon to Emma Pilgrim, 27 March 1870,” in Early Mormon Documents, 1:532)
During a private interview with her son Joseph Smith III in 1879, Emma responded to questions about the translation after a lifetime of thought and contemplation. Just months before her death, Emma gave these answers to the following questions concerning the translation process. (see original publication here)
Question. Who were scribes for father when translating the Book of Mormon?
Answer. Myself, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and my brother Reuben Hale.
Question. Was Alva Hale one?
Answer. I think not. He may have written some; but if he did, I do not remember it.
Question. What of the truth of Mormonism?
Answer. I know Mormonism to be the truth; and believe the Church to have been established by divine direction. I have complete faith in it. In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.
Question. Had he not a book or manuscript from which he read, or dictated to you?
Answer. He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.
Question. Could he not have had, and you not know it?
Answer. If he had had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.
Question. Are you sure that he had the plates at the time you were writing for him?
Answer. The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen tablecloth, which I had given him to fold them in. I once felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.
Question. Where did father and Oliver Cowdery write?
Answer. Oliver Cowdery and your father wrote in the room where I was at work.
Question. Could not father have dictated the Book of Mormon to you, Oliver Cowdery and the others who wrote for him, after having first written it, or having first read it out of some book?
Answer. Joseph Smith (and for the first time she used his name direct, having usually used the words, “your father” or “my husband”) could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter, let alone dictate a book like the Book of Mormon. And, though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired, and was present during the translation of the plates, and had cognizance of things as they transpired, it is marvelous to me, “a marvel and a wonder,” as much so as to anyone else.
Question. I should suppose that you would have uncovered the plates and examined them?
Answer. I did not attempt to handle the plates, other than I have told you, nor uncover them to look at them [Joseph had covenanted to ONLY show 4 people, see smith 1832. v5]. I was satisfied that it was the work of God, and therefore did not feel it to be necessary to do so; Major Bidamon here suggested: Did Mr. Smith forbid your examining the plates?
Answer. I do not think he did. I knew that he had them, and was not specially curious about them. I moved them from place to place on the table, as it was necessary in doing my work.
Question. Mother, what is your belief about the authenticity, or origin, of the Book of Mormon?
Answer. My belief is that the Book of Mormon is of divine authenticity – I have not the slightest doubt of it. I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired; for, when acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after interruptions, he could at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him. This was a usual thing for him to do. It would have been improbable that a learned man could do this; and, for one so ignorant and unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible.
D&C 17:1–7 “was given in answer through the Urim and Thummim”, and explains that it was given to the Brother of Jared upon the Mount.
1 Behold, I say unto you, that you must rely upon my word, which if you do with full purpose of heart, you shall have a view of the plates, and also of the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, which were given to the brother of Jared upon the mount, when he talked with the Lord face to face, and the miraculous directors which were given to Lehi while in the wilderness, on the borders of the Red Sea.
2 And it is by your faith that you shall obtain a view of them, even by that faith which was had by the prophets of old.
3 And after that you have obtained faith, and have seen them with your eyes, you shall testify of them, by the power of God;
4 And this you shall do that my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., may not be destroyed, that I may bring about my righteous purposes unto the children of men in this work.
5 And ye shall testify that you have seen them, even as my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., has seen them; for it is by my power that he has seen them, and it is because he had faith.
6 And he has translated the book, even that part which I have commanded him, and as your Lord and your God liveth it is true.
7 Wherefore, you have received the same power, and the same faith, and the same gift like unto him;
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ACCOUNTS OF THE RECORD ROOM AS THE LOCATION OF THE PLATES
The following quotes seem to support the impressions I got in this experience. In addition to the shared vision of the three/eight witnesses, an account by Brigham Young decades after the fact, tells of a shared vision between Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith in 1829 which may be an illusion to the idea that Joseph actually returned the plates to the Hill Cumorah, previous to the final translation.
I lived right in the country where the plates were found from which the Book of Mormon was translated, and I know a great many things pertaining to that country. I believe I will take the liberty to tell you of another circumstance that will be as marvelous as anything can be. This is an incident in the life of Oliver Cowdery, but he did not take the liberty of telling such things in [public meetings] as I take. I tell these things to you, and I have a motive for doing so. I want to carry them to the ears of my brethren and sisters, and to the children also, that they may grow to an understanding of some things that seem to be entirely hidden from the human family.
Oliver Cowdery went with the Prophet Joseph when he deposited these plates. Joseph did not translate all of the plates; there was a portion of them sealed, which you can learn from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. When Joseph got the plates, the angel instructed him to carry them back to the hill Cumorah, which he did. Oliver says that when Joseph and Oliver went there, the hill opened, and they walked into a cave, in which there was a large and spacious room… They laid the plates on a table; it was a large table that stood in the room. Under this table there was a pile of plates as much as two feet high, and there were altogether in this room more plates than probably many wagon loads; they were piled up in the corners and along the walls…
(Journal of Discourses, vol.19, p.39, June 17, 1877)
Heber C. Kimball made it clear in 1856 that he believed this occurrence was in fact, a shared vision.
How does it compare with the vision that Joseph and others had, when they went into a cave in the hill Cumorah, and saw more records than ten men could carry? There were books piled up on tables, book upon book. Those records this people will yet have, if they accept of the Book of Mormon and observe its precepts, and keep the commandments.
(Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, 28 September 1856)
In an 1878 interview with P. Wilhelm Poulson, David Whitmer supports my idea that Joseph Smith returned the plates to the Hill and that he and other individuals privy to the location of the original Hill Cumorah where the plates came from, lied concerning its location in order to lead possible treasure diggers astray.
Poulson: Where are the plates now?
David Whitmer, found in P. Wilhelm Poulson, “Interview with David Whitmer,” Deseret Evening News, 16 August 1878, 2
Whitmer: In a cave, where the angel has hidden them up till the time arrives when the plates, which are sealed, shall be translated. God will yet raise up a mighty one, who shall do his work till it is finished and Jesus comes again.
Poulson: Where is that cave
Whitmer: In the State of New York.
Poulson: In the Hill of Comorah?
Whitmer: No, but not far away from that place.
Several other quotes exist corroborating the above information:
Attended meeting a discourse from W. W. Phelps. He related a story told him by Hyrum Smith which was as follows: Joseph, Hyrum, Cowdery & Whitmere went to the hill Cormorah. As they were walking up the hill, a door opened and they walked into a room about 16 ft square. In that room was an angel and a trunk. On that trunk lay a book of Mormon & gold plates, Laban’s sword, Aaron’s brestplate.
(William Horne Dame, Journal of the Southern Exploring Company, 1854—1858, Iron County, UT, 14 January 1855, Della Edwards Papers, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah.)
President [Heber C.] Kimball talked familiarly to the brethren about Father Smith, [Oliver] Cowdery, and others walking into the hill Cumorah and seeing records upon records piled upon table[s,] they walked from cell to cell and saw the records that were piled up.
(Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 5 May 1867)
President Young said in relation to Joseph Smith returning the Plates of the Book of Mormon that He did not return them to the box from wh[ence?] He had received [them]. But He went [into] a Cave in the Hill Comoro with Oliver Cowdry & deposited those plates upon a table or shelf. In that room were deposited a large amount of gold plates Containing sacred records & when they first visited that Room the sword of Laban was Hanging upon the wall & when they last visited it the sword was drawn from the scabbard and [laid?] upon a table and a Messenger who was the keeper of the room informed them that that sword would never be returned to its scabbard until the Kingdom of God was established upon the Earth & until it reigned triumphant over Every Enemy. Joseph Smith said that Cave contained tons of Choice Treasures & records.
(Wilford Woodruff Journal, 11 December 1869)
Although not a member of the church, Elizabeth Kane lived in St. George, Utah, and entertained the company of Brigham Young. She recorded the following discussion:
…asked where the plates were now, and saw in a moment from the expression of the countenances around that I had blundered. But I was answered that they were in a cave; that Oliver Cowdery though now an apostate would not deny that he had seen them. He had been to the cave. … Brigham Young’s tone was so solemn that I listened bewildered like a child to the evening witch stories of its nurse.
Brigham Young said that when Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith were in the cave this third time, they could see its contents more distinctly than before…… It was about fifteen feet high and round its sides were ranged boxes of treasure. In the centre was a large stone table empty before, but now piled with similar gold plates, some of which lay scattered on the floor beneath. Formerly the sword of Laban hung on the walls sheathed, but it was now unsheathed and lying across the plates on the table; and One that was with them said it was never to be sheathed until the reign of Righteousness upon the earth.
Elizabeth Kane, A Gentile Account of Life in Utah’s Dixie, 1872-73: Elizabeth Kane’s St. George Journal (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Tanner Trust Fund, 1995), 75-76
It was likewise stated to me by David Whitmer in the year 1877 that Oliver Cowdery told him that the Prophet Joseph and himself had seen this room and that it was filled with treasure, and on a table therein were the breastplate and the sword of Laban, as well as the portion of gold plates not yet translated, and that these plates were bound by three small gold rings, and would also be translated, as was the first portion in the days of Joseph. When they are translated much useful information will be brought to light. But till that day arrives, no Rochester adventurers shall ever see them or the treasures, although science and mineral rods testify that they are there.
(Edward Stevenson, Reminiscences of Joseph, the Prophet, and the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Edward Stevenson, 1893), 14-15, BYU Special Collections.)
But the grand repository of all the numerous records of the ancient nations of the western continent, was located in another department of the hill, and its contents put under the charge of holy angels, until the day should come for them to be transferred to the sacred temple of Zion.
Orson Pratt, “Cumorah,” The Contributor 3/12 (September 1882): 357.
Critics have suggested that Joseph Smith’s unwillingness or ‘inability’ to retranslate the 116 stolen pages of the Book of Mormon is evidence that the record is not an actual translation. Joseph Smith’s revelation in D&C 10:1–23 suggests that this was part of the plan of those who stole the 116 pages, with the perpetrators believing he would not be able to retranslate them identically again (v16). And to many the fact that he did not retranslate the exact text again suggests that he could not retranslate them again because he was actually making the whole story up as we went.
Take it for what its worth, but I once had a strong impression as I woke from a dream that THE 116 TRANSLATED PAGES STILL EXIST. As also the gold plates, which were reburied (NOT actually taken by an angel) so that both can be again ‘found’ when the time is right. And because the 116 pages deal more in history and secular matters, they will allow researchers to more fully understand where the Book of Mormon took place and how it relates to Israeli, Mesoamerican and North American prehistory. The 116 pages will also serve as a sort of Rosetta stone to help decode the ancient script and will indeed “show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil.” (D&C 10:43)
Following is the logic which came to me as I woke from a dream.
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The Calixtlahuaca Roman Figurine: Evidence of Transoceanic travel to Mesoamerica.
/in Archaeology, works in progress/by MormonBoxSummarized version of a paper presented by Romeo H. Hristov and Santiago Genovés T. at the 66th Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeology in New Orleans, LA, April 22, 2001)
From the early sixteenth century until the present many hypotheses of Pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts have been discussed (Sorenson and Raish 1996). With the only exception of the well-established Medieval Norse contacts with North American Indians (McGee 1984) all of the mentioned hypotheses share a common critical weakness: the lack of support in direct archaeological evidence, that is, genuine Old Word objects found in Pre-Columbian archaeological contexts (Willey 1985: 358). During the XIX and XX centuries some more or less reliable finds of such objects were reported from Mesoamerica; however, until the present time none of them have been accepted as incontrovertible evidence of inter-hemispheric contact before 1492.
Among the mentioned data one of the most trustworthy is a small terracotta head of supposed Roman origin found in Mexico (García Payón 1961, 1979: 205-206; Heine-Geldern 1961; see Figure 1). The figurine was discovered in 1933 during the excavation of a burial offering in the Pre-Hispanic settlement of Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca, located nearly forty miles NW of Mexico City (Figure 2).
The offering was placed under three intact floors of a pyramidal structure and, besides the head, includes different objects of gold, copper, turquoise, rock crystal, jet, bone, shell and pottery. Although the burial itself was dated between 1476-1510 A.D. Ernst Boehringer, an eminent classical archaeologist, has argued that the head is a Roman work from the II-III century A.D. The considerable discrepancy of more than one thousand years between the figurine and the other artifacts in the offering has raised certain suspicions about the reliability of the find, and therefore it was not generally accepted as evidence of transoceanic contacts in the 34th International Congress of Americanists (Vienna, 1960).
In 1995 FS Archaeömetrie in the University of Heidelberg, Germany performed a thermoluminescence (TL) age test of the piece which established its age limits between IX century B.C. and the middle XIII century A.D. (Schaaf and Wagner 2001, Hristov and Genovés 2001). This result clears up the doubts of Colonial manufacture of the artifact, and makes the hypothesis of Roman origin –among other possibilities- applicable. The identification of the head as Roman work from the II-III century A.D. has been further confirmed by Bernard Andreae, a director emeritus of the German Institute of Archaeology in Rome, Italy. According to Andreae
“[the head] is without any doubt Roman, and the lab analysis has confirmed that it is ancient. The stylistic examination tells us more precisely that it is a Roman work from around the II century A.D., and the hairstyle and the shape of the beard present the typical traits of the Severian emperors period [193-235 A.D.], exactly in the ‘fashion’ of the epoch.” (Andreae cited in Domenici 2000: 29).
On the other hand, an examination of the field notes of the archaeologist in charge of the excavation as well as the site itself have not revealed, in either case, signs of possible disturbances of the context (Hristov and Genovés 1999). During the last three decades over a dozen references concerning re-use of small Olmec artifacts in the Classical (III-IX centuries A.D.) or the Postclassical (X-XV centuries A.D.) contexts have been published, which give sufficient credibility to the appearance of a piece from the II-III century A.D. in context of the late XV century A.D (Navarrete 1982). Especially suggestive in this respect is the discovery of a small Olmec mask from the early first millennia B.C. inside a XV century A.D. burial offering in the Great Temple of Mexico-Tenochtitlán (Matos 1979). Furthermore, the recent discovery of a Roman trade post dated from the I B.C. to III A.D. centuries in the Lanzarote island, Canary Archipelago (Atoche Peña 1995) suggest a possible relationship of the Roman find from Mexico to some trans-Atlantic voyage (perhaps accidental) that may have happened during that period.
Discussion
During the past decade the publications of Hristov and Genovés (1999, 2001) on the apparently Roman head from Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca has generated a publicity in sixteen languages, considerable amount of polemic and not a little confusion. The six main objections against the reliability of the evidence have been summarized by Michael E. Smith, a professor of archaeology in the Arizona State University:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/tval/RomanFigurine.html
The first one is that “… [the head] may be a hoax. This could be a Roman figurine, but it was planted at the site, or in the laboratory, by a student or colleague of the excavator. The late Dr. John Paddock, a leading Mesoamerican scholar, used to tell classes at the Universidad de las Américas that the object was planted as a joke by Hugo Moedano, a student who worked at the site. Many archaeologists in Mexico have heard this story and they tend to believe it. I have checked with people who knew García Payón and some who knew Moedano, and I have been unable to confirm or reject this suggestion. Hristov and Genovés neglect to mention Paddock’s ideas in their article.”
Actually this situation has been addressed thoughtfully in Hristov and Genovés (2001), as well in a paper read at April 22, 2001 during the 66th Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeology in New Orleans, Louisiana. Michael E. Smith was present at the reading of the paper in the SAA meeting, and he also cites Hristov and Genovés’ article in his web page. Therefore, to claim that “Hristov and Genovés neglect to mention Paddock’s ideas …” seems, to put it mildly, paradoxical. Notwithstanding, for the sake of clarity the principal points from Hristov and Genovés (2001) are recapitulated below.
The possibility of recent intrusion of the head was suggested by Paul Schmidt (an archaeologist in the Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas-UNAM in Mexico City) in a letter to the Editorial Office of Ancient Mesoamerica from March 6, 2000 which deserves an extensive quotation:
“The citing of the unpublished TL date without the authors’ (Schaaf and Wagner) permission reflects Hristov’s well known unethical approach to life. We had plenty of problems with him while he was here as Santiago’s protégé. Later we have heard about his alleged academic affiliation with SMU based on a library card which was apparently revoked when SMU discovered he was using them as academic affiliation (check on this to confirm because my knowledge is a rumor from a letter in Aztlan).
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When Hristov was here, two or three years ago, he approached me to read the first draft of the article. At that time I told him something the old-timers know: A typical student prank; the figurine was planted in Don Pepe’s [José Garcia Payón’s] dig, the saying goes, by Hugo Moedano. Don Pepe took it so seriously that no one had the heart to tell him it was a joke. This I remember having been told by John Paddock, and others of the older generation –Jaime Litvak for example- had heard this. Hristov refused to check out the story; he told me he had not encountered a published reference to this anywhere!
Taking into consideration Hristov’s known unethical behavior and the obvious controversy which would result from the publication, I find it extremely hard to believe that two of the three serious and professional referees (and in this case perhaps five should have been consulted) would support the article. Consider that a preliminary version of the article was published in Arqueología Mexicana, causing Jaime Litvak to resign from the editorial board.”
Schmidt’s enthusiastic but misinformed assessment of my “well known unethical approach to life“ and his peculiar mind-set toward the topic of the pre-Columbian transoceanic voyages are irrelevant for the present debate; however, the factual inaccuracies in his claims that “Hristov refused to check out the story; he told me he had not encountered a published reference to this anywhere“ are a different matter, and will be argued in continuation.
In late 1996 Schmidt informed Hristov that “everybody knows that the head is Colonial” and García-Payón was not present during the excavation, so surely somebody had “planted’ it as a joke. Neither the thermoluminescence (TL) age limits, nor the excavation report supports the suspicion of Colonial manufacture and/or intrusion of the artifact into the apparently pre-Hispanic archaeological context. In 1997 Hristov personally asked Fernando García Payón, José García Payón’s son, if he knew something about the first objection. His response was that during the 1960s his father frequently was asked if he was present during the excavation, and he always assured them that he had been.
In 1998 Hristov asked Schmidt again if he could remember the source of his information about the “planting” of the head, and Schmidt informed him that he “believed to have heard from John Paddock that Hugo Moedano planted the head”. By that time both Paddock and Moedano had passed away. Therefore, the only option was to ask some of the well-known Mexican scholars of the older generation. None of them had ever heard such a story, neither from Hugo Moedano nor from John Paddock (Román Piña Chán, Angel García Cook, Luis Torres Montes, Carlos C. Navarrete, and Jorge V. Angulo, personal communication to Romeo Hristov 1998). At that point the further investigation of the allegation was stopped, but in 2000 Romeo Hristov asked Fernando García Payón if he knew something about a possible “planting” of the artifact by Hugo Moedano. His response was that Hugo Moedano “…had never been present during the excavation,” and this was just “nonsense.”
There is one more point to be made before concluding this comment. In the only work on the Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca’s head published during his lifetime García Payón (1961: 2) notes that the figurine was brought personally by Ignacio Bernal (an eminent Mexican archaeologist and then sub-director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History) at the XXXIV International Congress of Americanists in Vienna, 1960. John Paddock was a student of Ignacio Bernal in the Mexico City College, his assistant during the excavation of Yagul (Oaxaca) in the mid-50s, and in 1966 they published an important work together titled Ancient Oaxaca: discoveries in Mexican archeology and history (Stanford: Stanford University Press); therefore, it is hard to believe that Bernal was not also warned by Paddock about the “planting” of the figurine and, if he was, to be unconcerned with it. Yet Bernal never mentioned about such possibility, neither during the congress debates nor in the paragraph on García Payón’s excavation in Calixtlahuaca published nearly two decades later in the Historia de la Arqueología en México (Bernal 1979: 167). Such silence about the alleged “planting” of the head seems even more puzzling in the two remarkably well-researched, and highly critical articles on the topic of the pre-Columbian transoceanic voyages published after García Payón’s note by another leading Mexican archaeologist and close friend of Paddock, Alfonso Caso (Caso 1964, 1965). The pathetic line of reasoning in Schmidt’s letter that “Don Pepe [José Garcia Payón] took it so seriously that no one had the heart to tell him it was a joke“ is, in my judgment, unconvincing in extreme. The second objection is that “This may be a Roman figurine, but it was introduced into the Calixtlahuaca artifact collections, after excavation, through error. García Payón did not take extensive notes on his fieldwork, and it is entirely possible that extraneous objects may have been introduced into the collections after excavation. The collection of artifacts from Calixtlahuaca, now curated in the Museo de Antropología in Toluca, includes numerous donations of ceramic vessels from other sites, added to the collections after excavation (see: Smith, Michael E., Jennifer Wharton and Melissa McCarron, Las ofrendas de Calixtlahuaca. Expresión Antropológica (in press, 2002) Perhaps the Roman figurine can be explained in a similar fashion.”
Smith’s observation regarding inadequacies in the cataloguing of donated ceramic vessels is perfectly correct. However, to deduce from it that “García Payón did not take extensive notes on his fieldwork …” or that the head may have been introduced into the collections “… after excavation, through error” would be misleading. Whatever omissions (or mistakes) in registering the provenance of donated artifacts may have been made, none of them ever have been cited by García Payón as discovered during his excavations in Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca. On the other hand, both the location and the context where the head was discovered were meticulously described and accompanied with a photo of the excavation, plan of the two burials and eight plates with photographs or drawings of the associated artifacts (García Payón 1979: 206).
At third place, Smith points out that “This may be a Roman figurine, but it was introduced to Calixtlahuaca in the early days of the Spanish colonial period. It may have been brought from Europe to Mexico by a Spaniard, and it found its way into a Terminal Postclassic/Early Colonial offering at Calixtlahuaca. It is not possible to tell, from the contents or context, whether the offering dates to the period before the Spanish conquest of Mexico or from the early Spanish colonial period. My continuing analyses of these materials may shed light on this issue in the future.”
During the past half century several embarrassing situations with Old World artifacts of supposed pre-Columbian importation that turned out to be of colonial or recent manufacture have been reported (Hristov and Genovés 2005; Epstein 1980: 9-10; and Andrews Wyllys IV and Boggs 1967, among others); hence, the legitimacy of such concern with the Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca’s find scarcely can be disputed. The three main possibilities in this regard are briefly addressed below:
Firstly, although the burial itself seems to be pre-Columbian, the figurine nevertheless may have been deposited within the offering by a Spaniard (or any other European) during the early Colonial period. No direct evidence exist to support such a possibility, but it is least hinted at by the widespread practice of looting pre-Columbian tombs during the Conquest and in the early Colonial period (Bernal 1979: 40-41). Yet if the burial was disturbed and an ancient Roman figurine deposited, by whatever reason, nothing is more unlikely than the gold artifacts in the offering (Garcia Payón 1979: 205-206) to be left intact.
Secondly, if the burial is assumed to be from the early Colonial period it is perfectly credible that the figurine was obtained by the Matlatzincas after 1518 and included in the offering with the rest of artifacts. In such a case the traces of intrusion through the three superimposed floors under which the offering was deposited would have been easily detectable, especially if we bear in mind that the settlement of Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca was abandoned after its conquest by the Aztecs in 1510, and any repair is unlikely to have been carried out due to the disuse of the structure. Nevertheless in the reasonably detailed report of the excavation (García Payón 1979: 204-206) there is no mention at all of alterations to the floors under which the burial was deposited.
Thirdly, the head could have been imported into the New World by some European visitor between 1492-1510, and somehow to have found its way to Central Mexico. In this regard it must be reminded that during the mentioned lapse of time the Matlatzincas were under Aztec domain, so the artifact would have come to the Toluca Valley most probably through the Aztec “pochtecas”, but in any case with Aztec knowledge. In this context, however, the lack of the slightest reference about any encounter of the Aztecs or any of their vassals with Europeans is inexplicable in the otherwise detailed and reasonably reliable late historical tradition in Nahuatl. The mentioned silence makes the proposed idea highly improbable if one bears in mind: (1) the deep religious and political meaning of the Aztec belief that bearded foreigners coming westward from the Atlantic would conquer and destroy their kingdom and, (2) how fast Moctecuhzoma II was informed about the Spaniards arrival in Veracruz in 1518, and the great impact of this event among the Aztec rulers.
Another objection raised by Smith is that “this is a post-Roman European Christian figurine, introduced to Calixtlahuaca in the early days of the Spanish colonial period. This was the initial professional reaction upon García Payón’s publication of the object in 1960. I have yet to be convinced that the figurine really is Roman in origin – no one has shown illustrations of known Roman figurines next to this object. Could it be a post-Roman Christian figure? More research is needed. Arguments that this figurine is Roman in origin need to back that notion up with more than vague statements that “Professor so-and-so says that it looks Roman.”
To begin with, it must be stressed that the term “post-Roman European Christian figurine” is both imprecise and misguiding about the assumed chronology of the piece. The fact is that the initial professional reaction was that the figurine is a Colonial object (that is, manufactured anywhere between the early XVI to the early XIX century, either in New Spain or Europe), and was catalogued as such in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.
The identification of the piece as Roman work from the II-III century AD is based mainly on the stylistic analysis done by two specialists in Classical archaeology and art (Ernst Boehringer and Bernard Andreae) although some limited support to the suggested chronology is also provided by the TL age test. Its remarkable realism and physical embodiments of personality clearly set it apart from the early Christian portraits types, but are common in the Roman male busts from the mentioned period (Figure 3). Personally, I think that there are very narrow limits to the possibility of tracing the exact place of origin and the cultural background of the figurine. However, in broad outlines its close stylistic similarities with two small Punic terracotta masks (Figures 4 and 5) at least offer a hint that its origin was most likely somewhere in the Levant or Hispania rather than the Italian Peninsula.
The next objection is regarding the ”… problems with the thermoluminescence dates reported by Hristov and Genoves. The physicists who ran the dates have objected to the way the dates are described by Hristov and Genoves (Wagner, Günther, letter to New Scientist April 8, 2000 (no. 2233), pp. 64-65). This is discussed in the following articles:
Schaaf, Peter and Günther A. Wagner (2001) Comments on “Mesoamerican Evidence of Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Contacts” by Hristov and Genovés. Ancient Mesoamerica 12:79-82.
Hristov, Romeo H. and Santiago Genovés T. (2001) Reply to Peter Schaaf and Günther A. Wagner’s “Comments on ‘Mesoamerican Evidence of Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Contacts'”. Ancient Mesoamerica 12:83-86.
For those unfamiliar with the two cited articles, the principal aspects of the so-called “problems with the thermoluminescence dates” are summarized below. In early 1995 Romeo H. Hristov was provided with a copy of the FS Archaeömetrie TL age test report which indicated the manufacture of the Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca’s head as no later than the beggining of the Christian era [View the TL report]. In 1996 the age limits of the find were calculated by Peter G. Schaaf at 1780± 400 B.P. (184 B.C.-616 A.D.), and cited as such in Hristov and Genovés (1999). Notwithstanding, when the article was in print, Schaaf and Wagner, anticipating the heated controversy that the find may generate, decided to shift to the most conservative calculation of the thermoluminescence age limits, that is 870 B.C.- 1270 A.D.
As already discussed in the previous pages, the corrected TL age limits once again made the assumption of Colonial origin of the figurine untenable and support, although with less certainty, the hypothesis of Roman origin of the figurine.
Smith’s last objection is regarding the alleged “problems with the archaeological context of the “Roman figurine”. The “Roman figurine” supposedly excavated at Calixtlahuaca was not documented using standard archaeological procedures. Excavator José García Payón did not publish professionally adequate descriptions of any of his excavations at the site. After his death, two posthumous reports were issued (García Payón 1979; 1981), but these contain very little specific information on the excavations or individual contexts. The “Roman figurine” cannot be considered well documented according to the normal standards of archaeological practice. If one compares García Payón’s publications with any of the excavation reports listed below, the contrast is obvious. The following kinds of documentation—standard for professional archaeological fieldwork in the twentieth century—are lacking for Calixtlahuaca:
1. Photographs of the process of excavation.
2. Photographs of the object in situ.
3. Photographs of the offering said to have yielded the figurine.
4. Plan maps of the excavation, the object in situ, or the offering.
5. Profile drawings showing the stratigraphic context of the figurine or the offering.
6. Detailed descriptions of the course of excavation (there is a brief summary)
7. Descriptions of the excavator’s reconstruction of the processes of construction and deposition of the structure and offering.
8. Illustrations of the figurine, the offering, or the associated objects, made at the time of excavation.
9. Catalog entries for the figurine or any of the finds from Calixtlahuaca.
10. Laboratory or museum records showing the presence of the figurine and associated objects from the time of excavation.
These problems of data reporting affect more than just the “Roman figurine” from Calixtlahuaca. The lack of documentation applies to nearly all of the finds from García Payón’s fieldwork. While these problems do not invalidate the “Roman figurine” as a potentially valid Precolumbian find, their implication is that it is impossible today to reconstruct the archaeological context of the find. It certainly cannot be claimed that this find is “well documented” or that it comes from “a good archaeological context.” The excavation of the “Roman figurine” fails to meet even the minimum standards of archaeological reporting.
One might be tempted to suggest that such reporting standards were lower in the 1930s than they are today, and thus it may be unfair to criticize García Payón on these grounds. While archaeological documentation and publishing standards certainly are much higher today, other archaeologists working in central Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s—Mexicans, North Americans, and Europeans—provided adequate documentation of their fieldwork and finds that meets the standards listed above. The following examples support this claim:
Anonymous
1935 Tenayuca: estudio arqueológico de la pirámide de este lugar. Departamento de Monumentos de la Secretaría de Educación Públic, Talleres Gráficos del Museo Nacional de Antropología, Historia y Etnografía, Mexico City.
Bernal, Ignacio
1979 A History of Mexican Archaeology: The Vanished Civilizations of Middle America. Thames and Hudson, New York.
García Payón, José
1979 La zona arqueológica de Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca y los matlatzincas: etnología y arqueología (textos de la segunda parte), edited by Wanda Tommasi de Magrelli and Leonardo Manrique Castañeda, vol. 30. Biblioteca Enciclopédica del Estado de México, Toluca.
1981 La zona arqueológica de Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca y los matlatzincas: etnología y arqueología (tablas, planos e ilustraciones de la segunda parte), edited by Wanda Tommasi de Magrelli and Leonardo Manrique Castañeda, vol. 31. Biblioteca Enciclopédica del Estado de México, Toluca.
Linné, Sigvald
1934 Archaeological Researches at Teotihuacan, Mexico. Publication, vol. 1. Ethnographic Museum of Sweden, Stockholm.
Vaillant, George C.
1930 Excavations at Zacatenco. Anthropological Papers, vol. 32, no. 1. American Museum of Natural History, New York.
1931 Excavations at Ticoman. Anthropological Papers, vol. 32, no. 2. American Museum of Natural History, New York.
In sum, Smith basically asserts that (1) “…José García Payón did not publish professionally adequate descriptions of any of his excavations at the site”, and (2)”the excavation of the ‘Roman figurine’ fails to meet even the minimum standards of archaeological reporting”. This opinion is not only highly subjective, but it also is not free of inaccuracies.
To begin, it should be stressed that José García Payón was one of the most erudite and respected Mexican archaeologists from the mid-XX century. As discussed above, several aspects of his interpretative work in Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca indeed are outdated (for example, the assumed use of some architectural structures and the ceramic classification), and there is a lot left to be desired about the catalogue entries of the artifacts. Without doubt these are not negligible problems, but they also are among the most common ones in the Mesoamerican archaeological research from the first half of XX century (Bernal 1979: 154-188, cf. endnote 1) . When discussing the mentioned aspects of García Payón’s work, a paragraph in Bernal (1979: 162) on Vaillant’s research in Zacatenco and Ticoman (see Smith’s sixth and the seventh bibliographical references), half of which is discussion on its chronological errors, merits consideration as well.
Furthermore, Smith is suggesting that “… other archaeologists working in central Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s—Mexicans, North Americans, and Europeans—provided [more] adequate documentation of their fieldwork and finds that meets the [ten] standards listed above”. From the seven bibliographical references cited as examples two are the 2nd and the 3rd volumes of García Payón’s work on Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca, and the third is the previously referred A History of Mexican Archaeology… by Ignacio Bernal, which chapter VIII offers an concise review of the Mexican archaeology between 1910-1950. The remaining four works cannot be dealt with adequately in brief compass, but any careful revision of them will not fail to reveal tree important issues: first, none of them (including the untypically “modern” work of Linné) fulfills in every single detail even the first eight of the ten requests in Smith’s list; second, that there is considerable variations between them in the amount and the sophistication of technical details in the excavation accounts and third, although Linné and Vaillant’s publications are indeed more systematic and detailed, their technical aspects are basically no different from García Payón’s work.
Once this issue is addressed, the opinions of Wanda Tomassi de Magrelli (archaeologist) and Leonardo Manrique Castañeda (linguist), who revised and prepared García Payón’s manuscript for the publication of the 2nd, the 3rd and the 4th volumes of the research in Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca deserves to be cited:
When working with it [García Payón’s manuscript of the excavation in Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca], we realized that, notwithstanding of its venerable age, it is extraordinarily actual because the exploration was extremely careful and the [excavation] techniques very close to the used today …” (Tomassi and Manrique 1979: XXI).
It already has been mentioned that the excavation of the two burials where the Roman figurine was discovered have been documented with a photo of the excavation, plan of the two burials and eight plates with photographs and drawings of each one of the associated twenty-off artifacts; this record was also completed with two pages of reasonably detailed accounting of the excavation (García Payón 1979: 205-206, see endnote 2). Therefore, it seems all peculiar (and to me, inexplicable) how Smith has arrived at the conclusion that the excavation “fails to meet even the minimum standards of archaeological reporting.”
Conclusions
As final remarks it is worthwhile to emphasize, once again, that in its fundamental aspects such as domestic plants and animals, knowledge and use of metals, writhing and language systems, and religious beliefs, among others, the Old and the New World civilizations until the early sixteenth century were firmly different and, consequently, independent from each other (Hristov 1998: 237; Hristov and Genovés 1998: 52-53; Hristov and Genovés 2001:85). However, there are also some data of various kinds and levels of credibility that suggest the existence of a few sporadic, most probably accidental, transoceanic voyages before Columbus, which apparently had very limited -if any- cultural and biological impact. The find of an apparently Roman head in Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca, Mexico, seems to support the occurrence of one such voyage across the middle Atlantic, possibly somewhere in the first centuries of the Christian era.
On the other hand, notwithstanding that the Canary Islands were discovered around 1334 A.D., the highly probable contacts between the ancient Mediterranean world and the Canaries were confirmed for first time only a decade and half ago. In 1987 a Roman trade post dated between the first century B.C. and the third century A.D. was discovered in the Lanzarote island (Atoche Peña et al. 1995), and the continuing archaeological research has proved in 2006 that not only the Romans but also the Punic seafarers reached the archipelago no later than the fourth century B.C. (Atoche Peña et al. 2009). The implications of these discoveries in the discussion of the possible Pre-Columbian Trans-Atlantic contacts are obvious, and it is not entirely unreasonable to expect in the near future that systematical archaeological studies in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and Brazil may provide more -and more conclusive- data related to some isolated cases of trans-Atlantic voyages before 1492.
—————————————–
1 This and the following citations are based on the Spanish language edition of Bernal’s book, which is included in the list of References.
2 Most of the photos, drawings and plans from the excavation were prepared for publication as 4th volume of García Payón’s work on Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca; regretfully, the manuscript and all field notes of García Payón were lost during the earthquake in Mexico City in 1985 (Hristov and Genovés 1999: 210) . Notwithstanding several previously published photos, plans and two descriptions of the excavation and the context where the head was found (García Payón 1961: 1-2; 1979: 205-206) provide sufficient base for assessment of the find.
References
Andrews Wyllys IV, Edward and Stanley Boggs
1967 An African Art Object in Apparently Early Archaeological Context in El Salvador: A Caveat to the Diffusionist. Ethnos 1-4: 18-25
Atoche Peña, Pablo, Juan Paz Peralta, Maria Ramírez Rodríguez y Maria Ortíz Palomar
1995 Evidencias arqueólogicas del mundo romano en Lanzarote, islas Canarias. Servicio de Publicaciones del Exmo. Cabildo Insular de Lanzarote, Arrecife
Atoche Peña, Maria Angeles Ramírez Rodríguez, JoséDomingo Torres Plaza and Sergio Pérez González
2009 Excavaciones arqueológicas en el yacimiento de Buenavista (Tiagua, Lanzarote): primera campaña 2006, Canarias Arqueológica (Segunda época). III (17): 9-52
Bernal, Ignacio
1979 Historia de la Arqueología en México. México: Editorial Porrúa, S. A.
Caso, Alfonso
1964 Relations between the Old and the New Worlds: A Note on Methodology, Actas y Memorias del XXXV Congreso Internacional de Americanistas (México, D.F., 1962), 1: 55-71. México: Editorial Libros de México S. A. de C. V.
1965 Semejanzas de diseño que no indican contactos culturales, Cuadernos Americanos. 143(6): 147-152
Domenici, Viviano
2000 Il parere dell archaeologo Bernard Andreae: ha i tratti tipici dell arte del secondo secolo dopo Cristo. Non mi stupisce che siano arrivati in America, Corriere della Sera. February 27, 2000, p. 29
Epstein, Jeremiah. F. 1980. Pre-Columbian Old World Coins in America: An Examination of the Evidence. Current Anthropology 21 (1): 1-12
García Payón, José
1936 La zona arqueológica de Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca y los matlatzincas. Primera parte. México: Secretaría de Educación Pública
1961 Una cabecita de barro, de extraña fisonomía, Boletín INAH. 6: 1-2
1979 La zona arqueológica de Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca y los matlatzincas. Segunda parte. México: Biblioteca Enciclopédica del Estado de México
1981 La zona arqueológica de Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca y los matlatzincas. Tablas, planos e ilustraciones de la segunda parte. México: Biblioteca Enciclopédica del Estado de México
Heine-Geldern, Robert
1961 Ein römischer Fund aus dem vorkolumbischen Mexiko, Anzeiger der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaft. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. 98 (16):117-119
Hristov, Romeo
1998 Reseña de John L. Sorenson and Martin H. Raish Pre-Columbian Contacts with the Americas across the oceans. An annotated bibliography, Cuadernos Americanos (Nueva Epoca). 68 (2): 237-239
Hristov, Romeo and Santiago Genovés
2005 The “Phoenician” head from Las Balsas, Mexico, Antiquity. Vo.79, No 304, http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/hristov/index.html
1998 Viajes transatlánticos antes de Colón. Arqueología Mexicana VI (33): 48-53
1999 Mesoamerican evidence of Pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts. Ancient Mesoamerica.10 (2): 207-213
2001 Reply to Peter Schaaf, Peter and Günther A. Wagner’s “Comments on ‘Mesoamerican evidence of Pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts’”, Ancient Mesoamerica. 12 (2): 83-85
Matos, Eduardo
1979 Una máscara olmeca en el Templo Mayor de Tenochtitlán, Anales de Antropología. XVI: 11-19
McGee, Robert
1984 Contact between Native North Americans and medieval Norse: A Review of the evidence, American Antiquity. 49 (1): 4-26
Navarrete, Carlos
1982 Acotación bibliográica sobre dos notas olmecas, Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicos. XXVIII: 159-173
Tomassi, Wanda and Leonardo Manrique
1979 Presentación, in La zona arqueológica de Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca y los matlatzincas. Segunda parte, by José García Payón. México: Biblioteca Enciclopédica del Estado de México, p. XXI-XXIII
Schaaf, Peter and Günther Wagner
2001 Comments on the “Mesoamerican evidence of Pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts” by Hristov and Genovés in Ancient Mesoamerica 10:207-213, 1999, Ancient Mesoamerica. 12 (1): 79-81
Sorenson, John and Martin Raish
1996 Pre-Columbian contacts with the Americas across the oceans. An Annotated Bibliography. Provo: Research Press
Willey, Gordon
1985 Some continuing problems in the New World culture history, American Antiquity. 50 (2): 357-363
Book of Mormon Geography Found- Mexican Highland Continental Model (summary)
/in archaeology (sticky posts), Featured Posts/by MormonBoxby Lance Weaver
Outline
This article is only a very rough draft or summary of a much larger book I’m writing which I don’t expect to finish for at least a decade. Honestly, the work I feel I’ve been giving is a bit overwhelming, so be patient and if the Spirit moves you to offer help, it’s welcome.
- Introduction
- Summery of what sets this model apart.
- Internal Model. (compare a bit to heartland and Mesoamerica)
- The Continental Model of Joseph Smith
- The writings of Ixtlilxochitl
- The Caractors document.
- The Narrow Neck.
- Arrival of the Jaredites (put after Nephites?)
- Omer and his household
- Post Dearth Jaredite culture
- Colonial arrivals (arrival writing, pyramids)
- Olmec or Zapotec as the mother culture? (Emergence of Zapotec hieroglyphic writing and calendrics to Mesoamerica)
- The move the Zarahemla
- The Seven Tribes of Early athors (find quotes) Matching BOM seven tribes.
- Zeniff and the City of Nephi
- Towers AND temple matching so well Noah’s building project.
- The emergence of the Zapotec Military State. (skull racks & warefare)
- Captain Moroni: Fortifying the Balsas Basin & Mexican Highland
- Mixtec sites move to fortresses & garrisons on East Coast.
- The people of Ammon in Jershon, linguistics matching matriarchal society of…
- Could the major Burial of Chiape de Corzo be Lamoni’s father?
- Lachoneous and the Founding of Teotihuacan
- Cataclysms at the coming of Christ
- Ixtextla records. Known volcanism and destruction of towns. PROBLEMS WITH RADIOCARBON DATING. (see txt file ‘anomalous old c14 dates in archaeology papers folder in drive)
- Tetimpa, Cuicuilco and Cholula were covered with volcanic ash like Pompaii right near the time of Christ. Zarahemla of Sorenson or Usamacinta models are 100 miles or more from the single active volcanic center. [make map of mexico’s active volcanoes]
- The tents, houses of cement (adobe) and shipping of timber in the desolate southwest.
- The golden or ‘Classic’ age of Zion
- Was Mormon Anasazi? A case for time discrepancies in 4rth Nephi
- The land of Desolation (matching accounts of Aztlan so well)
- The destruction of American Civilization
.
.
Introduction
This article presents the new Mexican Highland-continental model Book of Mormon Geographic correlation. With this model, essentially every culture the texts mentions end up being a major culture found by modern archaeologists. In fact, essentially all the largest North American prehistoric cultures are represented in this model of the Book of Mormon text. This unique continental model also correlates incredibly closely to the beliefs of Joseph Smith and other early LDS prophetic figures.
Far from sticking the Book of Mormon location into a small Mesoamerican or Heartland corner, our model correlates the texts most mentioned cities with the most influential Mesoamerican archaeological ruins. Zarahemla and the Nephites are correlated with arguably the largest cities and most dominate, powerful prehistoric culture on the continent — Teotihuacan/Cholula and the Mexican Highland/Balsas Basin culture. The Lamanites are correlated with what was likely the most sophisticated and populous culture in American prehistory — the Maya. The City of Nephi with its towers, priest cult and expensive public works correlates with the great Zapotec fortress of Monte Alban, which sat between the Maya (Lamanite) and Highland (Nephite) cultures. The River Sidon matches with what many consider Mexico’s most economically important & strategic water way– the Rio Balsas.
The book of Mormon’s ‘Land Northward’ stretches from the rock & cement great-houses of the ancient Puebloan peoples in the desert southwest, where Joseph Smith taught “the Nephites lost their power”, all the way through Mississippian and Hopewell peoples of the Eastern United States.
The early Jaredites end up largely corresponding to not only the first inhabitants on the continent but also the only North American culture that archaeologists have found to have coexisted with elephants and other extinct mega-fauna (Paleoindian, Clovis & Folsom cultures). They expanded to cover both Northern America and Mexico instead of just a part of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (proto-Adena as well as Olmec & all other archaic to early formative/woodland groups). And the destruction of the Nephite culture described in the text, corresponds to the well-known collapse of essentially half the major cultures on the North American continent between the radiocarbon dates of 1050-1150 AD from Tula to West Mexico and the Anasazi/Ancient Puebloans as well as Cahokia and Cumorah (peoples of the ‘Land Northward).
Truly all the main events of the Book of Mormon have been found by archaeologists and correspond with the most notable events in North American prehistory. However, most LDS scholars have overlooked these amazing correlations because of hang-ups involving their mistaken narrow neck and radiocarbon/timeline issues which I explain in detail.
The Failure of All Other Models
LDS scholars have tried to find a convincing correlation between the Book of Mormon narrative and archaeological evidence for 150 years and yet are still squarely split between three predominate models. Why? Simply put, there is no perfect match to the geography described in the Book of Mormon. All models contain a number of substantial problems between the text and available archaeological evidence.
In the following chapter I provide overwhelming evidence that most early geographers had rudimentary knowledge of shorelines in the places where few people ventured. I suggest that because of the impassible nature of the Great Salado Basin & Chihuahua Desert, Mormon similarly believed the East & West Sierra Madre Mountain Ranges to be the same single range. [shortly discuss the fact that only ONE of the seven references seems to suggest this, the others suggest Baja as the narrow neck] Mistaking the narrow east & west Mexico travel corridors for another ‘narrow neck of land’ or “narrow pass” like many of the others found in Central America.
I also devote a chapter to explaining why the radiocarbon techniques used to date the North American post-classic cultural collapses do not seem to correspond with the Book of Mormon dates. [reword. They might, its just not nearly as good a match as the post classic collapse, which matches in EVERY regard]. Even though the evidence of cultures, populations, settlement patterns, war, cannibalism, cultural destruction and abandonment and desolation stretching all the way from the Toltec and Maya through the Anasazi lands and Cahokia seem to match amazingly with what is described in the book of Mormon text. For this discrepancy I give two possible explanations. One being skewed radiocarbon dates caused by a type of marine reservoir effect of excess carbon 14 introduced by a massive comet and CME hitting the Pacific Ocean at the time of Christ (much like the similar but smaller documented 774 AD event). And the other being a rather convincing argument that there were actually two large comet impacts in the Pacific Ocean which corresponded with two separate Quetzalcoatl figures in the Nephite (and Aztec) annals. One at the death of Christ and one at 774 AD which combined with a few other calendrical issues, caused Mormon to mistakenly believe he lived around 400 years after the death of Christ, when in fact he actually lived 400 years after 774 AD and Lord Quetzalcoatl the ruler of _____. [express that this is the far more convincing possibility, although we should hold space for both camps of thought.]
This model is different than most others in that it focuses on correlating cultures, events and actual archaeological cities instead of focusing so much on radiocarbon dates and the narrow neck. I also show the significance of considering the Book of Mormon a ‘channeling’ instead of a ‘translation’. Channeling, or the act or practice of a mystic somehow ‘seeing’ events across space and time and/or serving as a medium through which an angel or spirit purportedly communicates with living persons was very common during the Second Great awakening, and far better explains the anachronisms and issues which exist in the Book of Mormon text. By looking at the text as a more fluid product of visionary ability instead of a literal translation, amazing correlations become apparent. Book of Mormon events begin to align with all the major cultural movements & conflicts found in North American prehistory, and a [there’s complexities that I may or may not want to mention here of Medieval/Norman influence being the primary lens through which BOM translation occurred].
Illustration depicting the actual geography of North America versus what the ancient authors of the Book of Mormon may have thought the geography looked like. {Change defense line to names of cultures/bom peoples with dates of existence.}
The Continental Model of Joseph Smith
From the available documented evidence, it is apparent Joseph held a continental view of Book of Mormon Geography. Quotes by Joseph Smith or statements attributed to him point to a belief in four major areas of Book of Mormon happenings.
- He believed the Lehites to have landed in South America (refs)
- He believed them to have travelled to Central America to settle (with cities like Zarahemla being there). (refs)
- He believed them to have ‘lost their power’ (i.e. the Land Desolation) in the U.S. Southwest. (refs)
- He believed Cumorah and the final battle to be in New York, and much of North America to be the Book of Mormon ‘Land Northward’. (refs)
-quote of landing in Chile or a bit south of the isthmus of Darian
-quote of Land of Lehi (lands of Nephi, Zarahemla and Bountiful) was in Mesoamerica
-quote of Desolation being the Desert Southwest (ancient Puebloan cultures)
-quote of Cumorah and final battle being in New York.
Use my article AND the farms ones. http://gatheredin.one/449/joseph-smith-quotes-on-book-of-mormon-geography/, https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book_of_Mormon/Geography/Statements/Nineteenth_century/Joseph_Smith%27s_lifetime_1829-1840, https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2010/04/02/book-of-mormon-geography-in-joseph-smiths-day
An Internal Model
Go through and do a one-page summary of needed internal model aspects. Get from intro to my already done internal model web article.
[pic of internal model]The Narrow Neck
A study of ancient maps and geographies suggests that modern LDS Scholars have expected too much from ancient Book of Mormon authors by supposing pre-Columbian cultures had a modern understanding of continental geography and shorelines. Indeed, although many ancients understood well the spatial relationships for populated places, or places they had been, the understanding of uninhabited wildernesses and continental shorelines seems to have been very poor among cultures without widespread use of boats containing some type of nautical navigation technology.
Our model proposes that much like Sabastian Munster’s early map of the New World, Book of Mormon authors seemed to have thought there to be another ‘narrow neck’ between the narrow coastal ‘passes’ of Northern Mexico. A misunderstanding likely caused by a belief that the Eastern and Western Sierra Madre mountain ranges were one and the same range. An easy mistake to make given their lack of travel through the nearly impenetrable and uninhabited Mapimi Basin of the Chihuahua Desert. Indeed historical texts show that essentially ALL travel & trade instead, occurred along the ‘narrow passes’ between the coasts and the steep mountain ranges, with only a few sparsely inhabited mining communities existing in the Deserts of the northern interior.
Note that Cabeza De Vaca, after being marooned in the New World and living with the Natives for years in regions all the way from Florida to West Mexico, still though late in life that northern California somehow shared the continent with Asia. He describes the mental geography he had created in his mind after living with the natives thusly.
These people [Southwest Natives] … must come from that part of Greater India, the coast of which lies to the west of this country, for they could have come down from that country, crossing the mountain chains and following down the river… As they multiplied, they have kept on making settlements until they lost the river when it buried itself underground, its course being in the direction of Florida. It [the Rio Grande] comes down from the northeast, where they [Coronado’s army] could certainly have found signs of villages. He [Coronado] preferred, however, to follow the reports of the Turk, but it would have been better to cross the mountains where this river rises. I believe they would have found traces of riches and would have reached the lands from which these people started, which from its location is on the edge of Greater India, although the region is neither known nor understood, because from the trend of the coast it appears that the land between Norway and China is very far up [in the North/Arctic]. The country from sea to sea is very wide, judging from the location of both coasts, as well as from what Captain Villalobos discovered when he went in search of China by the sea to the west, and from what has been discovered on the North Sea concerning the trend of the coast of Florida toward the Bacallaos, up toward Norway.
(The Narrative of Alvara Nunuz Cabeza de Vaca. Ch 6. v. 3)
REWRITE THIS ENTIRELY… The problem, of course, is that these overwhelmingly obvious correlations do not work with Mormon’s ‘narrow neck’, which is said to be north of Zarahemla and Bountiful. (As well as a few radiocarbon dating issues I cover in another section). Because of this, most serious LDS scholars have looked south of the isthmus of Teohuantepec, isthmus of Guatemala, or isthmus of Panama. A correlation which forces one to ignore EVERY major culture in North America apart from the Maya (the Lamanite core in our model). But of course, because essentially ALL the greatest Mayan cities are east of the possible candidates for the River Sidon, as well as significant issues with Moroni’s ‘east sea cities’ (ref), these models must throw out even the largest and most influential Mayan cities from any possible correlation with the Book of Mormon. With our continental model, essentially EVERY significant ancient culture in the North American continent, as well as their largest cities, are part of the Book of Mormon narrative. From the Maya to the Zapotec, Huestec to Mixtec, Teotihuacan and the Mexican Highland to the Toltec and Chichimec to the Ancient Puebloan/Anasazi to the Hopewell. The list goes on and on, of overwhelming correlations between the Book of Mormon text and archaeological ruins, geographic relationships, language relationships, Native American mythologies, settlement patters and more.
Arrival of the Jaredites
Start by talking about how it’s a channeling of a channeling.
The Book of Mormon narrative explains that the Jaredite civilization was the first culture to inhabit North America and the only to coexist with elephants and other megafauna early in their history. (Ether 9:19, Note that for the early Jaredites, these megafauna were ‘especially useful for the food of man’.) It further states that a great dearth or climatological shift caused massive fauna migrations which the people followed, hunting them to extinction. (Ether 9:30,34)
Shouldn’t it be obvious that the only plausible archaeological correlation for the pre-dearth Jaredites is with the North American Paleo-Indians? (C14 dated from between 14,000BC to 7000BC) These were the first inhabitants of North America, and are the only North American cultures to interact with elephants (Mammoth and Mastodon). There are also many other correlations between these cultures but none have seen the similarities because of the difference between carbon dates obtained for these cultures and the dates inferred from the scriptural record.
The cultural center for two of the most notable Paleo-Indian peoples (the Clovis & Folsom) are located in the North American Southwest, which as both the Book of Mormon and our model show, matches with the Nephite land of Desolation.
Although modern scientific consensus is that these groups migrated from Asia to North America across the bearing straights, I believe that the Book of Mormon account of ship travel is equally plausible (given the 40,000 BC in-habitation of Australia). Diverse groups of ‘Jaredites’ spread out to cover North & South America, and I propose also migrating back into Siberia, Asia and parts of Europe.
I also suggest that the Jaredite account, like the Book of Mormon itself, was ‘channeled’ by the ancient author Alma from some ancient record which acted as a talisman or prop. In doing so, the ancient author projected his own biases and beliefs on the Jaredite record in the same way Joseph would have later done with the ‘translation’ (channeling) of the Book of Mormon.
Map of known ancient migrations, overlaid with possible path of Jaredite migration.
Omer and the Bull Brook Complex
As the early Book of Mormon ‘pre-dearth’ period in American prehistory was coming to a close, a small group of families left the core area and settled ‘by the seashore’ directly east of the hill Cumorah (Ether 9:1–13). The group of sites, in and around northeastern Massachusetts, are called the Bull Brook Complex by archaeologists. Clovis points found at several of the sites tie it to the Southwest.
Building on excavations by D.S. Byers in the mid-50s, archaeological societies in the Northeast have pieced together the history of the Bull Brook Complex. Their findings and subsequent analysis have shown the interactions of a system of organized, interdependent groups with specialized work force networks. It is recognized as containing the highest level of social structure in America at that time, which would be expected in a ‘refugee camp’ of the royal household.
As Moroni attests, the next archaeological period saw the rise of a richer and more diversified culture / . The Plano and Early Eastern Archaic Cultures fanned across the continent (S/H: around 1600-1200 BC; A/C: around 8500-6000 BC). Scientists have found the full spectrum of plants and animals corresponding to the days of Emer. See animals in the book of Mormon
Post-Dearth Jaredite Culture (Lib’s Empire & ____)
Moroni’s next exposition on culture comes in the days of Lib (Ether 10:18–28), who is based in the Land Northward [Adena culture of the Ohio Valley] but builds a southern outpost at a ‘Narrow Neck’ [Olmec culture of Mexico]. My corresponding period is labeled by archaeologists as the Middle and Late Archaic. Often indistinguishable from one another, these two cultural periods represent a major advancement over the preceding culture. Again the culture spread across North America from coast to coast. There were villages, agriculture, and widespread trade networks. South of the narrow neck, in the Mexican highland and beyond, the only inhabitants we find are organized hunting parties, which ‘coincidentally’ brought spear points of North American manufacture and style.
Scientists recognize metallurgy from this time period, and copper is the most common metal found. Many fine textiles have also survived from this period. Moroni says they made ‘all manner of tools to till the earth, both to plow and to sow, to reap and to hoe, and also to thrash’. He also says they had, ‘all manner of tools with which they did work their beasts’ (Ether 10:26–27). Most of the tools on this list have been found by archaeologists at sites dating to the Middle and Late Archaic. New weapons were also invented and manufactured, although archaeologists currently view them only as hunting weapons. Another major industry of the Jaredites was wood exploitation. A huge assortment of woodworking tools has been found at archaic period sites across the Nation.
This ‘southern outpost’ built in Mexico, which grew into the Olmec culture, to facilitate trade between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans even captured some trade from Asia. The ‘Jade Masks’ of the Olmec have obvious similarities and cultured ties to Chinese art and Jade work. I believe these ‘Jade Masks’ came from Chinese trade ships and will one day be conclusively tied to Chinese jade mines, and the ‘jade emperor’, through isotope studies. Archaeologists will slowly come to realize that ancient seafaring and trade was more widespread than currently thought.
Olmec & the Fall of the Jaredites
Many Book of Mormon model’s attempt to match the Olmec with the Jaredites. In my model the correlation is more complex with the Olmec matching only the southernmost branch of the late Jaredite civilization; San Lorenzo corresponding to the ‘great city’ which Ether 10:19–28 says Lib built by the narrow neck. The culture that rose from Lib’s city is separate from the Jaredite heartland in the Land of Desolation [Southwest U.S.] as well as Lib’s capital which was likely in the Adena heartland of the Ohio valley (thus the similarities between Adena & Olmec mound structures). The ‘narrow neck’ mentioned in Ether is different from the defensive ‘narrow pass’ between Bountiful and Desolation mentioned by Mormon elsewhere in the Book of Mormon. There is no need for any ‘two Cumorah’ theory and most of the traditional issues with an Olmec/Jaredite correlation are removed.
From as early as the time of Nephi and Jacob, the Nephites of San Jose Mogote [city of Nephi] heavily influence the Olmec. As the Jaredite civilization collapses around 300 BC with the exodus of the elite to join the great Adena war, the new Zapotec/Olmec mix is called Epi-Olmec and is largely defined by the spread of the new Nephite (Zapotec) writing system. Before the Olmec collapse, their influence is seen readily in the early colonies of Izape and Chiapa de Corzo (Lamanite core), San Jose Migote (city of Nephi) and Mexican Highland (Mulekite core). In fact the early mixture of Nephite outliers and Lamanites with the epi-Olmecs sets the stage for the Book of Mormon’s Zoramites, Amalekites, Amulonites and other Nephite dissenters who effectually take control of remnant Olmec cities like Tres Zapotes after the Olmec collapse.
The Amulonite priests (Zapotec/epi-Olmec group of Oaxaca) were likely responsible for appointing teachers who began to train the Maya [Lamanites] in the same language and learning of Zapotec [Lemhites] and Mexican highland people [the Nephites]. With this new education the Maya began to prosper and make many technological advances. The sparsely-populated Mayan lands were soon covered with huge temples and city-centers with art and architecture reminiscent of the Zapotec and epi-Olmec style.
Colonial Arrivals & The Rise of the ‘Epi-Olmec’
In our article on the scattering of Israel, I detail how the Babylonian empire initiated a global colonial movement, matching closely with the European Colonial era 2000 years later.
In our model, colonies started in South America, the Zapotec of San Jose Migote [Nephites], and the Otomangue-speaking people of the Mexican highland [the Mulekites], who brought new and unique pottery & practices to the Americas; in each culture the pottery was already well-developed even at the earliest sites. (These new cultures can often be associated with skewed or erratic carbon dates going as early as 1500-4000 BC) The architecture and burial customs of these groups can easily be tied to the Old World. (Although nothing convincing enough has yet to be found to overturn the predominate belief of American/Eurasian no contact.) Square waddle and daub homes with storage pits in the floor dotted their lands. Their temples and public buildings are extremely similar to those of Egypt and Israel. Subfloor burials and burial positions also match those of the Middle East.
The Land of Nephi
San Jose Migote and the appearance of the 2 room temple and ‘men’s houses’. Also new religion. Find the article on this. The development of a valley separation.
The Move to Zarahemla
At the dawn of the formative period there were several major demographic shifts which set the stage for the developing cultures. First, King Mosiah I and his people left the Land of Nephi [San Jose Migote/Monte Alban] and traveled to early Zarahemla [central Mexico, Likely Cholula at that time] to join the Mulekites (S/H: around 200 BC; A/C: around 1400 BC). This is seen archaeologically as an influx of Mixe-zoquean culture brings new advances to central Mexico, and public buildings begin to appear in the larger villages.
Archeological evidence in the Valley of Mexico also shows the appearance of epi-Olmec influence in sites such as Tlatilco and Tlapacoya. In our research, the early Nephite Zapotecs of Oaxaca effectively merge with the late Olmec [left over Jaredites from Great City of Ether 10:20] and are thus outlier Nephite peoples from before the move to Zarahemla, the late epi-Olmec may also be associated with the Amulonites who enslave the people of Limhi & Alma and build a short lived empire by teaching and exploiting the Lamanites (early Maya).
Zeniff Rebuilds Monte Alban, the City of Nephi
Back in San Jose Mogote [the city of Nephi], the city falls from its preeminence as the ruling elite leave [Moroni I] and those remaining are almost indistinguishable from their epi-Olmec trading partners. Shortly, however, high culture returned to the valley as Zeniff and his people arrive and begin to build anew a fortified city with public buildings and towers overlooking its neighbors [Monte Alban].
The new inhabitants of Monte Alban [people of Zeniff] were an elitist group which maintains strong ties to the Mexican Highland [Zarahemla] for hundreds of years afterward. Initially their culture was very similar to that of central Mexico (from which they had come), but the similarities decreased as time went on and they (the people of Zeniff, now led by King Noah) became extravagant in their prosperity. Lavishness dominates the architecture and material culture of this period. With the influence of Alma the younger, and his companions, and their conversion of Lamoni and his Father (and the expulsion of their loyalists who were likely centered in Mitla), the land eventually becomes a strong trading partner and vassal to Teotihuacan [Zarahemla].
Robert Zeitlin in his book “Questions about Zapotec Imperialism in Formative Period Mesoamerica highlights the research and archaeological evidence that Monte Alban was the center of an early conquest oriented empire. He says, “Recent Archaeological and epigraphic research suggests the existence of what could be Mesoamerica’s first conquest state centered at Monte Alban” (read this talk about how Nephi started the Empire, but when fighting with Mitla got to great they fled. However Monte Alban
Questions about Zapotec Imperialism in Formative Period Mesoamerica: https://www.jstor.org/stable/281646
The emergence of the Zapotec Military State
Give a bunch of quotes and data here.
The evidence for the emergence of the Zapotec military state in the later formative is an AMAZING match to what we expect from the Book of Mormon text after Lemhi abandons
Make a time line chart of events of city of Nephi from first to second abandonment and reoccupation by Lamanites.
See Military Expansion outside the Valley of Oaxaca: (C14 dates on burning of monte alban & surrounding fortresses) https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/208841
Alma 22’s General Geography of Book of Mormon Lands
In Alma 22, we are given perhaps the most comprehensive general overview of Book of Mormon geography…. (he wants us to find it? Go over piece by pieace.
Captain Moroni: Fortifying the Mexican Highland & Mixtec Synoecism
Outline: Although scattered walled or fortified cities occur throughout the mayanlands, perhaps no where in Mesoamerica was it as ubiquitous as the Mixtec & Huestec lands. The string of fortified cities matches perfectly with the ‘backwards L’ laid out in Book of Mormon’s internal geography. But perhaps more impressive is the way that archaeological digs shows these fortifications came about. Authors like x,y & z suggest that warfare likely caused hundreds of hamlets in the Mixtec regions to consolidate into walled hilltop fortresses during the later formative precisely when the book of Mormon says… (get archawolocical quotes and bom quotes)
Mixtec Highland cities in our Manti region like Monte Negro, Huamelupan, Cerro Jazmin, Yucuita, all consolidate around the same time in the late formative. Also cities of the lower Verde Valley like Rio Viejo, Cerro de la Cruz, Yugue and Cerro de la Virgen and San Francisco de Arriba. (add map of all these cities. In the west Cerro de las Mesas was built during this time and is almost certainly associated with the city of Moroni (which was inundated at the death of Christ). La Coyotera & Quiotepec Fortress in the Teuacahn Valley are almost certainly Nephihah and date to right around the time of Moroni. These cities changed hands multiple times and were likely held by the Zapotec/Lamanite regime of Monte Alban more often than the Nephites of Cholula.
These two great nations, the Nephites on the Mexican Plateau and the Lamanites [Maya] in Southern Mexico, Guatemala and Yucatan, began to experience greater conflicts. Foreseeing the coming challenges, Captain Moroni prepared his people and their lands. First, the weak lands were fortified and the southern frontier was strengthened. Hilltop fortifications began to dot southern Mexico in Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Guerrero. Great urban fortresses were created. No wonder Mormon venerated the leadership, courage and vision of Captain Moroni and the manner in which he prepared his people for war.
After Amalickiah’s first attack, a second phase of construction was begun in which fortified cities and hilltop fortresses were built throughout the land of Zarahemla which appears to have stretched from Oaxaca to Jalisco and from southwestern Michoacán to northern Veracruz. Also, the Book of Mormon records Moroni pushing the Lamanites out of the east wilderness and on the west, then building new cities in these areas in order to create a more defensible border. Excavations in southern and western Oaxaca and Guerrero, as well as central Veracruz are now showing such movements of peoples and the construction of new large defensive cities and fortresses.
During the time that fortifications were being built in the Mexican highland, a massive weapons production industry commenced throughout Mesoamerica, both in the Mexican Highland [Zarahemla] and in Maya [Lamanite] lands. To accommodate these war preparations, the peoples of the Mexican Highland [Nephites] made major breakthroughs in agriculture and built massive irrigation systems. From that time forward, urbanization and trade specialization, with accompanying prosperity, enveloped the Nephite lands.
The great war of Moroni’s time, and the wars that followed, are seen archaeologically in demographic and cultural movements of this time period, and in numerous monuments depicting warriors and captives in both Highland Mexico and Maya lands. The Lamanites displaced and jumbled the Nephites numerous times. There was also a great cultural mixing when groups of Lamanites converted to the Nephite religion and went to live among the Nephites, and also when groups became captives. Cities experienced occasional upheavals, but most of them changed hands without noticeable ruin.
War on the east & southern fronts
Add section. Map movements
References.
The People of Ammon in Jershon
Book of Mormon says the people of Ammon were mostly women. After the death of most the men among Ammon’s converts the remaining people buried their swords and fled for refuge among the Nephites. After travelling to Zarahemla they were given the land of Jershon, the location of which was said to be,
…on the east by the sea, which joins the land Bountiful, which is on the south of the land Bountiful; and this land Jershon is the land which we will give unto our brethren for an inheritance. (Alma 27:22)
Later when the armies of Zoramites prepare to battle the people of Ammon (because they had given refuge to the Zoramites who were expelled), the people of Ammon flee “over into the land of Melek” (Alma 35:13).
Our model places the eastern coast cities of Bountiful, Melek, Moroni, Aaron, Nephihah and Jershon on the east Coast of Mexico stretching somewhere between Tampico on the north and Veracruz (or more likely El Tajin) on the south. Many fortified settlements, castles and towers are found within the small stretch of coastline. Among them lies a coincidental correlation between the city of Tamtoc (aka Tamtok) and the people of Ammon.
Although Tamtoc reached its zenith in the late classic, archaeological evidence has determined the city was founded as early as 600 BC by Olmec (Jaredite) peoples. If a correlation to the people of Ammon is to be made, better dating of the mostly female remains would need to be found to fit into a window of closer to 100BC to 200AD. The latter date assuming that the early Book of Mormon women of this community started a legacy of feminine predominance which lasted at least a few centuries after its establishment.
Approximate routes and dates of the proto-Huastec and other Maya-speaking groups
One of the characteristics that distinguish Tamtoc is the remarkable female presence. To date, 90% of the burials discovered there are of women. Furthermore, they are represented in most of the clay and ceramic figurines found here and that are thought to have a high rank in the social division of the community. The sites iconography touts a sculpture of a “priestess” (dated to as early as 600 BC) and “the Scarified Woman or Venus of Tamtoc”, which has been interpreted as glorifying…
Perhaps one of the most striking correlations between this city and the Book of Mormon narrative is the linguistic evidence which suggests that the language of the “Huestec” culture which permeated Tamtoc came from the Putin Maya region of Oaxaca and Southern Mexico (our land of First Inheritance). ref.
Lachoneous and the Founding of Teotihuacan
Just before the time of Christ, the combined guerrilla forces of ‘The Gadianton Robbers’ became so numerous as to warrant an unprecedented sociological experiment. All the people of Nephi temporarily abandoned their cities and moved to a new area in ‘The Land of Zarahemla’ (3 Ne 3:13–23). In our model, the urban city built for these immigrants was the great city of Teotihuacan. The old city of Zarahemla (likely Cholula or Cuicuilco) was too exposed and near the forests where Guerrilla fighters could hide, as well as being threatened by volcanic eruptions. So with hundreds of thousands of refugees and immigrants, what was likely the largest pre-planned city in the world was born. In the middle of a large open defensible valley, Teotihuacan was built with the refugee cultures in mind, with defined quarters for each major culture. The Zapotec from the land of Nephi, the Mixtecs from Gideon, and the Totonac and epi-Olmec from the lands of Melek and Jershon, and even Nahua peoples from the land of Desolation and fleeing Lamanites from the Mayan lands.
The city contains some of the largest structures on earth, with the pyramid of the Sun and Moon rivaling the Great pyramids of Egypt. At its zenith a hundred or so years after the time of Christ there were likely up to 250,000 inhabitants in the 11+ square miles urban area, not counting the many, many satellite communities.
The city would soon come to be the de-facto political and religious capital of Mesoamerica, holding rule and influence of peoples from the Lamanites of Guatemala to Anasazi of Arizona and New Mexico (land of Desolation).
Cataclysms at the Coming of Christ
The Book of Mormon suggests a global reaching cataclysm at the death of Christ, causing large scale destructions to North America and “the isles of the sea” (3 Nephi 8-9, 1 Ne. 19:10–13, Hel 14:20–24, 1 Ne. 19:10) which are contrasted with more the minor phenomena of an earthquake and three hours of darkness in Israel and Eurasia at the same time in the Bible (Matt 27:51–53, Mark 15:33, see also Phlegon, Thallus, Africanus and Tertullian).
Many authors have shown how some of the destructions described in 3 Nephi 8-10 in the Book of Mormon could be attributed to a large volcanic eruption. However, the shear extent of cataclysms in MULITIPLE lands seemingly involved not only volcanic phenomena such as earthquakes, lightning, darkness, tempests and fire from heaven. But also regional tectonic and coastal changes where ‘cites… had been sunk, and waters came up in the stead thereof [which]… could not be renewed” (4 Ne 1:9). As also unprecedented tectonic changes to some degree which caused the “whole face of the land [to be] changed” (3 Ne 8:12), wherein the “highways were broken up” (v.13) and “many notable cities” were sunk, burned, shaken to the ground and left desolate (v14), with mountains and valleys left in their place (Hel 8:23). In one instance the texts states that the “earth was carried up upon the city… that in [its] place there became a great mountain” (3 Ne 11:10). This language is quite different from what one might expect from landslides or volcanic ash flows where earth would be carried down upon a city.
Such overwhelming natural disaster reminds one of the mythical tales of destruction common in historical literature and are nearly ubiquitous in Mesoamerican codices involving their gods and cultural heroes (ref). Reasonably, one must accept the possibility that Book of Mormon authors used hyperbole and mythical embellishment in their records to explain the destructions which preceded the coming of Christ to America.
If, however, we would seek to take the Book of Mormon text at face value and propose a literal, unembellished nature to these destructions, we must become inventive in our theories and turn to what we know of astronomical physics to suggest a few possibilities. Many authors have suggested a simple volcanic eruption, which of course falls short of the kind of widespread global darkness, volcanic, atmospheric and tectonic destruction described in the text. Instead, we must find a mechanism which could cause global darkness and seismic activity and widespread volcanism, yet affecting one hemisphere far greater than the other—and likely a correlation or relationship to a ‘new star’ appearing some 30 years earlier.
The most likely suspect would be some type of pulsar or large supernova at Christ’s birth, which in turn knocked local cosmic debris into the path of earth causing an asteroid impact to hit the Pacific Ocean some distance off the West Coast of Northern Mexico just after His death. This atmospheric and seismic waves from this impact (as well as a possible accompanying CME from solar impacts) then was responsible for the simultaneous atmospheric and tectonic cataclysms mentioned in the Book of Mormon, ancient Mesoamerican codices the Bible and early Christian historians (Phlegon, Thallus, Africanus and Tertullian).
The effects of such an event have been modeled to show that it could indeed account for many of the destructions described in the Book of Mormon. Galen Gisler and scientist at Los Alamos laboratories have created a visualization which shows.
-supernova, pulsar, asteroid, MOON hit, and tidal effect on both water & land/tectonic shift. Use this study/visualization by Galen Gisler at LANL & los Alamos … awesome! https://gizmodo.com/heres-what-would-happen-if-a-giant-asteroid-struck-the-1790084340 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95z0qRNFFxs use this in your videos and presentations! Make an image, to put in book (with notes explaining the tsunami, seismic waves, atmospheric compression waves, heat wave and water vapor. Also radiocarbon introduction & production in ocean & atmosphere.
Not hard to believe given Meteor Crater Arizona (dated to 50,000 BP) and Sirente crater Italy, dated to 412 AD, or the Tunguska event
2 Simulation of an asteroid impact over the ocean done by Galen Gisler and scientist at Los Alamos labs. Finding show that tsunami danger is not as large as before suspected, but significant danger exists from seismic waves (if contact is made with ocean floor), atmospheric compression waves, atmospheric heat wave and ejected water vapor. Weather disruption is inevitable. Our model also theorize substantial radiocarbon production and a lasting marine reservoir exchange downwind from the affected ocean water.
-be sure to hit the idea that the pre-Christ land of desolation would have been DESTROYED by the west coast tidal waves in the scenario. Also that it would affect radiocarbon dates…
[You need to make an illustration showing radiocarbon spike of BOTH the atmosphere and ocean area, and show on the graph lines correlation what 4 points on the line would do to correlated dates—on both the up and down (atmospheric up would be instantaneous, marine carbon exchange would be gradual up and down. And point out that nuc tests increased CO14 100%! Even a 20% increase would mean a date adjustment of ___ years. (calculate it). Put it next to the graph of what nuclear testing did. Note its different that marine reservoir effect, which has to do with eating marine animals, the marine exchange is when high atmospheric levels are absorbed into surface waters (and worked deeper), and then recursively contaminate atmospheric carbon levels for possibly hundreds of years even after the atmospheric levels have mixed back to normal (a process only taking 100 years or so, as seen with 20th century atmospheric nuclear testing)]WORK IN? In our model, we put forward two theories to explain the cataclysms at the death of Christ mentioned in the text. The first involves a massive astronomical event such as a supernova or pulsar (seen as a ‘new star’) began a chain reaction of plasma and debris which reached earth around 34 AD. This massive plasma stream and debris in turn caused meteorites, as well as a possible impact large enough to cause very slight changes in the earth’s angular momentum (see nutation or ‘chandler wobble’) which was responsible for driving a pulse of increased flex and subduction pressure on the Pacific, Cocos and Nazca Plates at the time of Christ. This minor tectonic pulse event initiated an unprecedented earthquake, widespread volcanism, orogenic movement and thrusting which were recorded in the Book of Mormon as regional destructions in both their land Northward and Southward.
Radiocarbon Dates & The Mayan Calendar
OULINE OF SECTION
-two possibilities of why things don’t line up. ONE is radiocarbon dates are wrong. TWO is that Mormon & moroni made a mistake in their timeline. There is good evidence of both.
-The dates of ‘record keepers’, in 4 Nephi/Mormon 1 would require each person to live to preposterously old ages; and moreso, to sire children at absurdly old ages. Note that about 110 years after Christ’s coming Nephi gives the record to his son “Amos” (4 Ne 1:19–21), who keeps it for 84 years before dying in 194 AD! Since we know Nephi was old enough to take charge of the Church at Christ’s coming we can suppose he was between 25-40 at Christ’s coming in 34 AD. This means that he would have had to been at least 100 years old when he gave the records to his young son Amos who then lives at least another 84 years himself before dying. So if Amos was 12-20 when he got the records, Nephi would have had to father him at the ripe old age of at least 80-88 years of age!
This gets worse in the next generation as Mormon writes in 4 Ne 1:47 that Amos dies in 308 AD and gives the record to his brother Ammaron. But this doesn’t work at all since 4 Ne. 1:20 told us Amos kept the record 84 years (after about 110 AD) which should put us around 194 AD when Amos gives up the record and dies. So we have at least 114 years unaccounted for. Because of this discrepancy, some have speculated that Amos had a son which the text does not mention, who was also named Amos, so Mormon is simply talking about 2 different Amos’s. However, even this theory would require Amos I having Amos II at over 100 years old! This leads us to draw a more natural conclusion that there was simply a “break” in the record which Mormon glosses over in order to make sense of the “400 year prophesy” and his belief that he lived around 400 years after Christ.
However, what if there were TWO Quetzalcoatl’s? Many archaeologists and Mesoamerican historians believe that a King took over the title Lord Quetzalcoatl nearly 700 years after Ixtloltalx tells us that the true Lord Quetzalcoatl came…. finish
Our model suggests two possible reasons for why the dates for the collapse of the continent doesn’t line up….
[MAKE AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE SIMILARITIES….]-Both have a start date known to be somewhere around 3-4,000 BC. (the Hebrew calendar ‘Ano Mundi’ is currently believed to be 7 October 3761 BCE, although some ancient scholar placed it as early as 4500? BC. The Mayan calendar also has an ano mundi start date. I originally had several theorized start dates, ranging from xxx to yyyy (ref). With radiocarbon dating (ref) it was placed at 3114 BCE, but by putting it closer to the accepted ‘Hebrew Calendar’s start date of 3761 BCE, the Stella dates seem to ‘coincidentally’ ALL fall into the window of Book of Mormon history (reword).
-They both use a type of ‘Jubilee’ year of remarkably similar duration. 49/50 years in the case of the Hebrew Calendar and 52 year ‘Haab’ in the case of the
-They both also have a lunar calendar of ‘weeks of the moon’, which realigns with the solar calendar every ~70 years (52 Haabʼ cycles of 365 days equals 73 Tzolkʼin cycles of 260 days: or 520 years) Is AMAZINGLY similar to the biblical calendar given in Daniel/etc where 10×49 Jubilees equals 70×7 Sabbaticals (490 years). NOTE Ixtlilxochitl says one epock is 520 years which is 5 ages (10×52 yr cycles)
-They both have an important cycle of 40 (for maya its 20 or a ‘score’). Using columns it ends up being 7 columns of 40 (for 260 completion) and 10 columns of 40 (for 360 day completion). See- https://youtu.be/1qLraLs8Y14?t=714
Just like in Egyptian archaeology, We might assume that archaeologist were once again misled to using an incorrect date to the beginning of the Mayan calendar. Their C14 dates leading them to utilize a date of 3114 BCE, when in fact the correct date is something far closer to the beginning of the Jewish calendar of 7 October 3761 BCE. This would put their long count dates off by approximately 647 (~650) years! Thus the earliest dates of 36 BCE at Chiapa de Corzo and Tres Zapotes would actually be a date of 683 BC (Putting us in the neighborhood for Mesopotamian colonization. Perhaps marking yet ANOTHER middle eastern group coming to the New World after the Assyrian regional wars.) This would also put some of the latest dates closer to 400 AD? (find some of the latest dates)
3 Changes in atmospheric and oceanic radiocarbon caused by nuclear testing. by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
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The Golden Age of Zion
Major population centers
As the ash settled, a new culture spread across the land. In some ways, this new culture was more monolithic; in other ways it was more diverse. Throughout the Americas a new two-room temple replaced varying former styles. A utopia of peace and prosperity is spoken of in legends. There is less evidence of weapons being used at this time, and the murals, figurines, and architecture show designs of nature, lines of symmetry and harmony, and displays of pleasant animals and domestic life. Gone are all signs of a military elite, governmental force, and coercion. The Hopewell, the Anasazi, the Mogollon, Teotihuacan, and the Maya; continent-wide the traits are the same. The great peace resulting ‘because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people’ (4 Nephi 1:15).
The people were united in righteousness, yet at the same time, the culture became more diverse, as the focus turned from making a profit to making quality products and upholding the ideals of family and community. Local artisans replaced the mass-production and expansive trade networks of the preceding period. Thus there was no need to travel extensively ‘on business,’ so people could spend more time with their families. Family gardens replaced mass-produced food. People ate a greater variety of food, but their food was of more local origin. Analysis of skeletons shows that the people were healthier and enjoyed longer life spans than during the preceding period. The arts flowered during this period. The number and variety of musical instruments greatly increased. Pottery and other goods became more useful and more beautiful, and less ornamental and extravagant. A much greater variety of artifacts is found, but in much smaller quantities than before, and with much less waste. The prosperity was great throughout all of the Americas and in all areas of human development, ‘because of their prosperity in Christ’ (4 Nephi 1:23).
In the early classic period the church became very wealthy. The people donated their time and skills to the creation and maintenance of beautiful temples and public centers. The population exploded, but at the same time, the cities became less dense as the communities were reorganized and the people spread out across the land. Even the biggest ‘cities’ were only lightly populated, yet they contained ceremonial centers and public buildings large enough to accommodate all the people of the surrounding villages. Social classes disappeared, yet the standard of living increased everywhere; And ‘they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God’ (4 Nephi 1:17).
The Land of Desolation
There is no other region in North America which matches so perfectly the Book of Mormon’s description of the land of Desolation than the desert southwest and its ancient Puebloan cultures. From its desolate, treeless landscape to its ubiquitous use of cement, rock and adobe to build its ‘houses, cities, temples and synagogues’ (Helaman 3:9), there is simply not a single aspect of
- Extensive trade and cultural integration with Mesoamerica. With over 200 Mesoamerican ball courts in the region, as well as caged McCaw found in Paquime, countless shells from the West Mexican coast and overwhelming use of Mesoamerican Cocoa and Agave.
- Even into colonial times the predominate travel and trade corridor from the desert southwest into the Mesoamerican lands went through the ‘Narrow Pass’ or 15-20 mile wide narrow coastal zone of West Mexico between the narrow sea of Cortez and the sharply raising Sierra Madre Occidental mountains. (In fact, the identical names of the mountains, and the impassible nature of the Mapimi Basin between, gives evidence to the idea that the natives believed the east and west Sierra Madre Mountains were one and the same. Creating a mountainous ‘narrow neck of land’ between the Southwest and Mesoamerican cultures. With ‘narrow coastal passes’ of about 15-20 miles or a days journey on either side)
- The most extensive use of ‘cement’ (Helaman 3:9) or adobe on the continent. Also directly next to the region with the most extensive use of ‘tents’ (ref) or teepees on the continent.
- The Southwest Kivas are likely the most widespread evidence of local religious rooms or ‘synagogues or sanctuaries’ (Helaman 3:9) in North America.
- Widespread evidence of war, massacre and cannibalism. (see Moroni x;z)
- Mosiah Hancock even quotes Joseph Smith as saying the desert southwest was ‘where the Nephites lost their power’. (ref)
- When a tree would spring up, they would preserve it.
- The ‘Las Trincheras’ Line of defenses from Sonoran coast to Paquime. Exactly what we’d expect after the treaty made with the Lamanites (ref).
- Overwhelming evidence of warfare, massacre, regional burning, cannibalism and even towers and heaps of earth with dead bodies and remains (refs). Exactly what might be expected from a massive
Could there be any better match to what the Book of Mormon says about the land of Desolation than that of the Desert Southwest of the U.S. and Northwest Mexico?
5 Yea, and even they did spread forth into all parts of the land, into whatever parts it had not been rendered desolate and without timber… And now no part of the land was desolate, save it were for timber; because of the greatness of the destruction of the people who had before inhabited the land it was called desolate…
9 And the people who were in the land northward did dwell in tents, and in houses of cement, and they did suffer whatsoever tree should spring up upon the face of the land that it should grow up, that in time they might have timber to build their houses, yea, their cities, and their temples, and their synagogues, and their sanctuaries, and all manner of their buildings.
10 And it came to pass as timber was exceedingly scarce in the land northward, they did send forth much by the way of shipping.
11 And thus they did enable the people in the land northward that they might build many cities, both of wood and of cement.
Note what southwest archaeologist, Allen Denoyers, writes about the construction of Hohokam and other ancestral Puebloans of the Southwest. “They wouldn’t pull out the plants [trees]. which grew along side of the [sic] River which provided [sic] willows, for the necessary wall and roof support, for the Hohokam pit house, instead they would cut the plant and it would grow back the next year and more homes could then be built. And… the wood was carried a great distance, climbing into the Catalina Mountains and carrying it many miles home.” This practice was fairly ubiquitous in the desolate landscape of the Southwest, where pit houses and Great Houses alike competed for scarce trees which grew only along river channels and in near-by Mountains. (Reference: https://southwestphotojournal.com/tag/honey-bee-village/)
The Collapse of Classic Ancient American Civilization
The peace was not to stay. Midway through the Classic social classes appeared again. An extravagant upper class emerged; churches began to decorate their temples with riches; idol worship commenced; mass production and long distance trade networks appeared. Gambling, tattoos, body-piercing, and drugs became vogue, enveloping society. The gods and culture of the Pre-Classic Maya returned in places and Teotihuacan responded by exercising harsh dominion. Wars spread across the land. Soon two distinct super-powers emerged: the Quetzalcoatl Cult centered at Teotihuacan and the Jaguar Cult of southern Yucatan. Mayan frescos paint the conflicts. In Maya lands they portray early local victories. As the Jaguar Cult grew in numbers and power they began conquering Central Mexico: at Xochicalco archaeologists have found a mural depicting the Eagle Warriors of the Jaguar Cult crushing the feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl. It dates to just before Teotihuacan was abandoned.
War moved in succession from Teotihuacan to the Chichimec lands, to the coast of West Mexico, then north across a ‘narrow ecological strip’ in the Sierra Madre Occidental to the Southwest. The amazing burst of economic activity in the Anasazi lands followed, corresponding with the build-up of the Toltec Kingdom and the evacuation of the upper class in Maya lands. Then came the great slaughter. Starting in the south and moving north the entire Southwest was desolated. Smaller sites were abandoned and great defensive cities were built but to no avail. Archaeologists find site after site burnt, abandoned, or covered with unburied bodies. The destruction is staggering. It moved to a line of sites from Mesa Verde, Colorado to Albuquerque, New Mexico but then these too were abandoned. Then the entire Midwest was abandoned and the Mississippian culture collapsed.
Archaeologists are at a loss to explain why these cultures collapsed. Drought is a common (but poor) explanation, but evidence of war is present although often ignored or explained away. We believe the social fabric of these cultures was destroyed as the Lamanite armies chased the Nephites from the Valley of Mexico, to the American Southwest, and finally up the Ohio arm of the Mississippi (the main travel corridor) to its end in the Land of Cumorah in Western New York.
The Land of Cumorah and the Final Battle
This paper might be one of the best I’ve found so far in mapping funerary mound complexes in New England. Note carefully in the text where it talks about skull fragments being common in the Allegeny complex area, and Adena Points being common in the Pittsburgh mound cluster. (Likely the Jaredite battle was in the Pittsburgh area?). Be sure to talk about how radiocarbon dates in the east vary in older or newer dates depending on the way the weather patterns came. If they came from the pacific, the dates would be diluted like the Anasazi, but if they came from the gulf or Atlantic, they’d be more accurate. So just like the mayanlands we get bimodal dates. (this will be proven or disproven by the presence of ‘anomalous’ dates and sequences in sites known to have many layers inhabited over long periods.
The Caneadea Mound: A Look At The Middle Woodland Period In The Northeast by Steven Paul Howard ….. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=osu1419266234&disposition=inline
-should hold that the actual final battle scene, much like the part of Zarahemla under the ash, is being held in reserve to be found only after the end of the times of the gentiles.
Under Construction:
Summary of strong evidences for the Continental Geographic Model correlation:
-It is the ONLY model that closely matches with the view of Joseph Smith & other contemporary early LDS leaders.
– It is really the only model which matches well with early Spanish chronologist like Ixtlilxochitl, which place the Mexican Highland (especially the Cholula region) as the place of Quetzalcoatl’s coming as well as the place of the mythical seven caverns, and golden culture of Tollan.
- Beginning of Egyptian style hieroglyphic writing and stone pyramids to replace the mounds and early Olmec script. 2. Monte Alban and its two room temple, alter, towers overlooking neighboring lands, new religious social structure, division of the valley, 3. Cholula/Teotihuacan/Tula matching Zarahemla as the most populous and influential population center in North America. 4a. Destructions4. The destruction of every major culture on the continent.
-mammoths and ‘ate them all’.
-Monte Alban 1. Earliest writing, 2. Social stratification. 3. Two room temple and alters, 4. Tower that could see an adjoining kingdom 5. Prison.
-Cholula. A great match for Zarahemla. 1. Largest temple complex on Earth. And one of the largest cities of pre-Aztec Mesoamerica. 2. Many ancient codices name it as the place of the seven caverns and the birth place of the Tolteca or Mesoamerican mother culture. 3. A suburb is still to this day called Zerexotla (Zera-hem-la vs. Zere-xot-la) 4. Eruption of Popocatepetl around the time of Christ buried the nearby city of Tetimpa in Ash, and thus very likely could have set fire to Cholula, and been part of the impetus for the growth of Teotihuacán. 5. It is just east of our River Sidon (rio Balsas), and the hill/volcan Malinche makes a perfect setting for hill –Amnu–? 6. The book of Mormon consistently refers to the LAND of Zarahemla as ‘down’, but NEVER refers to the city of Zarahemla as down (in fact says ‘up’ to the city, matching perfectly as Cholula is the population center on the edge of the Balsas Basin where many corn was domesticated.
-PROMBLEMS WITH RADIOCARBON DATING. 775 AD event. Marine reservoir exchange. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/774%E2%80%93775_carbon-14_spike
Great paper on it found here. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GL074208
Tree ring dating. (Find references here https://creation.com/evidence-for-multiple-ring-growth-per-year-in-bristlecone-pines)
(see txt file ‘anomalous old c14 dates in archaeology papers folder in drive)
-Caractors Document and Fernando Ixtlalapa are amazing proofs of BOM. But only prove my model a bit, so maybe put those at end? (
Main complex of Teotihuacan. The Nephite capital after Lachoneus moved it circa 17 AD.
The Narrow Neck as Baja and the Sea of Cortez
/in Archaeology/by MormonBoxBook of Mormon accounts are always “BY” the narrow neck, never ON the narrow neck.
“Where the sea divides the land”, NOT where the land divides the sea
Narrow Passes are never said to be ON the narrow neck .
Summary: all Book of Mormon references to the narrow neck & passes
NARROW PASSES
34 And it came to pass that [Moroni] did not head [Morianton] until they had come to the borders of the land Desolation; and there they did head them, by the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward, yea, by the sea, on the west and on the east. (Alma 50:34)9 And [Moroni] also sent orders unto [Teancum] that he should fortify the land Bountiful, and secure the narrow pass which led into the land northward, lest the Lamanites should obtain that point and should have power to harass them on every side. (Alma 52:9)
6 And the Nephites and the armies of Moronihah were driven even into the land of Bountiful; 7 And there they did fortify against the Lamanites, from the west sea, even unto the east [sea or mountain?]; it being a day’s journey for a Nephite, on the line which they had fortified and stationed their armies to defend their north country.(Hel 4:6–7)
29 And the Lamanites did give unto us the land northward, yea, even to the narrow passage which led into the land southward. And we did give unto the Lamanites all the land southward. (Mormon 2:29)
5 And it came to pass that I did cause my people that they should gather themselves together at the land Desolation, to a city which was in the borders, by the narrow pass which led into the land southward. 6 And there we did place our armies, that we might stop the armies of the Lamanites, that they might not get possession of any of our lands; therefore we did fortify against them with all our force. (Mormon 3:5–6)
NARROW NECK
5 And it came to pass that Hagoth, he being an exceedingly curious man, therefore he went forth and built him an exceedingly large ship, on the borders of the land Bountiful, by the land Desolation, and launched it forth into the west sea, by the narrow neck which led into the land northward. (Alma 63:5)30 And it bordered upon the land which they called Desolation, it being so far northward that it came into the land which had been peopled and been destroyed, of whose bones we have spoken, which was discovered by the people of Zarahemla, it being the place of their first landing. 31 And they came from there up into the south wilderness. Thus the land on the northward was called Desolation, and the land on the southward was called Bountiful, it being the wilderness which is filled with all manner of wild animals of every kind, a part of which had come from the land northward for food. 32 And now, it was only the distance of a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite, on the line Bountiful and the land Desolation, from the east to the west sea; and thus the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were nearly surrounded by water, there being a small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward. 33 And it came to pass that the Nephites had inhabited the land Bountiful, even from the east unto the west sea, and thus the Nephites in their wisdom, with their guards and their armies, had hemmed in the Lamanites on the south, that thereby they should have no more possession on the north, that they might not overrun the land northward. (Alma 22:32–33)
19 …And in the days of Lib the poisonous serpents were destroyed. Wherefore they did go into the land southward, to hunt food for the people of the land, for the land was covered with animals of the forest. And Lib also himself became a great hunter. 20 And they built a great city by the narrow neck of land, by the place where the sea divides the land. 21 And they did preserve the land southward for a wilderness, to get game. And the whole face of the land northward was covered with inhabitants. (Ether 10:20–21)
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Overview
I believe many of the best correlations between the Book of Mormon’s internal geography and modern archaeological findings have been missed or passed over by Book of Mormon geographers almost exclusively because of misunderstandings surrounding the ‘Narrow Neck of Land’ mentioned in the text. Although it’s easy to see how the language of Alma 22 may give the impression that the ‘narrow passes’ mentioned in the Book of Mormon are ON the narrow neck which an isthmus separating the Land Northward & Southward– a close examination of the text allows for a different unique interpretation. In this article, we’ll go through each verse relating to the Book of Mormon narrow neck to make a case that it is actually the Baja California peninsula, which in ancient times, and even among early Spanish authors, served as the predominate geographic delineator between the inhabitants of the ‘Bountiful’ and ‘Desolate’ narrow passes of Sinaloa and Sonora west Mexico. Much the same way as the Rio Grande river and Sonoran desert serves as the main delineator between the United States and Mexico in our day. Following are just a few of the reasons why a correlation between the narrow neck and the Baja peninsula seem to be the best fit to the text.
- Joseph Smith seems to have believed that the land of Desolation was the desert Southwest & Eastern plains areas of the United States with Bountiful & Zarahemla in Meso/Central America (see this article). Since Desolation bordered the narrow neck, ONLY a Baja Narrow Neck can makes his model work!
- Not a single occurrence in the Book of Mormon is said to happen ON the narrow neck. Instead all mentions of it are in regard to being BY the narrow neck. (see Alma 50:34, Alma 63:5, Mormon 3:5–6, Ether 10:20). Not a SINGLE verse in the Book of Mormon references Bountiful or Desolation as being ON the Narrow Neck, which we would expect if traditional Tehuantepec models were correct.
- The language in Ether 10:20 (and possibly Alma 63:5) seems to suggest a large inlet or gulf of the sea “which divides the land”, and “leads into the land northward”, NOT necessarily an isthmus of land which divides the sea and leads to the land northward.
- The given widths of the ‘narrow passes’ mentioned in the Book of Mormon are FAR less than any Mesoamerican Isthmuses. (because of this, traditional Tehantepec models also suggest that the ‘narrow passes’ are not the same as the ‘narrow neck’, but coastal passes on or near it. (Alma 50:34, Alma 52:9, Alma 63:5, Mormon 2&3)
- None of these passes are said to go from ‘the east sea to west sea’. And none are actually mentioned in conjunction with a ‘narrow neck’. Instead, the one north of the city of Bountiful sounds like a spitbar or something extremely narrow with ocean “on the east and on the west” (Alma 50:34), and the other specifies that it goes only from the ‘east unto the west sea‘.
- If the ‘narrow pass’ of Alma 52:9 were an isthmus north of Zarahemla, then the statement regarding fortifying a short section or line of it so the Lamanites cant “harass Zarahemla on every side”‘ makes little sense. It makes far better sense as a narrow coastal pass which is in-line with Zarahemla such as the Xalapa pass of Veracruz, directly east of my model’s Zarahemla.
- If the narrow neck were an isthmus, it seems strange that the city of Bountiful or any other east coast city south of the east narrow pass of Alma 52:9 are not mentioned in regard to Nephite retreat and final battles of Mormon chapters 1-7.
- By far, the best archaeological correlation for the truly urban portrayal of the land of Zarahemla in Book of Mormon times (200 BC to 300 AD) is the Teotihuacan/Cholula area of the Mexican highland. But this region is largely ignored by Book of Mormon geographers because it is NORTH of Mesoamerica’s isthmuses. (see this interview of Michael Coe on Book of Mormon urbanization here)
- Early Mesoamerican historians like Ixlilxochitl and other Toltec historians also often mention ancient travel along an “arm of the sea” when describing the Toltec journey from their Land Northward (North America?) to their land Southward (Valley of Mexico). Their descriptions of Baja and the West Mexico Corridor of Xalisco, sound a lot like the Book of Mormon’s Narrow Neck of sea.
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Joseph Smith on the Land of Desolation
On two, and possibly three occurrences, Joseph Smith is directly quoted by a first hand source as stating that the Book of Mormon Land of Desolation extended from the desert Southwest to the Great Plains of North America. This region is of course, one of the more obvious geographical candidates for a region where the text claims the people “did dwell in tents [teepees/wigwams], and in houses of cement [adobe/rock]” because it was one of the only North America desolate desert regions especially having “but little timber” (Hel 3:6–9). It also happens to be directly north of Mexico’s most ‘Bountiful’ population corridor which stretches from Guadalajara through Mexico City to Vera Cruz where more than half of Mexico’s population lives.
Although of late recounting, Mosiah Hancock gives a first hand account of Joseph Smith saying,
The next day the Prophet came to our home [and said,] ‘Now’, he said, ‘I will show you the travels of this people’. ‘You will build cities to the North and to the South’… ‘and you will have to go to where the Nephites lost their power… Placing his finger on the map, I should think about where Snowflake, Arizona is situated, or it could have been Mexico, he said.’ (Mosiah Hancock, Autobiography, 1834-1865 BYU Special Collections, full account available here. Original)
Levi Hancock, early friend of Joseph, member of Seventy and Council of fifty quotes Joseph Smith as saying to member of Zions Camp that the land of Desolation extended into the Great Plains.
Joseph Smith addressing himself to Sylvester Smith and said, “This is what I told you and now I want to tell you that you may know what I meant. This land [of western Missouri] was called the land of desolation and Onedages was the King and a good man was he. There in that mound did he bury his dead (Autobiography of Levi Hancock (1803-1882), pg. 27 – emphasis added. Original)
Both these quotes fall in line with Joseph’s well known support of a continental model for the Book of Mormon. But since the Book of Mormon clearly states that the Land of Desolation bordered the narrow neck, ONLY a Baja Narrow Neck can makes his model work! (see Alma 22:32–33, Alma 50:34, Alma 63:5)
Nothing in the Book of Mormon actually happens ON the Narrow Neck
It’s somewhat odd that in all the Book of Mormon accounts of occurrences in the Land of Desolation of things happening in association with the ‘narrow neck’, nothing ever happens ON the narrow neck. Instead its always explained as occurring BY the narrow neck. (Likewise the Narrow Passes are never said to be ON the Narrow Neck, but instead only BY it.)
Take Ether 10:20–21 for instance. Many Mesoamerican models attempt to equate the Jaredites almost exclusively with Olmecs living on the isthmus of Tehuantepec. But note the wording of the text for the Jaredite Narrow Neck spoken of in conjunction with Lib’s city. It isn’t built ON the narrow neck of land, but BY the narrow neck of land, BY a place where the sea divides or cuts into the land. (suggesting some kind of deep bay or inlet). And remember, the Jaredite heartland of Moron was said to be near (not on or in) “the land which is called Desolation by the Nephites” (Ether 7:6). It’s not in Bountiful or Desolation, but near Desolation, and Lib’s city is mentioned as if it’s a newly colonized area.
20 And [Lib and his people] built a great city by the narrow neck of land, by the place where the sea divides the land (Ether 10:20)
Does that wording really sound like an isthmus? Or does it sound more like the ‘narrow neck of land’ a geographic identifier representing a truly narrow neck of land / sea inlet like the Sea of Cortez & Baja Peninsula? This reading makes even more sense when we apply it to Alma 63:5 where Hagoth is said to build and launch his boat BY the Narrow Neck and yet still in the borderland of Bountiful near the Land Desolation.
5 …therefore [Haggoth] went forth and built him an exceedingly large ship, on the borders of the land Bountiful, by the land Desolation, and launched it forth into the west sea, by the narrow neck [of sea or land?] which led into the land northward. (Alma:63:5)
Again it’s unclear whether the Narrow Neck here is referring to a narrow neck of ‘land’, as in Ether 10, or a narrow neck of sea, which would actually make more sense given the context of Haggoth launching his boat.
Either way this makes little sense in relation to an isthmus like Tehuantepec, as launching south of it into the West Sea (Pacific) does not really provide much of a shortcut into the ‘land northward’ which is said to be an ‘exceedingly far distance’ and have large bodies of water and homes made of cement for lack of trees (Hel 3:4–11). It does however make a lot of sense if this is talking about the same ‘place where the water divides (cuts into) the land’ of Ether, which provides a travel corridor to take people from the mouth of the Rio Grande de Santiago in West Mexico, up the sea of Coretz to the Colorado River and into the Arizona, New Mexico, Sonora and all the regions of the ancient Puebloan people in the Desert Southwest.
The ‘Narrow Passes’ don’t go from sea to sea and are NEVER said to be ON the Narrow Neck
It’s also interesting to notice that most the time when Mormon speaks of the entire width of the land or region he lived on, he usually uses the descriptive phrase “from east sea to the west sea“
-“divided from the land of Zarahemla by a narrow strip of wilderness, which ran from the sea east even to the sea west…” (Alma 22:27)
-“cover the face of the whole earth, from the sea south to the sea north, from the sea west to the sea east…” (Hel 3:8)
But when he refers to Desolation or Bountiful on the Book of Mormon’s “Narrow Neck”, he only specifically mentions ONE sea. Almost like the ancient author might THINK it’s an isthmus of sorts, but tries to stick to the wording of the maps & texts he’s copying which NEVER clearly say “from the east sea to the west sea” as they did with other parts of the land. Instead its always explained in terms of a pass on only one sea, with an ambiguous reference to the other.
-“distance of a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite, on the line Bountiful and the land Desolation, from the east to the west sea…” (Alma 22:32)
-“fortify against the Lamanites, from the west sea, even unto the east; it being a day’s journey for a Nephite, on the line which they had fortified…” (Hel 4:7)
The Eastern ‘pass’ in particular sounds as though it’s more complex than often thought. In Alma 34, a land border dispute between the people of the lands of Lehi & Morianton leads to the people of Morianton’s flight from the southern East Coast to the Land Northward. Although we don’t know how far the people of Morianton made it on their flight northward, we are told that a Nephite army “stops their flight… by the narrow pass which led by the sea… on the west and on the east”. A peculiar wording that seems to suggest an very narrow pass like a passable spit bar or something extremely thin with obvious and visible sea on both the east and west.
34 And it came to pass that they did not head them until they had come to the borders of the land Desolation; and there they did head them, by the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward, yea, by the sea, on the west and on the east. (Alma 50:34)
or
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The width of the ‘Narrow Passes’ are FAR less than Mesoamerican Isthmuses
Note that in the two examples of distances given in the Book of Mormon for the width of these passes we have a day or day and a half’s journey. Much as in the works of early Spanish codices transcribers like Ixlilxochitl, distances are always expressed in days instead of linear measurements. And although some debate exists on the distance of a day’s journey, Ixlilxochitl and most scholars place it at around 15 miles. Compare then the day and a half’s journey of Alma 22:32 and the days journey of Hel 4:6–7 (15-27 miles) to the shortest distances across Isthmuses like Tehuantepec (125 miles) or the Isthmus of Guatemala (160 miles) or even the narrowest part of the Isthmus of Darian in Panama (36 miles) and we see the problem with associating the Narrow Neck with these locations.
Even if we suggest the ‘defensive lines of Hel 4:6–7 and Alma 22:32 are simply fortified passes ON the Narrow Neck or Isthmus we still run into a MAJOR problem in all these locations, as NONE of them have defined narrow coastal passes on both sides which are 15-27 miles wide! The Northern coastal plain of Tehuantepec for instance is 50-60 miles wide! (Putting aside the fact that Tehuantepec’s passes face north and south, not east and west as the text suggests.
A place that DOES have easily fortifiable narrow coastal passes which span between the sea and steep mountain chains is northwest and northeast Mexico between the Sierra Madre Occidental, Oriental and the sea. These passes also lie directly north of Mexico’s most agriculturally ‘bountiful’ and populated region and directly south of the Sonoran desert where the landscape turns ‘desolate’, and where Joseph Smith said the land of desolation was!
In my continental model, rather than being oddities, each of these phrases end up being a truly specific description of different aspects of the ‘narrow neck’ area, which I interpret as Baja California, the Gulf of Baja or Sea of Cortez, and the narrow coastal passes between the Sierra Madre Occidental and Oriental and the east and west seas. This interpretation comes not only because it matches perfectly with the archaeology, and is really the only way to make a continental model of Book of Mormon lands which matches with both the text and early LDS prophetic statements. But also from noticing the overwhelming inclusion of the sea of Cortez in the histories and mythologies of the Aztec and other Mesoamerican cultures in the writings of early Aztec/Spanish historians like Ixlilxochtl.
In Modern times we separate the two regions of North America & Mesoamerica by the U.S./Mexican Border and the desolate central Mapimi depression/Chihuahua Desert of North Mexico. However, in both colonial and Book of Mormon times, when nearly all travel was along the West Mexico Coast, the two perhaps were colloquially separated in the minds of natives by Baja and the narrow neck of sea (the sea of Cortez & Baja), which ran parallel to a large desolate region of deserts (desolation).
Summary: all Book of Mormon references to the narrow neck & passes
34 And it came to pass that they did not head them until they had come to the borders of the land Desolation; and there they did head them, by the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward, yea, by the sea, on the west and on the east. (Alma 50:34)
9 And he also sent orders unto him that he should fortify the land Bountiful, and secure the narrow pass which led into the land northward, lest the Lamanites should obtain that point and should have power to harass them on every side. (Alma 52:9)
5 And it came to pass that Hagoth, he being an exceedingly curious man, therefore he went forth and built him an exceedingly large ship, on the borders of the land Bountiful, by the land Desolation, and launched it forth into the west sea, by the narrow neck which led into the land northward. (Alma 63:5)
6 And the Nephites and the armies of Moronihah were driven even into the land of Bountiful;
7 And there they did fortify against the Lamanites, from the west sea, even unto the east; it being a day’s journey for a Nephite, on the line which they had fortified and stationed their armies to defend their north country.(Hel 4:6–7)29 And the Lamanites did give unto us the land northward, yea, even to the narrow passage which led into the land southward. And we did give unto the Lamanites all the land southward. (Mormon 2:29)
5 And it came to pass that I did cause my people that they should gather themselves together at the land Desolation, to a city which was in the borders, by the narrow pass which led into the land southward.
6 And there we did place our armies, that we might stop the armies of the Lamanites, that they might not get possession of any of our lands; therefore we did fortify against them with all our force. (Mormon 3:5–6)30 And it bordered upon the land which they called Desolation, it being so far northward that it came into the land which had been peopled and been destroyed, of whose bones we have spoken, which was discovered by the people of Zarahemla, it being the place of their first landing.
31 And they came from there up into the south wilderness. Thus the land on the northward was called Desolation, and the land on the southward was called Bountiful, it being the wilderness which is filled with all manner of wild animals of every kind, a part of which had come from the land northward for food.
32 And now, it was only the distance of a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite, on the line Bountiful and the land Desolation, from the east to the west sea; and thus the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were nearly surrounded by water, there being a small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward.
33 And it came to pass that the Nephites had inhabited the land Bountiful, even from the east unto the west sea, and thus the Nephites in their wisdom, with their guards and their armies, had hemmed in the Lamanites on the south, that thereby they should have no more possession on the north, that they might not overrun the land northward. (Alma 22:32–33)19 …And in the days of Lib the poisonous serpents were destroyed. Wherefore they did go into the land southward, to hunt food for the people of the land, for the land was covered with animals of the forest. And Lib also himself became a great hunter.
20 And they built a great city by the narrow neck of land, by the place where the sea divides the land.
21 And they did preserve the land southward for a wilderness, to get game. And the whole face of the land northward was covered with inhabitants. (Ether 10:20–21)
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Another possibility: Mormon’s culture believing there to be a ‘Narrow Neck’ in North Mexico
In addition to the above reasoning it seems quite likely that ancient Mesoamericans had a different view of their continents geography than we do. A study of ancient maps and geographies shows that modern LDS Scholars have expected too much from ancient Book of Mormon authors by supposing pre-Columbian cultures had a truly advanced modern-like or google earth understanding of continental geography and shorelines. Indeed, although many ancients understood well the spatial relationships for populated lands & cities, or populated places often traveled, the detailed understanding of uninhabited wildernesses and far-off continental shorelines seems to have been very poor anciently. Especially among cultures without widespread use of nautical navigation technology. And our only indication in both the Book of Mormon text and early Colonial accounts is the wide spread use of Mexico’s west coast to travel between central Mexico and North America (perhaps because of contrary currents and frequent hurricanes which were so dangerous and common on the east coast?)
To see a full catalogue of known Mesoamerican cartographic or map representations read "Mesoamerican Cartography" by Barbara Mundy or "The origins and development of the cartographic tradition in the central Mexican highlands" by Chris Helmke
Our model proposes that much like Sabastian Munster’s early map of the New World (featured above), Book of Mormon authors may have thought there to be another ‘narrow neck’ between the narrow coastal ‘passes’ of Northern Mexico. A misunderstanding likely caused by a belief that the Eastern and Western Sierra Madre mountain ranges were one and the same range. An easy mistake to make given their lack of travel through the nearly impenetrable and uninhabited Mapimi Basin of the Chihuahua Desert. Indeed historical texts show that essentially ALL ancient travel & trade, occurred along the ‘narrow passes’ between the coasts and the steep mountain ranges, with only a few sparsely inhabited mining communities existing in the Deserts of the northern interior.
A few more examples of ancient maps, and how even among people’s with advanced writing and sea trade, knowledge of coastal geometries was rudimentary. Especially concerning areas where few lived or traveled.
The Turin Papyrus Map is an ancient Egyptian map, generally considered the oldest surviving map of topographical interest from the ancient world. It is drawn on a papyrus reportedly discovered at Deir el-Medina in Thebes. The map shows a 15-kilometre stretch of Wadi Hammamat and has depictions of this wadi’s confluence with wadis Atalla and el-Sid, the surrounding hills. The map contradicts the Sorenson model hypothesis which suggests that Egyptians has a coordinate system rotated 90 degrees.
Surrounded by Water
Interestingly, the native word for the mexican highland and particularly the narrow highland of west-central mexico or valley of Mexico could actually be related to the concept spoken of in Alma 22:32 where it states, “…and thus the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were nearly surrounded by water, there being a small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward.”
Although often translated as “close to water” or “next to water” and referring solely to the Valley of Mexico, when preceded by ‘Cem’ Ānáhuac is also thought to mean, “surrounded by water”. Cem Ānáhuac is a composed náhuatl name, consisting of the words “cem” (totally) and “Ānáhuac”, in turn a composed word from “atl” (water) and “nahuac”, a location prefix that can also mean “surrounded “. The name can then literally be translated as “land completely surrounded by water “, or “[the] whole of [what is] beside the waters”. See wikipedia links in text above and the Nahuatl dictionary for details.
The Mapa de Teozacoalco, painted on twenty-three sheets of European paper pasted together at their edges, contains indigenous pictorial styles, but shows some European influence. The landscape, for instance, is dotted with new Christian churches. Roads show not only human footprints but also horseshoe prints. Emphasis resides in the history of Teozacoalco, with information about a tenth-century ruling family, and subsequent genealogy through the sixteenth century. The circular shape is worthy of special attention. The circle includes 46 glyphic placenames on the community’s territorial boundaries. The extra curve with glyphic placenames refers to an earlier set of boundaries. Alfonso Caso published a small book-length study of this pictorial map (1949, 1992), and Stephen L. Whittington has also published “The Mapa de Teozacoalco: An Early Colonial Guide to a Municipality in Oaxaca,” in The Society for American Archaeology (SAA) Archaeological Record 3:4 (2003), 20–22, and a report on the FAMSI website (http://www.famsi.org/reports/01032/section01.htm). Some of the information in this introduction comes from Barbara E. Mundy, “Mesoamerican Cartography.” In: The History of Cartography, vol. 2.3, David Woodward and G. Malcolm Lewis, eds. 183–256. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998. The lead scholar on this close study of the Mapa de Teozacualco is Bas van Doesburg. (Stephanie Wood)
Note the words of Eugene Bolten in his book, Spanish exploration in the Southwest, 1542-1706. Where he notes it was not until at least 1687 that the Spanish fully prove Baja California was a Peninsula and not an island.
Arriving at his destination in 1687, [Father Kino] at once established the mission of Nuestra Senora de los Dolores… over a hundred miles south of Tucson. This mission was his headquarters for twenty- four years of exploration, missionary work, and writing. several times explored the Gila River; and in an attempt to answer the old question whether Califomia was an island or a peninsula…This inquiry was one of the chief interests of the last eleven years of his life, and, as a result of his explorations, he answered it to his own satisfaction in a treatise, as yet unpublished, I believe, which he called ” Cosmographical Demonstration that Califomia is not an Island but a Peninsula, and that it is continuous with this New Spain, the Gulf of Califomia ending in latitude thirty-five degrees
Spanish exploration in the Southwest, 1542-1706, Herber Eugene Bolton.
In this same book nearly the exact same language used in the Book of Mormon is used to describe the Baja California Peninsula.
This enterprise failing, [Father Kino] returned to Mexico and secured permission to work on the mainland opposite the Peninsula, [ie. by the narrow neck] which he had visited while in California. His request was that he might work among the Guaymas and Seris, but he was sent to Pimerfa Alta instead. (ibid)
Other considerations
Verse by Verse Analysis To References of the Narrow Neck
The Narrow neck, pass or defensive line mentioned as one of the most prominent geographic features of the Book of Mormon has proved to be incredibly enigmatic. Far greater than the problems of King James Isaiah, Pauline language parallelisms, anachronistic metals or European animals in the Book of Mormon (which can generally be explained by proposing differing manners of dynamic equivalence translation and channeling processes), the narrow neck problem can almost seem insurmountable. Attempts to correlation the Panama Isthmus with the Book of Mormon gain few supporters for reasons that have been described elsewhere (ref). Perhaps the most supported theory of correlating the Isthmus of Tehuantepec with the Book of Mormon’s “narrow pass” has its own difficulties. Foremost of these is the fact that this model forces both the Nephite and Lamanite lands to be in historical Mayan territories. In these model’s Zarahemla (and the entire Nephite culture) are correlated with mundane Mayan cities which bear essentially no early cultural differences from their surrounding peoples (Lamanites)! Additionally these models require the Jaredites (Olmec) to pass writing to the Lehites (Maya) instead of the other way around as described in the Book of Mormon text. The political and religious dominance of the Epi-olmec and Mexican Highland cultures spanning from the formative to the classic are a far better match (and perhaps the only truly plausible match) with what the Book of Mormon narrative depicts of the Nephite/Lamanite religious and political rivalry..
Reference | wording | sea west mentioned? | sea east mentioned? | days jour-ney | directional indicators |
Alma 22:32–33 | “small neck of land” or “the line Bountiful” | yes | possibly | 1.5 | from the east to the west sea |
Alma 50:34 | “the narrow pass” | yes | separately | by the sea, on the west and on the east | |
Alma 52:9 | “the narrow pass” | no | |||
Alma 63:5 | “the narrow neck” | yes | no | the west sea | |
Hel 4:6–7 | “the line” | yes | possibly | 1 | from the west sea, even unto the east |
Mormon 2:29 | “the narrow passage” | no | |||
Mormon 3:5–6 | “the narrow pass” | no | |||
Ether 10:20–21 | “narrow neck of land” | inferred | inferred | place where the sea divides the land |
Available literature in Joseph Smith’s day clearly called the Isthmus of Panama a “narrow neck” (see here for instance), But also, made clear that its distance was more than the “day” (ref) or “day and a half” (ref) mentioned in the Book of Mormon. its curious then that if Joseph or some contemporary wrote the Book of Mormon, they would represent the geography SO horribly. Letter from Balboa dated January 20, 1513. “The Indians state there is another ocean 3 days journey from here… they say the other ocean is very suitable for canoe traveling is always calm…” (reference here)
SEE SEVERAL MORE HIGH QUALITY EARLY MAPS OF MEXICO AND THE AMERICAS HERE.
Xochicalco Stela, Padilla Plates & Reformed Egyptian in Archaeological Findings
/in Archaeology/by MormonBoxIs there any evidence that supports the statements both in the Book of Mormon and by the Prophet Joseph Smith that these ancient Book of Mormon people wrote in the above-copied characters, called by the Nephites, “reformed Egyptian”?
Over 120 years later, these Archaeological discoveries provides evidence that yes indeed, these ancient people did write in the same characters as copied by Joseph Smith off of the Book of Mormon plates.
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A stone called the “lock” was found “…in the late 1950’s … in an ‘unofficial’ excavation of a tomb…” “in a cave, where it marked a grave”, southwest of the Rio Verde, in the area of San Pedro Amuzgos, where it borders on the state of Guerrero, Mexico. (Jerry L. Ainsworth, The Lives & travels of Mormon & Moroni, by p. 22-23, & 25)
Another example of this ancient writing is found in the Xochicalco Stela, reportedly found near the Mesoamerican site of Xochicalco, located just southwest of Cuernavaca and the Balsas Basin in the state of Morelos. The Stela is inscribed on two sides. One side is a well attested Olmeca-Xicalanca/ Mayan art motif similar to other art motifs at Xochicalco and Cacaxtla which are both thought to be 6th-9th Olmeca-Xicalanca trade cities or outposts near the Mexican Highland.
Other stelas taken from Xochicalco (currently housed in front of the Museum). These stelae are evidence of Teotihuacano and Zapotec influence and were found within the private temple that sits on top of the Pyramid of the Stelae. The stelae were uncovered during excavations in 1960-61 and had were painted red, deliberately broken and buried at the centre of the temple in antiquity – an act that is thought to represent the killing of the statues. They are listed as Stelae 1, 2 and 3 and are now housed at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico City. The first Stelae is believed to tell the story of Quetzalcoatl’s transfiguration into the Morning Star, followed by his journey across the sky to visit the Pyramid of the Plumed Serpent, which is pictured on the back, followed by his descent into the underworld – it is principally the story of the 260 day transit of Venus across the celestial sphere as the Morning Star
Certain elements in the second of the Stelea closely resemble the stelae of Quirigua, a town situated on the south-eastern border of Mesoamerica. There, a pair of stelae erected in the 8th century combine with a zoomorphic altar to tell the story of creation and the binding of three stones at the beginning of the Mayan fourth-sun. See more information on these Stelae and their resemblance to Quirigua in this article.
The Padilla Plates
The ‘Padilla plates’, which have been dismissed as forgeries by many LDS academics on account of metallurgical analysis and ‘incomplete’ iconography or copying of the Mayan artwork they portray, are another example of possible usage of Reformed Egyptian in archaeological artifacts. They were reportedly found in a tomb in Guerrero Mexico which was excavated by Dr Jesus Padilla Orozco and his companions sometime between 1952 and 1956. Dr. Padilla now a physician in Mexico claims that many other gold objects were found and distributed tri among other men participating in the tomb excavation but he chose to take the plates because the writing on them interested him the original Padilla collection consisted of twelve plates five of which were turned over to Jose Davila and seven were retained by Dr. Padilla.
In January 1971 Dr. Padilla brought the plates to be studied along with other artifacts reportedly taken from the Guerrero tomb these consisted of numerous small objects including an array of jade beads shaped like calabashes short tubes and round forms all drilled for stringing also found were carved shell stone receptacles carved obsidian and jade earspools earspools jade labrets ornaments worn in a perforation in the lip monochrome pottery with cascabel supports slit type bell like openings projectile points miniature pottery vessels and copper bells all of which appeared to be of late date for Mesoamerica America absent from the collection were polychrome pottery vessels which may have been sold the assemblage in general is of the post classic period AD 900 1200 and strongly supports Padilla’s claim that the material was taken from a tomb in Guerrero the only objects conspicuously different from those normally found in tombs in the area are the gold plates
Less controversial matches for characters from the Book of Mormon plates exist in many locations and can be found in …
Q&A: Questions and Answers to Debatable Book of Mormon Geography Topics
/in Archaeology/by MormonBoxCollection of Facebook and other social media conversations with other Book of Mormon Geography enthusiasts.
Q: Could John Sorenson’s logic concerning ‘Nephite North’ being an example of ancient Egyptian directionality be valid?
A: This highlights one of the primary weaknesses/problems of the Limited Mesoamerican models. Especially the Sorenson Grijalva Model.
You have to assume that the loose translation of the Book of Mormon changed the world pyramid to tower, and deer/etc to horse and all the other cultural world translations to modern equivalents, but then you have to also believe that the Nephite directional system was NOT translated to modern equivalents but left in a coordinate system rotated by 45 degrees, except when it wasn’t.
It’s especially problematic because as Sorenson fails to point out, neither the English, Hebrew or Egyptian roots match the limited mesoamerican 45 degree rotation very well in the ways you’d have to suppose.
For instance, the Dead Sea is called the “qadmoni” sea, i.e. the eastern sea in a few cases. Ezekiel 47:18, Joel 2:20, Zecharia 14:8 are examples of this. Hardly matching the 90 degree rotation ideas sorenson pushes.
In English the Germanic roots are
South = suð or sun
North = nórðrvegr or left way
East = austri or shine/ sunrise
West = vestri or sunset
In Egyptian they are
iAbtt – EAST, left side, left hand, sun birth, rebirth.
rsy – SOUTH, Ra/sun, head, in front, beginning, upper, elevated, up river.
imntt – WEST, right side, right hand, completion, death.
mHty – NORTH, feet, end, submerged, decline, behind, down river
In both the south is ‘sun’. (where the sun is most). In one north is left in the other east is left. In Hebrew east is front and North is left and south right… so again why wouldn’t the translators just translate the directions into our modern system using the same system as the bible with the rising sun being east? The Grijalva doesn’t even correspond to a cardinal direction, so to suppose they somehow followed the Egyptian system and named northwest, north doesn’t really make sense either.. (so what would they call the direction of the rising sun where the temples should face which would be southeast in sorenson’s system?)
Who knows… but Sorenson’s explanations are not entirely satisfactory to everyone.
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Q: How could hundreds of thousands of Nephite and Lamanites travel so far (2-4 thousand miles) from Mesoamerica to Cumorah during the final exodus and battles? Dont the logistics of such a move make it impossible?
A: Let me give you some thoughts on logistics. And once again…
1. We have ZERO indication of how many of either Nephites or Lamanites came from Zarahemla to the final battle. For all we know, they ALL came from desolation or Jordan. In my model scientists are working on figuring this out with dental isotope studies–because the dead bodies are everywhere.
2. The Nephite exodus happened over a period of 50+ year period! Zarahemla to Sherrizah/Boaz 321-370, Boaz to Jordan 5-10 years.. to Cumorah another 8 years (370-374). Want to do the math of how far you’d need to travel each day? (and once again we have no idea how many traveled? Just a few little clues in a couple areas
3. WATER! Like the saints who came from england, the Nephites/Lamanites would have UNDOUBTEDLY used water for transport. In my model their cities are predominantly along water trade hubs (all but about 200 miles of the way) IN FACT, logic suggests thats why cumorah was the battle spot. ITS THE END OF THE ROAD (the road being the Mississippi they used their canoes to travel)
5. BEASTS OF BURDAN. I don’t think they had horses. But Sahagun may suggest they used deer as tranport animals. I think they especially used dogs for transport.
The thing is… like I said, none of this is rocket science. As far as logistics is concerned, if you’re going one hudred miles, the logistics of going a few thousand is no different. You just do the exact same daily logistical thing, for a much longer period. You know this. I’m not sure why you’re so bent on finding ‘logistical’ problems of the final battles, that honestly exist in ALL models.
I cover these issues and more in my critique article of the 2 cumorah theories. Which of course are possible modals. I just don’t think they fit the evidence nearly as well as a continental model like Joseph’s or mine.
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Q: Was the Land Desolation called Desolation because it had no trees or because it had no people or because it was a desert or wilderness region?
A: I believe all three. The text says,
“4 And they did travel to an EXCEEDINLY great distance, insomuch that they came to large bodies of water and many rivers.
5 Yea, and even they did spread forth into all parts of the land, into whatever parts it had not been rendered desolate and without timber, because of the many inhabitants who had before inherited the land.
6 And now no part of the land was desolate, save it were for timber; but because of the greatness of the destruction of the people who had before inhabited the land it was called desolate.
7 And there being but little timber upon the face of the land, nevertheless the people who went forth became exceedingly expert in the working of cement; therefore they did build houses of cement, in the which they did dwell.
8 And it came to pass that they did multiply and spread, and did go forth from the land southward to the land northward, and did spread insomuch that they began to cover the face of the whole earth, from the sea south to the sea north, from the sea west to the sea east.
9 And the people who were in the land northward did dwell in tents, and in houses of cement, and they did suffer whatsoever tree should spring up upon the face of the land that it should grow up, that in time they might have timber to build their houses, yea, their cities, and their temples, and their synagogues, and their sanctuaries, and all manner of their buildings.
10 And it came to pass as timber was exceedingly scarce in the land northward, they did send forth much by the way of shipping.
11 And thus they did enable the people in the land northward that they might build many cities, both of wood and of cement.”
Sounds like the best match in North America to me….
I see your reasoning of the idea that the Jaredites cut down ALL THE TREES & left some bodies laying on the ground and thats the ONLY reason it was called desolate. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, because it had been 100-250 years by that point. Plenty of time from trees to grow back. I think thats just one reason he states here of the obvious one he doesn’t state. Its desolate.
The valley of mexico works for the ‘large body of water’ (not so much for bodies, but maybe they were including west mexico lakes). The many rivers also not so much. (compared to where they were coming from anyway)
I’m not going to be so lame as to say “that eliminates the Land of Desolation from being the valley of mexico”
But I do think the heartlanders have so much support because the eastern us really is a better land of many waters.
Animals in the Book of Mormon
/2 Comments/in Archaeology/by MormonBox
Many Book of Mormon critics try to show issues or anachronisms with the lists of animals found in its narrative; for example the Wikipedia articles on Book of Mormon Archaeology and Book of Mormon Anachronisms. The Book of Mormon certainly has its issues, but reading these animal issue attacks always seems strangely biased to me. In fact articles like this have so many blatant falsities that they’re a bit difficult for a well-read person to stomach and have been thoroughly debunked. However, to really do justice to the range of animals said to be found in the Book of Mormon one really must adopt a continental model for the Book of Mormon text, as several of the animals mentioned are found only in Western North America.
Throughout this article, keep in mind that our model places the Nephites primarily in the Mexican Highland, the Land of Nephi in the Oaxaca highland (Monte Alban), the Lamanite heartland in Chiapas & the Yucatan and the Nephite ‘Land Northward’ and Jaredites primarily in the U.S. Southwest, Northwest Mexico and the Eastern U.S.— the early Jaredite record being an abridged oral & channeled history spanning from the Ice age to the Nephite era.
The Book of Mormon makes clear that both Jaredites and Nephites who lived in ancient times on this continent had domestic animals of various kinds. They also speak of wild varieties of presently domesticated animals. The earlier people, the Jaredites (unknown beginning to ~300 B.C.), are reported to have had,
all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man. And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cumoms. (Ether 9:18–19)
The Nephites (c. 600 B.C. – 400 A.D.) on the other hand tell us,
that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men. (1 Nephi 18:25)
“…and they had taken their horses, and their chariots, and their cattle, and all their flocks, and their herds, and their grain, and all their substance, and did march forth by thousands” (3 Nephi 3:22, cf. Mosiah 5:14; Enos 1:21; Alma 5:59; Alma 17)
From these lists its clear that, if true, the Book of Mormon translators, like Spanish Chroniclers of the sixteenth century, employed a dynamic equivalence technique in their translation of animals. Translating the ancient animals into analogous animals Joseph Smith and early Americans would recognize. Its also quite likely that Mormon as an ancient translator and compiler projected some of his own ‘Land Northward’ (Desolation) understanding of North American animals onto the ancient texts from Mesoamerica that he was transcribing. The types of animals in each list consequently might tell us something about the locations these groups lived.
Elephants
Note that Elephants are in the list for animals useful for the early Jaredites. With the exception of small island pockets, and a few DNA samples in Northern Alaska, evidence for the extinction of remaining North American Elephants (Mammoth & Mastodon) and other megafauna during the Younger Dryas climate event by the radiocarbon dates of ~10,000 BC is overwhelmingly conclusive. This requires that the early Jaredite record was older than most people believe. (Perhaps including the Book of Mormon authors themselves?) Unless radiocarbon dates for that highly variable climatic period are somehow wrong, it seems likely that the Jaredite record (much like the Biblical & Babylonian records) may have presented spliced or fragmented genealogies in a condensed, linear form leading back to the ancient Babel tower myth where mankind spread throughout the globe. (In other words there is likely missing time that is not accounted for in the record.) The mention of elephants and other extinct animals, along with the obvious fact that the Book of Mormon tells us the Jaredites were the first inhabitants of this continent is the most striking evidence for our correlated timeline which correlates the early pre-dearth Jaredites with North American Paleo-Indians living prior to the end of the ice age. (The “dearth” in Ether 9:30 being the younger dryas: a massive episode of climate change ending the last ice age cycle.) Because of the mention of elephants as well as two other apparently extinct megafauna which were “especially useful [for the food of] man”, correlating the Paleo-Indian with the archaic cultures of North America is really the best plausible correlation. This is certainly plausible since the record itself does not give any concrete dates for the Jaredite culture (only a genealogy table). There are literally thousands of archeological sites showing that the Clovis and Paleo-Indians lived on diets rich in megafauna. Many archaeologists have in fact suggested that these native American groups may have been responsible for hunting many of these animals to extinction. This highly debated theory gives a lot of weight to the idea given in the book of Ether where it states that BOTH a climate event and hunting did them in.
30 And it came to pass that there began to be a great dearth upon the land, and the inhabitants began to be destroyed exceedingly fast because of the dearth, for there was no rain upon the face of the earth.
31 …And it came to pass that their flocks began to flee… towards the land southward, which was called by the Nephites Zarahemla…
34 And it came to pass that the people did follow the course of the beasts, and did devour the carcasses of them which fell by the way, until they had devoured them all. (Ether 9:30–34)
Cureloms and Cumoms
Many other extinct Pleistocene megafauna fit the description of Jaredite animals mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Paleoindians were known to subsist on Gomphotheres and perhaps even giant sloths; short-faced bears; several species of tapirs; saber-toothed cats like smilodon; dire wolves; saiga; camelids such as two species of now extinct llamas and camelops. Since it is generally accepted that “cureloms and cumoms” were especially “useful for the food of man” (Ether 9:18–19), and unknown to Mormon in translation (not necessarily Joseph Smith), I think the most likely candidates are the gompothere, giant sloth, wooly rhino or camelids.
18 …and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man.
19 And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.
See even Alexandar Von Humbodt’s 1814 publication which references an ancient native illustration of an animal with ‘a trunk, figured in the Codex Borgianus‘. From which he rightly hypothesizes on the native memory of some extinct species “which from the configuration of its trunk holds the middle place between the elephant and the tapir.” (p.212 Researches concerning the institutions & monuments of the ancient inhabitants of America)
Cattle, Oxen, and Cows
Concerning the Jaredite “cattle, of oxen, and cows” mentioned in Ether 9:18, likely matches would have to be American Bison (subfamily Bovinae/bovine), shrub ox (family Bovidae: went extinct with other megafauna); Harlan’s muskox (family: bovidae, subfamily: caprinae), Moose (family Cervidae, could have been classified as either cow or horse by Mormon/Ether depending on their cultural classification system) and for Mesoamerica and 1 Nephi 18:25, Baird’s Tapir which is locally known as the “Mountain Cow”. Each of these species ranged far south of their current habitat during the last Ice Age. There is of course no evidence for moose or shrub ox in Mexico, so the only option for the Nephite list is Bison as an Ox, which historical accounts put as far south as Zacatecas (Lst et. al 2007); and Tapir, perhaps as a swine or cow type animal. (It’s certainly nothing like a horse! LOL) And since the Nephite list excludes “cattle” we can assume they were not yet familiar with cows as a herd animal (such as Bison herds on the plains) at the time 1 Nephi 18:25 was written.
Early Spanish explorers like Cabaza de Vaca with native interpreters also called Bison cows in his dairy saying,
“They described some cows which, from a picture that one of them had painted on his skin, seemed to be cows, although from the hides this did not seem possible, because the hair was woolly and snarled so that we could not tell what sort of skins they had.” (The Narrative of Alvara Nunuz Cabeza de Vaca. Ch 12. v. 1)
Ichnofossil evidence of Bison has been found as far south as the Acahualinca track site in Nicaragua from around the time of Christ. Lockley et al, 2008, found the following.
Williams (1952, p. 6) also stated that there was “the trackway ofa bison in a layer of volcanic mudstone in the quarries of El Recreo,approximately 2.5 km south of El Cauce.” He illustrated these bisontracks (Williams, 1952, fig, 11b, e), and, based on them, inferred an ageolder than 2000 BP, reasoning that bison bones were not known fromarchaeological sites of, or younger than, that age in Nicaragua, so theymust have been extinct by then. Williams (1952, fig. 11c) also illustrateddeer tracks from Acahualinca
Goats
Possibilities include North American Mountain Goats. (Our current scientific classification system does not include this animal in the Capra genus with most goats, but Joseph or Mormon could have very well have been referring to this type of animal).
The Nephite animal list differentiates between “goats and wild goats”. Although modern botanists classify North American antelope into a different family than goats (Antiloocapridae vs. Bovidae), you can see how similar the the two animals look. Antelope were known to be a major food staple of assorted Mesoamerican groups like the early Zapotecs ranging as far south as Oaxaca during the archaic period. More recently their range stops near the valley of Mexico, although disease has nearly caused their extinction in many areas since colonial times. This may very well be the wild and non-wild goat that the Nephites were referring to. Since the range of North American Mountain Goat does not seem to stretch far south of the US border into Mexico, it may be that Mormon as a translator of Nephi’s writings projected his own understanding of the animals of his region (north-most west Mexico & Southwest US) on the record.
Sheep
Many species of wild sheep are indigenous to north america. Including Rocky Mountain big horn, Dall Ram, Desert big horn. See wild sheep of north america for details. Note that sheep are not mentioned in the Nephite animal lists, only the Jaredite. This is fitting since, unlike antelope (goats) and bison (cows), no North American sheep are known to have ranged very far south into Mexico.
Spanish Explorer Cabaza de Vaca who after being marooned in the New World lived with the Natives many years claimed that the hills around Sinaloa contained both indigenous “sheep and goats”.
“Between Suya and Chichilticalli there are many sheep and mountain goats with very large bodies and horns. Some Spaniards declare that they have seen flocks of more than a hundred together, which ran so fast that they disappeared very quickly” (The Narrative of Alvara Nunuz Cabeza de Vaca. Ch 2. v. 5)
Swine
Note this is not mentioned in the Nephite list of animals, only the Jaredite list.. Perhaps because many of the larger ranging North American peccaries (Including the long nosed and flat-headed peccaries) went extinct with other megafauna. Pigs (family Suidae) are not native to the Americas, however peccaries, which are native to the Americas (family Tayassuidae) have roamed limited parts of the continent since the demise of their relatives at the end of the ice age. Collared peccary, referred to as ‘wild boar’ in the Codex Mendoza, composed a major part of Oaxacan Zapotec diet into the classic era. Tapirs are also somewhat reminiscent of pigs. They are prevalent in central America and grow to be six and a half feet in length and can weigh more than six hundred pounds. Many zoologists and anthropologists have compared the tapir’s features to those of a cross between a pig and a cow.
Ass & the Horse
Horses aren’t specifically mentioned in the Book of Mormon as being the type of animal that carried people. In fact in the instances that they are mentioned in relation to “chariots”, the wording could easily be referring to some type of supply slay (3 Nephi 3:22; Alma 18:9–12). So its actually pretty plausible that the Book of Mormon translators used the biblical/European word “horse” to refer to a different type of native animal. Just as Reindeer are the “horse” of Norse peoples, it seems fairly possible that the purported Book of Mormon channelers translated words for White-tale and Mule Deer (or even Elk, North American caribou or moose for those living farther north) in instances it was used. Note this is exactly what was done by early Aztec writers, as Sahagún in his Florentine Codex calls the Spanish horses “deer”. (see Bk 12, Ch. 1 par. 7 & Bk 12 Ch. 7 par. 8) In fact in the second instance Sahagún’s reference to the Aztec calling the Spanish horses “deer”, the wording sounds as though they were somewhat familiar with the idea of deer in warfare as supply animals but completely amazed by deer which were strong and tall enough to actually carry a man.
Their deer carry them upon their backs. They are as high as rooftops. (Sahagún, 1545-1590)
Moctezuma took it as a great and evil omen when he saw the stars and the mamalhuaztli. And when he looked at the bird’s head a second time a little further, he saw a crowd of people coming, armed for war on the backs of deer… (The Florentine Codex, Book 12)
In fact, both elk and deer have been readily domesticated in modern times. Elk farming in North America has become increasingly popular in recent years and Siberian natives have been domesticating elk and deer for thousands of years. Europeans also have occasionally domesticated deer for hundreds of years. (Although they don’t tend to stay domesticated long.) Deer in most national parks and many urban settings as well as Elk in National Parks such as the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone have become so docile as to cause problems by their constant dependence and interaction with people. There are even numerous historic images of old cowboys riding elk. It seems logical that if many Nordic cultures could get a caribou to pull a sleigh then it is certainly plausible that some talented ‘deer whisperers’ could train a strong mule deer to pull a ceremonial supply ‘chariot’ as mentioned in Alma 18:9–12. I also find it interesting that settlers named the deer species O. hemionus “Mule Deer” because the animals large ears reminded them so much of a Mule or Ass. Deer are incredibly common in Mexico and even provided a main source of food for cultures as far south as the Yucatan Peninsula and Guatemala.
In fact, in the next section an example from an early Spanish historian is given of the kings of the valley of Mexico fencing in herds of deer.
The idea that Book of Mormon references to “horses” refereed to tapirs, is far too much of a stretch in my opinion. I’m not sure why anyone would suggest such a thing when there are such better alternatives.
Flocks & Herds
The Book of Mormon makes frequent mention of “flocks and herds”. In addition to the animals mentioned above it is relevant to note that archeological evidence shows that many Mesoamerican peoples bred, raised and subsisted on animals such as dog, turkey, rabbit and deer. Archaeological evidence indicates dogs and deer were a substantial part of the Mayan diet. In fact, at the Colha site, white-tailed deer accounted for up to fifty percent of the Maya meat source. Likewise, Zapotec cultures relied heavily on deer and domesticated dog and turkey. It makes sense that, many of the references to “flocks and herds” may be referring primarily to these animals. Early Zapotec peoples are also known to have subsisted on antelope— of which similar species have been readily domesticated in various areas of Asia and Africa. Peccary and tapir are also well known indigenous animals which could have been primary components of Book of Mormon “flocks and herds”. Although evidence for animal domestication in Mesoamerica is hard to come by, this may well be because it is often difficult, if not impossible, to tell the difference between a wild animal and a domesticated animal from archaeological food remains.
The early Spanish chronology Mariano Veytia in his “Ancient History“ talks about the ancient emperors created fenced enclosures for deer & other animals,
“Nezahualcoyotl… gathered a large stash of materials, and prepared a large number of workers; and seeing the site of Chapoltepec as suitable for a hunting forest, he ordered it to be formed, fenced, and stocked with deer, rabbits, hares, and other animals, allocating it as a place of amusement” (Ancient History, p.142)
No evidence of these fences have been found by archaeologist… almost certainly because they were made of reeds or some other highly perishable material.
A study on The archaeology of Mesoamerican Animals food uses in the Valley of Oaxaca (out Land of Nephi) list the following animals as major food staples throughout the early to late formative and early classic periods. Collared peccary, gray fox, raccoon, ringtail spotted skunk, long-tailed weasel, nine-banded armadillo and opossum, ducks, band-tailed pigeon, mourning dove, guan, Montezuma quail, coot, raven finches and Turkey. (see, Animal Economies in prehispanic southern Mexico, Gotz & Emery)
The essential Codex Mendoza mentions many of these same animals being utilized by the natives at the time of the conquest both for local food and tribute to the Aztec capital. It states,
the lowlands [of the Valley of Oaxaca were] pleasant enough to support crops of sweet potatoes, xicamas, and various fruits, and the piedmont conducive to exploiting mesquite, maguey, and prickly pear cactus (ibid.; Paddock 1966:42). This last plant served as host for the tiny dye-producing cochineal insects. Wild animals and birds [turkey], ranging from deer and wild boar in the mountains to macaws, parrots, and rabbits in the lowlands were plentiful…
De Soto speaks of indigenous tribes having major food staples of rabbits and partridges, dogs, and turkeys. (Ch.13.p168.)
Plains herds of bison, elk, deer, and antelope historically ranged into Texas, New Mexico and well down into northwest Mexico. The early Spanish explorer Onate, like many early explorers described the Bison and cattle and compared the ‘deer’ (actually elk) to horses.
…nearly every day and wherever we went as many cattle came out as are to be found in the largest ranches of New Spain and they were so tame that nearly always, unless they were chased or frightened… All these cattle are of one color, namely brown, and it was a great marvel to see a white bull in such a multitude. Their form is so frightful that one can only infer that they are a mixture of different animals… This river is thickly covered on all sides with these cattle and with another not less wonderful, consisting of deer which are as large as large horses. They travel in droves of two and three hundred and their deformity causes one to wonder whether they are deer or some other animal. (Spanish exploration in the Southwest, 1542-1706, Herbert Bolton, p255)
Below is an example from Nara deer park in Japan, of how easy it is to partially domesticate wild animals… you simply need to give them a reliable food source.
Although it is certainly possible that the Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith or one of his contemporaries, instead of being channeled from heaven or translated from an ancient record–the supposed animal “anachronisms” are not a very solid argument against its authenticity.
Domesticating Deer. Nora Deer Park, Japan
Video of man attempt at Riding Elk
Video of man attempted Moose Ride
Video of domesticating Antelope
A little detail behind why the only animals that Native American’s had much success Domesticating were, turkey, dog, and possibly deer & bison on a more limited basis.
Summary of Points
So in summary. There seems to be a lot of inconsistent thinking when it comes to animals in the Book of Mormon and particularly, Jaredite animal lists.
Elephants are only mentioned very early in the Jaredite timeline. And they are mentioned after “cattle, oxen and cows” as well as “sheep, and of swine, and of goats”, and in conjunction with 2 animals with no modern translation.
-So if the Book of Mormon “elephants” are tapirs… what are “swine, and cattle, oxen and cows”
-If b.o.m. Cureloms and Cumoms are alpacas, what are “sheep and goats and horses?”
-if b.o.m. Elephants are mammoths that held out (with ZERO archaeological evidence) in some isolated pocket until 1800 BC, then what are “Cureloms and Cumoms”? And why didn’t Mormon translate these words?
-If b.o.m. Elephants, Cureloms and Cumoms still existed into Nephite times don’t you think they’d be mentioned in the Nephite animal list of 1 Nephi 18:25; cf. Mosiah 5:14; Enos 1:21; Alma 5:59?
The record states that after the climate catastrophe/dearth, ” the people did follow the course of the beasts, and did devour the carcasses of them which fell by the way, until they had devoured THEM ALL” (Ether 9:30–34)
I’ve found nearly all articles trying to correlate these Book of Mormon animals with real American animal groups are HIGHLY inconsistent over either geographic region or time or both.
Really the best and perhaps only way to resolve these inconsistencies, and still consider the translation of the Book of Mormon to be divine where higher beings are attempting to match ancient animals with their available modern counterparts is to suggest that Elephants are Mammoths, Cureloms and Cumoms are two other genre or species of extinct megafauna (Gomphotheres are a good possibility for one), and that the ‘dearth’ is the Younger Dryas extinction event which, along with over hunting, killed off most megafauna in the Americas.
https://beta.capeia.com/…/disappearance-of-ice-age…
To make these lists work, also requires accepting that the Jaredites ranged into North America… not just Mesoamerica or South America… as otherwise, there are just not enough good matches to “cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man… also horses and asses and elephants…
-Elephants = Mammoths
-Cureloms and Cumoms = Extinct megafauna with no similar modern equivalents. (Gomphotheres, Megatherium, Amphicyon? Paraceratherium?)
-Cattle, oxen and cows = American Bison, Shrub Ox, Musk Ox, Tapir (Note the Nephite list excludes cattle, suggesting they were not associated with herds of cow. Which makes sense if they were mainly in Mesoamerica where there were no large bison herds.)
-Goats = Pronghorn antelope and North American mountain goat. (Another evidence for the Mexican Highland model, as there is no evidence for these animals south of Oaxaca/Tehuantepec).
-Sheep = Rocky Mountain big horn, Dall Ram, Desert big horn (once again sheep are not mentioned in the Nephite animal lists, only the Jaredite which again works perfectly for Jaredites in North America, and Nephites in Mesoamerica/Mexican Highland)
-Swine = North American peccaries (only in Jaredite list… so likely not referring to Tapirs)
-Ass & the Horse = Mule deer and Elk or other types of deer (The Florentine Codex has the natives calling the Spanish ‘horses’, deer.)
Flocks & Herds = dog, turkey, rabbit and deer.
Thus a verse like Enos 1:21 which says,
21 And it came to pass that the people of Nephi did till the land, and raise all manner of grain, and of fruit, and flocks of herds, and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many horses.
after noting that the 1828 dictionary defines cattle as “Beasts or quadrupeds in general, serving for tillage, or other labor, and for food to man”, we can assume that from evidence found in a place like Monte Alban (my city of Nephi) that the flocks and herds [of cattle] were mostly turkey, dogs, deer, antelope and some type of goat which has not yet been attested in the mesoamerican archaeological record but is found in Northern Mexico, Baja and the US Southwest.
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Plants & Crops in the Book of Mormon
Much like animals, the Book of Mormon mentions several domesticated plant varieties which have often been seen as anachronistic. one such example is this verse in Mosiah 9 speaking of the Nephites who return to the land of Nephi.
9 And we began to till the ground, yea, even with all manner of seeds, with seeds of corn, and of wheat, and of barley, and with neas, and with sheum, and with seeds of all manner of fruits; and we did begin to multiply and prosper in the land. (Mosiah 9:9)
Although corn is known to have been domesticated exclusively in the Americas, and neas & sheum are unknown (untranslated) varieties of foods, wheat & barley have often been called anachronistic and unknown in the Americas before colonization. However…
Native Barley
Of Barley, the Book of Mormon says,
22 And all this he did, for the sole purpose of bringing this people into subjection or into bondage. And behold, we at this time do pay tribute to the king of the Lamanites, to the amount of one half of our corn, and our barley, and even all our grain of every kind (Mosiah 7:22)
7 A senum of silver was equal to a senine of gold, and either for a measure of barley, and also for a measure of every kind of grain. 15… a shiblon for half a measure of barley. (Alma 11:7,15)
Hordeum pusillum, also known as little barley, is an annual grass native to much of the United States and southwestern Canada. It arrived via multiple long-distance dispersals of a southern South American species of Hordeum about one million years ago. Its closest relatives are therefore not the other North American taxa like meadow barley (Hordeum brachyantherum) or foxtail barley (Hordeum jubatum), but rather Hordeum species of the Pampas of central Argentina and Uruguay. It is less closely related to the Old World domesticated barley, from which it diverged about 12 million years ago. It is diploid.
Coincidentally, evidence suggests domestication took place in the southeastern and southwestern United States (Livingston, 2010). Evidence of its domesticated use as a food staple was first discovered in 1983 among the Hohokam of Arizona, and has since been found at the Gast Spring site in Iowa as well as many other sites (Dunn & Green, 1998). To the Hohokam culture in Arizona, archeological evidence suggests that little barley was used for trade between other [southwest] tribes whose diet did not normally include domesticated little barley (Minnis, 2016).
Many articles exist which follow Tyler Livingston’s logic of showing the connections between the cultures of the US Desert Southwest and those of the Eastern US and Mexico. These include Mesoamerican ballcourts, caged McCaw, shells and abundant evidence of Cacao to once again suggest that Mormon may have projected his local ‘Land of Desolation’ crops onto the rest of the Book of Mormon (as the southwest is likely the only area with all foods mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Note that Chia seeds mentioned below were used as both money and religious festivals much like Barley was in Israel.
Wheat
Native Americans used the seeds of many types of grasses which were comparable to wheat. Wheat being differentiated from Barley in that wheat is usually milled into a flour while barley is eaten as a whole grain or in pearled form. Seeds used in mills by Native American’s included grasses like Indian Ricegrass, Little Bluestem, Sideoats Grama, Galleta, Sand Dropseed, and Alkali Sacaton as a food source, with Indian Ricegrass being a particularly important staple for tribes in the Southwest, where its seeds were gathered, processed, and cooked into various dishes like porridges and breads.
Two other grass seed possibilities known to form a significant portion of ancient central Mexican peoples is Amaranth seeds and Chia seeds. “Chia was one of the four main crops of the Aztec civilization along with beans, corn, and amaranth. The first recordings of chia being cultivated date back to 3500 BC. Chia was ground down and used to make a flour to bake bread, mixed with a sweet syrup called maguey and also as a nourishing broth. There are also recordings of special dishes being prepared with chia to be used in religious festivals and celebrations. Chia was viewed as such a valuable and nutritious food that it was used as a currency to barter for other essentials. The Codex Mendoza specifically mentions Oaxaca as a region which provided tribute to the Aztec capital with small seeds thought to be Chia (Berden, p.108). Apart from a food, chia was seed as a medicine and prescribed for a huge number of ailments and to improve health and vitality” (Miller, 2024, see also Rozanne Stevens, accessed 2024)
Sheum
Interestingly, the term Sheum is used in the Book of Mormon as a grain presumably gathered by the ancient Americans with a name that seems strange that young Joseph Smith would use. As it is an actual ancient Assyrian term used at various times to refer to grains generally, and even pine nuts (see Assyrian Dictionary of OIUofC, 1968); something quite common to the Native American diet in both North America & the Mexican Highland.
Neas
The Zapotecs of Oaxaca milled several other types of seeds which could very well be the ‘neas’ with no biblical or New England counterpart which Joseph left untranslated. These include milled Guaja pods and Misquite pods. Guaje (River tamarind) is a tropical shrub or small tree in Central and South America. It has long, drooping branches that form an umbrella-like canopy and light green leaves with serrated edges. The fruit of the guaje is an edible red berry that can be harvested when ripe. Guaje is popularly used as a condiment or flavoring in Latin American cuisine. It has an acidic and slightly sour flavor that adds complexity and depth to dishes, especially when combined with other ingredients like garlic, cilantro, onion, and olive oil.
Grapes & Wine
The Book of Mormon only mentions one beverage among the Nephites and Lamanites: wine. During King Noah’s reign in the land of Nephi, for instance, it mentions that he had
“planted vineyards round about in the land,” had “built wine-presses, and made wine in abundance,” thus he and his people became wine-bibbers (Mosiah 11:15).
Wine is also mentioned in several other places throughout the Book of Mormon, including for the sacrament during the risen Lord’s ministry among the Nephites (Moroni 4-5). Although grapes are not mentioned specifically in relation to that wine, the use of ‘vinyards’ above, and the use of grapes in the analogy of 2 Nephi 15 suggests it was brought from the old world.
This was once used as an anachronism until it was found that many native North American grapes actually work well as possibilities in the Book of Mormon such as Vitis popenoei, commonly called the totoloche, or totoloche grape—a New World species of liana in the grape family native to Belize, Mexico (Chiapas, Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Puebla, Tabasco, Veracruz, and eastern Querétaro), and north-central Guatemala (Alta Verapaz). The plant is considered to be a shrub and normally grows in a vine habitat. Being part of the grape family the plant produces grapes.
Another might be Vitis arizonica or the Arizona/Canyon Grape which has historically been used as a food source by Indigenous peoples of the Southwest California (Inyo County). It overlaps in range with the hybridize with mustang grape and California wild grape and is common in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, western Texas, southern Utah, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, and Tamaulipas. It seems quite possible that this grape might have been traded into the arid deserts of Oaxaca & Morelos. Or simply projected by Mormon onto the records he translated.
Additionally Pulque (& Mezcal), occasionally known as octli or agave wine, is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of the maguey (agave) plant. It is traditional in central Mexico, where it has been produced for millennia. It has the color of milk, a rather viscous consistency and a sour yeast-like taste. It’s earliest attestation is found in a large mural called the “Pulque Drinkers”, unearthed in 1968 at the pyramid of Cholula, Puebla (coincidentally part of my model’s city of Zarahemla).
See these two articles in relation to Barley & Wheat. Robert Bennet, MI, Wade Millar, 2009
Precious Metals in the Book of Mormon
There is not better match to North American locations with access to precious metals mentioned in the Book of Mormon than the Continental model. With Mormon living in the desert Southwest as the Book of Mormon’s land of Desolation, and Nephi settling in the valley of Oaxaca, these locations not only share some of the best food and animal habitat matches to those mentioned in the text, but also they provide the best matches to areas including both availability and usage of all of the precious metals mentioned in the text.
Gold, Silver & Copper
The Book of Mormon states that from the time the Nephites settled in the Land of Nephi, they began 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
Both Heartland and Mesoamerican models have great evidence for all these metals. With the Heartland model having better examples of copper or brass, and Meso models having better evidence of gold and Silver. As impressive as ancient and modern copper usage and mining in the Great Lakes region is, it is dwarfed in comparison to the copper mines of Arizona (where Mormon would have been writing the Book of Mormon from, and projecting his understanding of metallurgy to the ancient texts he was transcribing). The Morenci Mine near Safford, Arizona is the largest copper mine in North America, followed closely by Arizona’s nearby Safford Mine and the Sierrita Mine closer to the Mexican border. Each of these mines also produce huge amounts of gold and silver known to have been mined from ancient times by the Hohokam, Anasazi and Mogollon peoples. In fact the region may possess the only evidence of Native American’s buried in a mine shaft collapse as several skeletons were found by miners about 40 feet underground near a mineralized vein of Malachite near La Sal Utah. (see Moab Man/Malachite Man).
No model, however, matches the Continental Model’s Land of Nephi in its proximity of ancient and modern mining and usage of ALL these metals in a small geographic area that matches the text’s internal geography. Oaxaca’s San Jose structural fault corridor is a gold/silver/copper volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) vein which spans the width of the Valley of Oaxaca supporting multiple modern and ancient mining operations. Anciently these deposits were the most likely source of the unparalleled gold, silver & copper riches of Monte Alban’s ‘Tomb Seven’, often called the King Tut’s tomb of the Americas, the grave yielded over 100 precious metal artifacts including jewelry, eating vessels and masks (including a unique axe made of a copper/iron mixture). It is only one of a few un-looted finds of over 170 Egyptian-like tombs dug under Monte Alban. Even the Codex Mendoza shows that up to the conquest many of the hamlets near Oaxaca paid the Aztec capital annual tribute in gold dust, owing to the abundant gold placer deposits in the region.
South of the Valley of Oaxaca, dipping to the realm of Tototepec, lay Coatlan [which] paid the Mexica ruler gold dust and mantas. The Zapotec town of Ixtepexi, slightly north of … Coyolapan province paid its tribute in gold, green feathers, deer, maize, turkeys, firewood… A river running down from the sierra just to the north of Huaxacac [Oaxaca] reportedly carried gold. The tribute paid by this province to its Aztec overlords reflects, to some degree, the natural resources of the region. (ENE 4:142)
Specialized goods from this province consisted of annual deliveries of gold… to be delivered in the form of twenty round tiles, “the size of a medium plate and the thickness of a thumb” (Codex Mendoza folio 43v). Coyolapan was one of six roughly contiguous provinces to pay tribute in gold…
Oaxaca is also one of the few places in the Americas where early iron alloys were smelted. In Tomb 7 of Monte Alban, an assortment of iron/copper alloy tools were found.
Joseph Smith Quotes on Book of Mormon Geography
/in Archaeology/by MormonBoxThis page is a compilation of quotes directly attributed to Joseph Smith or in official publications of which he was chief editor before his death relative to the geography of the Book of Mormon. Non-direct quotes of Geographic information are included only when substantiating direct quotes.
From the available documented evidence it is apparent Joseph held a continental view of Book of Mormon Geography. Quotes by Joseph Smith or statements attributed to him point to a belief in four major areas of Book of Mormon happenings.
1- He believed the Lehites to have landed in South America
2- He believed them to have travelled to Central America to settle (with cities/lands like Zarahemla & Nephi being there).
3- He believed the the Land Desolation or where the Nephites ‘lost their power’ to be in the U.S. Southwest & Great Plains.
4- He believed Cumorah and the final battle to be in New York, and much of North America to be the Book of Mormon ‘Land Northward’ and/or Jaredite territory.
Currently, most LDS church Book of Mormon geography researchers are split between believing and disbelieving half of Joseph’s geographic model. With “Heartlanders” believing points 3 & 4 above and Mesoamericanists believing point 2 & Hemispheric & South American modelers believing 1 above. And because of the Narrow Neck problem neither side can see eye to eye or believe ALL of Joseph Smith’s quotes. (See this article for information on the Narrow Neck problem, and its solution.) This article also clearly refutes the mistaken belief that Joseph Smith advanced a Hemispheric model, showing that not a single Joseph Smith quote supports this model advanced later by Orson Pratt.
And although it seems possible or even likely that Joseph Smith did not receive specific revelation pertaining to specific cities of where Book of Mormon events took place, when taken as a whole, the descriptions he gives of Book of Mormon locations are fairly consistent and seem to suggest a generalized knowledge of Book of Mormon lands. Some modern LDS scholars believe that Joseph learned the geography as time progressed or perhaps didn’t have a concrete idea in his mind about where it took place at all, however, quotes like the following from Joseph Smith himself and then another from Lucy Mack Smith as well as others contained in this document seem to suggest otherwise.
I was also informed [by the angel] concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country and shown [in vision?] who they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people, was made known unto me; I was also told where were deposited some plates on which were engraven an abridgment of the records of the ancient Prophets that had existed on this continent. The angel appeared to me three times the same night and unfolded the same things. After having received many visits from the angels of God unfolding the majesty and glory of the events that should transpire in the last days, on the morning of the 22nd of September, A.D. 1827, the angel of the Lord delivered the records into my hands.
(Joseph Smith, Wentworth Letter. JS, History, 1838–1856, vol. C-1, created 24 Feb. 1845–3 July 1845; handwriting of Thomas Bullock, Franklin D. Richards, Jonathan Grimshaw, and Leo Hawkins; 512 pages. Original available here)
“During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of traveling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life among them.”
(Lucy Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith by His Mother [Salt Lake City: Stevens & Wallis, Inc., 1945], 83.)
(1) –Quotes Suggesting Joseph Believed the Lehites Crossed the South Pacific & Landed in Western South America.
In this article from the Times & Seasons, edited (and possibly written) by Joseph Smith, the author states that the Lehites landed a bit south of the Isthmus of Darien (Which was an old name for Panama).
When we read in the Book of Mormon that… Lehi went down by the Red Sea to the great Southern Ocean, and crossed over to this land, and landed a little south of the Isthmus of Darien, and improved the country according to the word of the Lord… Surely “facts are stubborn things.” It will be as it ever has been, the world will prove Joseph Smith a true prophet by circumstantial evidence, in experiments, as they did Moses and Elijah.
Times and Seasons, 15 Sept. 1842, vol. 3, no. 22, pp. 911–926, edited by JS
Note that, as shown in this 1835 New England publication, that although the term “Great Southern Ocean” or just “Southern Ocean” could be used interchangeably to refer to both the south Atlantic between south America & Africa—as well as the south Indian & Pacific oceans between south Africa (Cape Horn), Tasmania (Van Dieman’s Land), New Zealand, and south America (Cape of Good Hope), the logic of using the south Atlantic to land a boat, “a little south of the Isthmus of Darian” is unworkable. He is obviously here referring to the ‘Great South [Pacific] Sea’, as seen in the following maps. Payne-1798, Laurie-1800, Ortelius-1600s, Alzate-1768.
The above statement is supported by the following quote recorded by Frederick G. Williams and originally published in 1879 by Orson Pratt. Shows that Lehites landed in Chile, though of questionable authenticity and unknown origin, at least two separate individuals appear to have recorded it (although one could be based on the other, and the time of recording is decades after Joseph’s death). It is included only because it somewhat corroborates the Times & Seasons quote above of a South American first landing, and is directly attributed to Joseph Smith. (Even if other quotes suggest the Lehites then went up the coast to Mesoamerica before founding the cities of Nephi or Zarahemla)
They traveled nearly a south, southeast direction until they came to the nineteenth degree of north latitude; then, nearly east to the Sea of Arabia, then sailed in a southeast direction, and landed on the continent of South America, in Chile, thirty degrees south latitude.
Franklin D Richards & James Little, 1844 Publication. Attributed to ‘Joseph the Seer’. Similar quote also attributed to Frederick G. Williams as presented to Church history archives by Nancy Williams in 1860’s, suggestedly originating from J.S. speech at Kirtland Temple Dedication in 1836. (more information available here) Also found (originally?) in John Bernhisel’s copy of Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible. pg. 135, Church History Library MS 21927.
It’s been suggested by some Heartland proponents that Frederick simply misheard Joseph speaking of “30 degrees latitude” and made up the “south” and the “landing on the continent of South America” and that the “little south of the isthmus of Darien” in the Times & Seasons was written without Joseph’s knowledge. But that what Joseph “actually” said was that Lehi landed 30 degrees north latitude in Florida. This however is a considerable stretch, considering that there is yet a third quote placing the Nephite landing in western South America, given by none other than Oliver Cowdery. (Who we will see below is an important source in proving the Joseph Smith’s belief in a single New York Cumorah.) An 1830 article in the anti-Mormon publication Observer and Telegraph quotes Oliver as a third witness of the South American landing saying,
According to the narrative given by one of these disciples—Oliver Cowdery—at their late exhibition in Kirtland.. This new Revelation, they say is especially designed for the benefit, or rather for the christianizing of the Aborigines of America; who, as they affirm, are a part of the tribe of Manasseh, and whose ancestors landed on the coast of Chili 600 years before the coming of Christ, and from them descended all the Indians of America.
“The Golden Bible, or, Campbellism Improved,” Observer and Telegraph (Hudson, Ohio), November 18, 1830
I’m working on remaking a video that give some insight even though his logic suggesting Joseph advanced a hemispheric model is extremely poor. (There’s not a single direct quote suggesting Joseph promoted Orson Pratt’s hemispherical model. But to the contrary he put Zarahemla & Nephi in ‘central america’.) And note that all the issues brought up in this video are solved with the obvious presumption that Lehi landed temporarily in South America to restock and perhaps even drop off/pick up crew members (such as one/some of Ishmael’s sons?) and then continue on to Mesoamerica where other quotes suggest the Nephites settled.
(2) –Quotes suggesting Joseph believed the Lehites settled in Mesoamerica.
In the same Times & Seasons article referenced above (edited & possibly written by Joseph Smith) the author explicitly states that the Jaredites of the Book of Mormon stretched across the entire North American continent (ie. ‘this’ continent).
When we read in the Book of Mormon that Jared and his brother came on to this continent from the confusion and scattering at the Tower, and lived here more than a thousand years, and covered the whole continent from sea to sea, with towns and cities…
Times and Seasons, 15 Sept. 1842, vol. 3, no. 22, pp. 911–926, edited by JS
Similarly, another Times and Seasons article summarizes the ideas from Alexander Von Humbolt’s 1814 book Researches concerning the institutions & monuments of the ancient inhabitants of America. Here the author draws on similarities between the Book of Mormon story of the Jaredites and Aztec & Toltec legends along with biblical stories of the flood and tower of babel. Of particular note in this discussion is the reference to Von Humbolt’s assertion that Aztec’s or Toltecs from the Valley of Mexico had migrated to the Great Lakes region, which they called Aztlan, and mixed with the Iroquios and Huron peoples. (see Humbolt, p.171)
But among [those after the flood] there were 15 heads or chiefs of families, which were permitted to speak the same language, and these were the Toltecs, the Aculhucans and Azteca nations who embodied themselves together, which was very natural, and traveled they knew not where, but at length arrived in the country of Aztalan, or the [Great] lake country in America…
…the tradition and hyeroglyphics of the Zaltees, the Colhuacans, and the Azteca nations, in regard to the confusion of languages and their travels to this land, is so like that contained in the Book of Mormon, that the striking analogy must be seen by every superficial observer…
These accounts, then, precisely agree, one of which was found in Ontario county, N. Y., and the other in Mexico. Again, those nations, or families, embodied themselves together and traveled they knew not where, but at length arrived in the country of Aztalan, or the [Great] lake country of America.
Times and Seasons, 15 June 1842, vol. 3, no. 16, pp. 815-830, edited by JS
Quotes from Humbolts book
“A few Tolteck tribes appear to have mixed with the nations, who formerly inhabited the country lying between the eastern bank of the Mississippi and the Atlantic ocean. The Iroquois and the Hurons made hierogtyphical paintings on wood, which bear a striking resemblance with those of the Mexicans* ; they indicated the -names of the persons they meant to represent, by employing the same means, which we have already mentioned in the description of a genealogical painting.” (p.171)
The tongues, which the dove distributed to the nations of America, being infinitely varied, these nations disperse, and fifteen heads of families only, who spoke the same tongue, and from whom the Toltecks, the Aztecks, and the Acolhuans descended, unite, and arrive at Aztlan, (the country of the garces or flamingoes). The bird placed on the hieroglyphic of water, aél, denotes Aztlan. The pyramidical monument with steps isa teocalli. I am astonished at finding a palm tree near this teocalli: this plant certainly does not indicate a northern region; nevertheless it is almost certain, that we must look for the first country of the Mexican nations, Aztlan, Huehuetlapallan, and Amaquemecan, at least North of the 42d degree of latitude. (p.66)
The annals of the Aztecks begin, according to Gama, at an epocha corresponding to the year 1091 of our era; a period at which, by order of their chief Chalchiuhtlatonac, they celebrated the festival of the renewal of the fire at Tlalixco, called also Acahualtzinco, situate probably under the parallel of thirty-three or thirty-five north latitude. It is only since the year 1091, in which as the Indian historian Chimalpain expressly says, they ¢ied for the first time the years after their going forth from Aztlan, that Mexican history presents the greatest order, and an astonishing minuteness in the recital of evenis. (p.299)
Note that an entire section of Humbolts book is dedicated to Mitla in Oaxaca. See page 153-159, including drawings. However, least someone suggest Joseph Smith simply copied VonHumbolt, note there is not mention of Monte Alban or dates.
The referencing of Von Humbolt’s book in the Times and Seasons in notable for too many reasons to mention in this article, but one should at least take into account the many allusions in the book to the Toltec migrations from Aztlan which it places in New England in some places, and the old world in others. As well as a reference to the reverse Aztec migration found in the annals of Domingo Chimalpahin from a city named Acahualtzinco, “situated probably under the parallel of thirty or thirty five north latitude… since the year 1091” (p. 299-309, Humboldt). This is roughly the latitude encompassed by Arkansas and again suggests native American beliefs in migrations of a continental nature.
Building on the ideas of the previous quote, this article from Time and Seasons (edited & possibly written by Joseph Smith) re-quotes the Spanish Chronicler, Francisco Antonio Fuentes and seems to equate the Lehites or Mulekites with Toltec legends suggesting they founded the City of Tula in the Valley of Mexico. (Obviously there is a contradiction here, where the Toltec migration are paralleled with the Jaredites in one quote, and now somewhat paralleled with Israel under Moses, even though the quote from Hombolt’s book clearly puts these migrations around 1000 AD, we at least get the general idea and area that the authors were thinking).
Lehi went down by the Red Sea to the great Southern Ocean, and crossed over to this land… Now read Stephens’ story: “According to Fuentes, the chronicler of the kingdom of Guatumala, the kings of Quinche and Cachiquel were descended from the Toltecan Indians, who, when they came into this country, found it already inhabited by people of different nations. According to the manuscripts of Don Juan Torres, the grandson of the last king of the Quiches…the Toltecas themselves descended from the house of Israel, who were released by Moses from the tyranny of Pharaoh, and after crossing the Red Sea, fell into Idolatry. … and under the guidance of Tanub, their chief, passed from one continent to the other, to a place which they called the seven caverns, a part of the kingdom of Mexico, where they founded the celebrated city of Tula.”
Times and Seasons, 15 Sept. 1842, vol. 3, no. 22, pp. 911–926 edited by JS.
This article from Time and Seasons which contained a large portion from Stephen’s Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. Shows that Lehites lived in Central America [Mesoamerica].
Let us turn our subject, however, to the Book of Mormon, where these wonderful ruins of Palenque are among the mighty works of the Nephites:-and the mystery is solved…
Times and Seasons, 15 Sept. 1842, vol. 3, no. 22, pp. 914-915 edited by JS. Brackets mine. Referring to Stephens Incidents found here.
On the 72d page of the third and fourth edition of the Book of Mormon it reads as follows: And it came to pass that we began to prosper exceedingly, and to multiply in the land. And I, Nephi, did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords, lest by any means the people who were now called Lamanites, should come upon us and destroy us: for I knew their hatred towards me and my children, and those who were called my people. And I did teach my 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. And I, Nephi, did build a temple; [ie. the City of Nephi] and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon, save it were not built of so many precious things: for they were not to be found upon the land; wherefore, it could not be built like un-to Solomon’s temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceeding fine. And on page 280-1 is a full description of the Isthmus.
Mr. Stephens’ great developments of antiquities are made bare to the eyes of all the people by reading the history of the Nephites in the Book of Mormon. They lived about the narrow neck of land, which now embraces Central America [ie. Mesoamerica], with all the cities that can be found. Read the destruction of cities at the crucifixion of Christ, pages 459-60. Who could have dreamed that twelve years would have developed such incontrovertible testimony to the Book of Mormon? surely the Lord worketh and none can hinder.
Time and Seasons article follows-up to the above quote. Shows that Lehites lived in Central America. Importantly it casts great doubt upon the idea that Joseph Smith ever believed the modern Mormon city of Zarahemla Iowa was actually the spot that the ancient city of Zarahemla in the Book of Mormon stood.
Since our ‘Extract’ was published from Mr. Stephens’ ‘Incidents of Travel,’ &c., we have found another important fact relating to the truth of the Book of Mormon. Central America, or Guatemala, is situated north of the Isthmus of Darien and once embraced several hundred miles of territory from north to south.-The city of Zarahemla, burnt at the crucifixion of the Savior, and rebuilt afterwards, stood upon this land as will be seen from the following words in the book of Alma:-‘And now it was only the distance of a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite, on the line Bountiful,and the land Desolation, from the east to the west sea; and thus the land of Nephi, and the land of Zarahemla was nearly surrounded by water: there being a small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward.’ [See Book of Mormon 3d edition, p. 280-81.]
It is certainly a good thing for the excellency and veracity, of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon, that the ruins of Zarahemla have been found where the Nephites left them: and that a large stone with engravings upon it, as Mosiah said; and a ‘large round stone, with the sides sculptured in hieroglyphics,’ as Mr. Stephens has published, is also among the left remembrances of the, (to him,) lost and unknown. We are not going to declare positively that the ruins of Quirigua are those of Zarahemla, but when the land and the stones, and the books tell the story so plain, we are of opinion, that it would require more proof than the Jews could bring to prove the disciples stole the body of Jesus from the tomb, to prove that the ruins of the city in question, are not one of those referred to in the Book of Mormon.
It may seem hard for unbelievers in the mighty works of God, to give credit to such a miraculous preservation of the remains, ruins, records and reminiscences of a branch of the house of Israel: but the elements are eternal, and intelligence is eternal, and God is eternal, so that the very hairs of our heads are all numbered. It may be said of man he was and is, and is not; and of his works the same, but the Lord was and is, and is to come and his works never end; and he will bring every thing into judgment whether it be good, or whether it be evil; yea, every secret thing, and they shall be revealed upon the house tops. It will not be a bad plan to compare Mr. Stephens’ ruined cities with those in the Book of Mormon: light cleaves to light, and facts are supported by facts. The truth injures no one, and so we make another
Times and Seasons, 1 Oct. 1842, vol. 3, no. 23, pp. 927–942 edited by JS. Brackets mine.
Some have questioned Joseph’s involvement or support of the Times & Season’s articles which support a South American landing & Mesoamerican settling of the Lehite group. However, the idea that Joseph was not involved in publishing these articles is likely unsupportable given the following evidence. In the Joseph Smith Papers, we have copies of the letter (possibly dictated through a scribe) and sent to John Bernhisel signed by Joseph Smith, to thank him for gifting him the copy of Stephen’s Incidents of Travels which were quoted by the Times & Seasons. He says in the letter SPECIFICALLY, the same statement as made in the Times & Seasons that the book, “supports the testimony of the Book of Mormon”. Regardless of whether this letter was written directly by Joseph or dictated through a scribe, to cast doubt upon such correspondences as unapproved proxy letters which Joseph neither dictated nor approved, one must then doubt ALL letters and revelations attributed to Joseph Smith through his scribes as possible forgeries by his trusted associates!
.
Dear Sir
(Joseph Smith Papers, JS, Letter, Nauvoo, Hancock Co., IL, to John M. Bernhisel, New York City, New York Co., NY, 16 Nov. 1841
I received your kind present [of Stephen’s Incidents of Travel in Central America] by the hand of E. Woodruff & feel myself under many obligations for this mark of your esteem & friendship which to me is the more interesting as it unfolds & developes many things that are of great importance to this generation & corresponds with & supports the testimony of the Book of Mormon; I have read the volumes with the greatest interest & pleasure & must say that of all histories that have been written pertaining to the antiquities of this country it is the most correct luminous & comprehensive…
Joseph Smith
To Dr [John] Bernhisel
Nauvoo, Ill, Nov 23rd
Despite the Bernhisel letter, some still protest that John Taylor or Wilford Woodruff may have written the The Times & Seasons extracts without Joseph’s approval and knowledge of the content. However scholarship available here and statistical analysis suggests that Joseph Smith’s stylistic influence is the strongest of the three possible editors.
Additionally, just months before the Times & Seasons editions most of the quotes on Mesoamerican BOM geography come from, Joseph Smith printed the below statement claiming explicit responsibility for publications in future publications. Indeed, given this evidence, nothing short of mental gymnastics can support the belief that Joseph Smith did not support a continental model of the Book of Mormon which included lands south of the United States.
“This paper commences my editorial career, I alone stand responsible for it, and shall do for all papers having my signature henceforward. I am not responsible for the publication, or arrangement of the former paper [before march 1842]; the matter did not come under my supervision. -JOSEPH SMITH”
Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Hancock Co., IL), 1 Mar. 1842, vol. 3, no. 9, pp. 703–718; edited by JS.
Outline of All Times & Seasons Articles Dealing with B.O.M. Geography
All together, there are seven articles in the Times and Seasons which draw correlations between archaeological sites and Book of Mormon lands. The first of these correlates Kentucky with BOM lands, the second, a phylactery & Hebrew writing on a mound item in Pittsfield Massachusetts with the B.O.M. The third correlates both the Great Lakes and Mexico with Book of Mormon lands & peoples, and the last four equate Mesoamerican sites with Book of Mormon lands.
- ‘A Catacomb of Mummies found in Kentucky’, Times and Seasons, 2 May. 1842, vol. 3, no. 13, pp. 781 signed ed.
- ‘American Antiquities’, Times and Seasons, 1 June 1842, vol. 3, no. 15, pp. 813–814, unsigned.
- ‘Traits of the Mosaic History found among the Azteca Nations’, Times and Seasons, 15 June 1842, vol. 3, no. 16, pp. 815-830, signed by editor
- ‘American Antiquities’, Times and Seasons, 15 July 1842, vol. 3, no. 18, pp. 847–862, signed by editor
- Extracts from Stephen’s Incidents of Travel in Central America’ & ‘Facts are Stubborn Things’, Times and Seasons, 15 Sept. 1842, vol. 3, no. 22, pp. 911–926, unsigned
- ‘Zarahemla’, Times and Seasons, 1 Oct. 1842, vol. 3, no. 23, pp. 927–942, unsigned
- ‘Ruins Recently Discovered in Yucatan Mexico’, Times and Seasons, 15 Nov. 1842, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 15-16, unsigned
(3) –Quotes suggesting the Nephite Land of Desolation stretched from the Great Plains to the Desert Southwest where the Nephites ‘lost their power’.
Mosiah Hancock recorded a first hand conversation he had with Joseph Smith saying that the Nephites lost their power in the Southwestern United States or Northmost Mexico. Mosiah would have been ten years old when Joseph was murdered, although his biographical descriptions of that year seem to be quite vivid, and this quote is included because it is corroborated not only by his father Levi Hancock (who was a close confidant of Joseph) as well as the other quotes below, such as Willium McBride’s quote and “Moroni’s Travels” maps, but also by Joseph’s direct quote to Emma equating Zion’s Camp with the “plains of the Nephites”, and Zelph’s death “during the last great struggle of the Lamanites and Nephites.”
“Now”, [Joseph] said, “I will show you the travels of this people”. He then showed our travels through Iowa, and said, “Here you will make a place for the winter; and here you will travel west until you come to the valley of the Great Salt Lake! You will build cities to the North and to the South, and to the East and to the West… But, the United States will not receive you with the laws which God desires you to live, and you will have to go to where the Nephites lost their power... placing his finger on the map, I should think about where Snowflake, Arizona is situated, or it could have been [north most] Mexico
Mosiah Hancock, Autobiography, BYU Special Collections, Writings of Early Latter-day Saints 28. Original is here. Brackets mine.
From Levi Hancock’s record of Zion’s Camp (1834):
“Nothing occurred of any account until we got in Illinois when Joseph said, in our tent, “I want you to remember what I say to you. The Lord is going to give us dry weather now until we get through. He has given rains that there might be water on the prairies. You will see the movings of the Lord in our favor all the way through.” It began to be very pleasant and soon we entered on the wide prairies camping and holding meetings on Sunday…
…On the way to Illinois River where we camped on the west side. In the morning many went to see the big mound about a mile below the crossing. I did not go on it but saw some bones that were brought back with a broken arrow. They were laid down by our camp. Joseph Smith addressing himself to Sylvester Smith and said, “This is what I told you and now I want to tell you that you may know what I meant. This land was called the land of desolation and Onedages was the King and a good man was he. There in that mound did he bury his dead and did not dig holes as the people do now, but they brought their dirt and covered them until you see they have raised it to be about one hundred feet high. The last man buried was Zelf or Telf. He was a white Lamanite who fought with the people of Onedagus for freedom….” These words he said as the camp was moving off the mounds as near as I could learn he had told them something about the mound and got them to go and see it for themselves. I then remembered what he had said a few days before while passing many mounds on our way …”
Autobiography of Levi Hancock (1803-1882), pg. 27 – emphasis added
From W.W. Phelps who echoes Levi Hancock. Although he does not directly attribute this information to Joseph Smith it corroborates both the Hancock’s and Times and Season’s articles which place the Jaredites in North America stretching ‘from sea to sea’.
What the design of our heavenly Father was or is, as to these vast prairies of the far west, I know no farther than we have revelation. The book of Mormon terms them [the prairies] the land of desolation, and when I get into a prairie so large that I am out of sight of timber, just as a seaman is “out of sight of land in the ocean,” I have to exclaim, what is man and his works, compared to the Almighty and his creations? Who hath viewed his everlasting fields? Who hath counted his buffaloes;—who hath seen all his deer, on a thousand prairies? Well may his sacred word declare:—The cattle upon a thousand hills are mind. All are God’s…
W. Phelps. To O. Cowdery, Esq.” (MESSENGER AND ADVOCATE, Vol. 2, July, 1836, No. 22, pg. 341 – emphasis added)
More from WW. Phelps associating the desolate prairies of the Midwest with desolation. .
THE far west, as the section of country from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains may justly be styled, is not only distant from the Atlantic States, but different. Its principal river, running rapidly from the 48th to the 39th degree of north latitude, is always rily, always wearing away its banks and always making new channels: It is rightly named Missouri; for in plain English, it looks like the waters of misery,—or troubled water:—even as the sea which the prophet said, Casts up mire and dirt. With the exception of the skirts of timber upon the streams of water, this region of country is one continued field, or prairie, (as the French have it, meaning meadows,) and there is something ancient as well as grand about it, too; for while the eye takes in a large scope of clear field, or extensive plains, decorated with here and there a patch of timber, like the orchards which beautify the farms in the east, the mind goes back to the day, when the Jaredites were in their glory upon this choice land above all others, and comes on till they, and even the Nephites, were destroyed for their wickedness: Here pause and look to the east, and read the words of the prophet: Wo to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which is on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine! Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.—The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet: and the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up. In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people, and for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate.
To return: this beautiful region of country is now mostly, excepting Arkansas and Missouri, the land of Joseph or the Indians, as they are called, and embraces three fine climates: First, like that of New-York; second, like Missouri, neither northern nor southern; and third, like the Carolinas. This place may be called the centre of America; it being about an equal distance from Maine, to Nootka sound; and from the gulf of St. Lawrence to the gulf of California; yea, and about the middle of the continent from cape Horn, south, to the head land at Baffin’s Bay, north. The world will never value the land of Desolation, as it is called in the book of Mormon, for any thing more than hunting ground, for want of timber and mill-seats: The Lord to the contrary notwithstanding, declares it to be the land of Zion which is the land of Joseph, blessed by him, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, and for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren. His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together from the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.
EVENING AND MORNING STAR, Vol. I, September, 1832. No. 4, pg. 37 – emphasis added
Although the Zarahemla area of Orson Pratt’s geographic model conflicts with Joseph’s, and changed over time, Orson’s views on the Jaredite lands stood firm in placing Jaredite Desolation (as ‘Moron’ or the land of inheritance per Ether 7:5–6) just south of the Gulf of California (Mazatlán area). Fittingly with Joseph’s continental model, Orson also believed Omer fled from Desolation near the Gulf of California to the New England coast near his ‘Cumorah’ (in New York).
The [Jaredites] navigated the great Pacific ocean. …taking eight barges, launched on the eastern coast of China, and bringing them a voyage of three hundred and forty-four days and landing them… to the south of this, just below the Gulf of California, on our western coast. They inhabited North America, and spread forth on this Continent, and in the course of some sixteen hundred years’ residence here, they became a mighty and powerful nation…
Omer and his family and some few of his friends, that were righteous enough to be spared out of a whole nation. The Lord warned them by a dream to depart from the land of Moran [Moron: see Ether 7:6], and led them forth in an easterly direction beyond the hill Cumorah, down into the eastern countries upon the sea shore. By this means a few families were saved, while all the balance, consisting of millions of people, were overthrown because of their wickedness. But after they were destroyed the Omerites, who dwelt in the New England States, returned again and dwelt in the land of their fathers on the western coast.
(Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses 12:338, 1868 Sermon, SLC Utah)
TWO SEPERATE MAPS found in the Church archives and attributed to William McBride (1807-1895) and Andrew M. Hamilton (1809-1894) of Richfield, Utah with the text “got it from Joseph Smith the Prophet” written on it (H. Peterson, 1995) corroborate the above quotes. They closely echo the first Mosiah Hancock quote, by detailing the travels of Moroni “starting in Central America” (see also text on second map). These maps were likely part of the narrative told throughout Southern Utah in the 1880’s by Joseph Smith’s contemporaries concerning his prophesies of the Saints future travels and how they would mirror those of Moroni and the ancient Nephites as per the following quote.
William McBride is recorded giving a detailed explanation of what’s recorded on the maps, at a St George temple prayer meeting in 1881. Charles Lowell records the third-hand words of Joseph Smith in his journal,
Br McBride also related that Joseph marked with his cane in the sand the track the saints would take to the Rocky Mountains. Says Joseph, will you establish the kingdom there? No, but it will be set up and the saints will live their covenants, meaning the Marriage covenant. Said we should travel on thro the mountains; described the Valley of Great Salt Lake just as tho he had lived there, designating where the soldiers camp would be and the burying ground.
Said we should make stations and build up settlements all the way to New and Old Mexico until we crossed the Isthmus and get back to the place where the Covenant was broke [ie. United Order] by the old Nephites. Spoke of the Great Temple in Central America unfinished… This temple was situated by the River Copan anciently called the River of Nephi…
Spoke of the route THE OLD NEPHITES TOOK travelling to Cumorah from the South and Southwest; of having to bury their treasures as they journeyed and finally burying the records and precious things in the Hill Cumorah; of Moroni dedicating the Temple site of what we now call St George, Nauvoo, Jackson Co., Kirtland and others we know not of as yet.
(Diary of Charles Lowell Walker Volume II (26 Jan 1881) (pp. 524–525; PDF pp. 39–40)
Although one could argue as to whether “the old Nephites,” Lowell/McBride were referring to was the whole of the Nephite people or a few survivors with Moroni (as possibly suggested by a Brigham Young quote given around the same date), we will demonstrate it had to be the former as we will demonstrate later in this paper that Joseph Smith absolutely believed the entire Nephite nation met it’s end in upstate New York. It also seems likely from the quote that McBride was following the earlier Times & Seasons articles in considering Copan the city of Nephi, Quirigua the city of Zarahemla and the Copan/Motagua River the ‘River of Nephi’. And although this correlation has since been abandoned by all LDS Book of Mormon geographers because of geographic and dating issues, it once again shows how thoroughly the early saints had been convinced of a continental model. (but not necessarily a hemispheric model!)
Again, the maps, when combined with Mosiah Hancock’s quote which shares similar verbiage, suggest that the Saints travels out west from New York were a sort of reverse migration from the travels of Moroni and the whole of the Nephite people on their way to Cumorah (which is labeled in New York). A bit more information can be found at this link.
The next day the Prophet came to our home and stopped in our carpenter shop and stood by the turning lathe. I went and got my map for him. “Now”, he said, “I will show you the travels of this people”. He then showed our travels through Iowa, and said, “Here you will make a place for the winter; and here you will travel west until you come to the valley of the Great Salt Lake! You will build cities to the North and to the South, and to the East and to the West; and you will become a great and wealthy people in that land. …But, the United States will not receive you with the laws which God desires you to live, and you will have to go to where the Nephites lost their power. [The Nephites] worked in the United Order for 166 years, and the Saints have got to become proficient in the laws of God before they can meet the Lord Jesus Christ… He said we will not travel the shape of the horse shoe [see map] for there we will await the action of the government. Placing his finger on the map, I should think about where Snowflake, Arizona is situated, or it could have been [north most] Mexico, he said, “The government will not receive you with the laws that God designed you to live, and those who are desirous to live the laws of God will have to go South…” [presumably into the Mormon Colonies of Northern Mexico] (Mosiah Hancock, Autobiography, BYU Special Collections, Writings of Early Latter-day Saints 28. Original is here
These maps are also corroborated by numerous late dated quotes repeating Brigham Young’s belief that the Manti & St. George temples were dedicated personally by Moroni. Heber C Kimball quoted Brigham in saying “Here [in Manti] is the spot where the prophet Moroni stood and dedicated this piece of land for a Temple site.” (Even the original murals of the Manti temple seem to be telling this same story in the manner Moroni was drawn standing above the Manti Valley.) David Henry Cannon Jr. also quotes Brigham as saying “the brethren.. wanted to move the foundation line [of the St George temple] 12 feet to the south, so that the spring of water would be on the outside of the Temple. ‘Not so,’ replied President Young. ‘We will wall it up and leave it here for some future use, but we cannot move the foundation. This spot was dedicated by the Nephites. They could not build it, but we can and will build it for them.'” There are also quotes made directly by Brigham Young in conferences in St George wherein he said, “the spirits of the Gandiantons were so thick [in the St. George area, because] this is where they lived in these mountains”. Brigham also said in the Salt Lake tabernacle that “the spirits of the Gadiantons are all around us [as] battle-field after battle-field, scattered all over this American continent where the wicked have slain the wicked.”
Before dismissing the quotes just given as too late in time from Brigham & Joseph Smith to be trusted, it’s worth noting that the Nephite migration in the above quotes are not only supported by overwhelming archaeological evidence as presented in the Mexican Highland model, but quite possibly by linguistic evidence of the Uto-Azteca language group as well as general geography matching Book of Mormon land descriptors. In this model the Semitic similarities demonstrated by Brian Stubbs between Uto-Aztecan & Semitic languages would have been first established by the Jaredites who landed in California or Sonora Mexico, and then reinforced by Nephites who later began to migrate into those same regions of Desolation (the Jaredite heartland), and the land Northward. The works of early native chronicler Ixtlilxochitl are also of note.
Although not in any way attributed to Joseph Smith, and in fact in direct contradiction to quotes that are attributed to Joseph Smith when it comes to the location of Desolation, the following quote by Parly P. Pratt given in 1842 helps show that even before the death of the Prophet a number of the Saints were in agreement in holding John Loyyd Stephens Mesoamerican ruins of Quirigua, Copan, Tonina, Uxmal, and Palenque as Book of Mormon cities. (Desolation cities in the minds of both Parley P Pratt & Orson Pratt.)
I say it is remarkable that Mr. Smith, in translating the Book of Mormon from 1827 to 1830, should mention the names and circumstances of those towns and fortifications in this very section of country, where a Mr. Stephens, ten years afterwards, penetrated a dense forest, till then unexplored by modern travelers, and actually finds the ruins of those very cities mentioned by Mormon. The nameless nation of which he speaks were the Nephites. The lost record for which he mourns is the Book of Mormon. The architects, orators, statesmen, and generals, whose works and monuments he admires, are, Alma, Moroni, Helaman, Nephi, Mormon, and their contemporaries. The very cities whose ruins are in his estimation without a name, are called in the Book of Mormon, “Teancum, Boaz, Jordan, Desolation,” &c.
Parley P. Pratt, “Ruins in Central America,” Millennial Star, March 1842, 165. (source link)
(4) –Quotes suggesting Joseph believed Cumorah and the final battle to be in New York, and much of North America to be the Book of Mormon ‘Land Northward’.
In addition to the Times & Seasons articles showing correlations between Mesoamerican ruins and the Book of Mormon, the first article of the series in May 1842 showed correlations between mummies found in Kentucky and the Book of Mormon. In the article, the author states,
Had Mr. Ash in his researches consulted the Book of Mormon his problem would have been solved, and he would have found no difficulty in accounting for the [kentucky] mummies being found in the above mentioned case. The Book of Mormon gives an account of a number of the descendants of Israel coming to this continent; and it is well known that the art of embalming was known among the Hebrews, as well as among the Egyptians.
Times and Seasons, 2 May. 1842, vol. 3, no. 13, pp. 781 edited by JS.
An epistle from Joseph Smith the Prophet to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, dated at Nauvoo, Illinois, September 6, 1842. Shows explicitly that Joseph believed the location where Moroni appeared before giving him the plates was Cumorah.
Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven; and a voice of truth out of the earth; glad tidings for the dead; a voice of gladness for the living and the dead; glad tidings of great joy. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that bring glad tidings of good things, and that say unto Zion: Behold, thy God reigneth! As the dews of Carmel, so shall the knowledge of God descend upon them!
And again, what do we hear? Glad tidings from Cumorah! Moroni, an angel from heaven, declaring the fulfilment of the prophets-the book to be revealed. A voice of the Lord in the wilderness of Fayette, Seneca county, declaring the three witnesses to bear record of the book! The voice of Michael on the banks of the Susquehanna, detecting the devil when he appeared as an angel of light! The voice of Peter, James, and John in the wilderness between Harmony, Susquehanna county, and Colesville, Broome county, on the Susquehanna river, declaring themselves as possessing the keys of the kingdom, and of the dispensation of the fulness of times! (D&C 128:19–20)
Joseph & Oliver also said the following in a letter to W.W. Phelps,
“You are acquainted with the mail road from Palmyra… At about one mile west rises another ridge of less height, running parallel with the former, leaving a beautiful vale between. The soil is of the first quality for the country, and under a state of cultivation, which gives a prospect at once imposing, when one reflects on the fact, that here, between these hills, the entire power and national strength of both the Jaredites and Nephites were destroyed. By turning to the 529th and 530th pages of the book of Mormon you will read Mormon’s account of the last great struggle of his people, as they were encamped round this hill Cumorah”
(Handwriting of Oliver Cowdery, Shares page with dictated ‘Joseph Smith History’. Joseph Smith Papers, Letter VII“)
In 1856 Heber C. Kimball gave a talk in which he gave suggested first or possibly second hand information about a vision that “Joseph [Smith] and others had” concerning the Hill Cumorah in New York. This vision gave information to them about a cave in which was stored “all the sacred engravings” or as was seen in this vision, “more records than ten men could carry”.
“…the vision that Joseph [Smith] and others had, when into a cave in the hill Cumorah, and saw more records than ten men could carry…. There were books piled up on tables, book upon book. …they are events that I heard Joseph speak of, time and time again.
(Heber C Kimball. Journal of Discourses Vol.4, Page 105)
This experience is shared by at least 9 different individuals, who heard about, mostly second hand. Although all the quotes are of a late date they at least seem to corroborate the general experience even though they vary on important details such as 1. who was there, 2, whether the experience was objective or a subjective visionary experience, and 3, what exactly was in the cave. For all 9 or 10 accounts see Cumorah’s Cave by Cameron j. Packer or this article on supportingevidences.net
In this article we offer two more quotes because one tells who might have been there, and the other is a first hand source by one of those individuals. The first by William Horne Dame, 1819-1884, was written in his Diary dated, 14 January 1855.
“Attended meeting a discourse from W. W. Phelps. He related a story told him by Hyrum Smith which was as follows: Joseph, Hyrum, Cowdery & Whitmere went to the hill Cormorah. As they were walking up the hill, a door opened and they walked into a room about 16 ft square. In that room was an angel and a trunk. On that trunk lay a book of Mormon & gold plates, Laban’s sword, Aaron’s brestplate.” (William Horne Dame Diary, 14 January 1855)
The second quote was recorded incredibly late (at least 50 years later) in 16 August 1878, by Whitmer himself speaks about the record cave of Cumorah, as if he had intimate knowledge of it, but not saying specifically that he had been there, in an interview with P. Wilhelm Poulson of the Deseret News:
Poulson: Where are the plates now?
Whitmer: In a cave, where the angel has hidden them up till the time arrives when the plates, which are sealed, shall be translated. God will yet raise up a mighty one, who shall do his work till it is finished and Jesus comes again.
Poulson: Where is that cave?
Whitmer: In the State of New York.
Poulson: In the Hill of Comorah?
Whitmer: No, but not far away from that place.
(John Whitmer. Deseret Evening News, August 16, 1878. See more info here)
Recollections of a conversation with Joseph Smith by his mother, Lucy Mack Smith. Shows that the Hill Cumorah was in the New York area.
The fact was I had learned to be a little cautious about matters with regard to Joseph, for I was accustomed to see him look as he did on that occasion and I could not easily mistake the cause thereof.
(Lucy Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith by His Mother [Salt Lake City: Stevens & Wallis, Inc., 1945], 100.)
Presently he smiled and said in a calm tone, “I have taken the severest chastisement that I have ever had in my life.”
My husband, supposing that it was from some of the neighbors, was quite angry and observed, “I would like to know what business anybody has to find fault with you!”
“Stop, father, stop,” said Joseph, “it was the angel of the Lord. As I passed by the hill of Cumorah, where the plates are, the angel met me and said that I had not been engaged enough in the work of the Lord; that the time had come for the record to be brought forth; and that I must be up and doing and set myself about the things which God had commanded me to do. But, father, give yourself no uneasiness concerning the reprimand which I have received, for I now know the course that I am to pursue, so all will be well.”
It was also made known to him at this interview that he should make another effort to obtain the plates, on the twenty-second of the following September, but this he did not mention to us at that time.
Remember that the Book of Mormon explicitly states that the final Battle happened around the Hill Cumorah and that the location where “all the records” were hid was called the Hill Cumorah. So to suggest the revelation of D&C 128:20 and that in the above quotes are not the same as the hill mentioned in the Book of Mormon, is to suggest there are TWO Hill Cumorahs, and that Joseph was deeply mistaken and that the D&C 128 revelation/letter was not specifically inspired in regard to the name of the location therein referred.
2 And I, Mormon, wrote an epistle unto the king of the Lamanites, and desired of him that he would grant unto us that we might gather together our people unto the land of Cumorah, by a hill which was called Cumorah, and there we could give them battle.
6 And it came to pass that when we had gathered in all our people in one to the land of Cumorah, behold I, Mormon, began to be old; and knowing it to be the last struggle of my people, and 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 6:2,6)
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(5) – Quotes Concerning Nephites/Lamanites Living in the United States Region & Central US Natives Being Descendants of the Book of Mormon Peoples
Joseph Smith specifically stated the Book of Mormon was written by the forefathers of the western tribes (likely referring to the Natives west of Nauvoo, which included the Cherokee and natives relocated in the Indian Removal Act to Oklahoma territory in the 1830’s). Note he does not say the tribes of the East or South or Mexico, but particular singles out those of the West.
The Book of Mormon is a record of the forefathers of our western Tribes of Indians, having been found through the ministration of an holy Angel translated into our own Language by the gift and power of God, after having been hid up in the earth for the last fourteen hundred years31 containing the word of God, which was delivered unto them, By it we learn that our western tribes of Indians are desendants from that Joseph that was sold into Egypt, and that the Land of America is a promised land unto them,32 and unto it all the tribes of Israel will come. with as many of the gentiles as shall comply with the requesitions of the new co[v]enant.
Joseph Smith Letter, Kirtland Township, OH, to Noah C. Saxton, Rochester, Monroe Co., NY, 4 Jan. 1833
From the Wentworth Letter–shows that Moroni instructed Joseph on many aspects relating to Book of Mormon geography.
On the evening on the 21st of September, A.D. 1823, while I was praying unto God, and endeavoring to exercise faith in the precious promises of Scripture, on a sudden a light like that of day, only of a far purer and more glorious appearance and brightness, burst into the room, indeed the first sight was as though the house was filled with consuming fire; the appearance produced a shock that affected the whole body; in a moment a personage stood before me surrounded with a glory yet greater than that with which I was already surrounded. This messenger proclaimed himself to be an angel of God, sent to bring the joyful tidings that the covenant which God made with ancient Israel was at hand to be fulfilled, that the preparatory work for the second coming of the Messiah was speedily to commence; that the time was at hand for the Gospel in all its fullness to be preached in power, unto all nations that a people might be prepared for the Millennial reign. I was informed that I was chosen to be an instrument in the hands of God to bring about some of His purposes in this glorious dispensation.
I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country and shown who they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people, was made known unto me; I was also told where were deposited some plates on which were engraven an abridgment of the records of the ancient Prophets that had existed on this continent. The angel appeared to me three times the same night and unfolded the same things. After having received many visits from the angels of God unfolding the majesty and glory of the events that should transpire in the last days, on the morning of the 22nd of September, A.D. 1827, the angel of the Lord delivered the records into my hands.
…In this important and interesting book the history of ancient America is unfolded, from its first settlement by a colony that came from the Tower of Babel, at the confusion of languages to the beginning of the fifth century of the Christian Era. We are informed by these records that America in ancient times has been inhabited by two distinct races of people. The first were called Jaredites, and came directly from the Tower of Babel. The second race came directly from the city of Jerusalem, about six hundred years before Christ. They were principally Israelites, of the descendants of Joseph. The Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the Israelites came from Jerusalem, who succeeded them in the inheritance of the country. The principal nation of the second race fell in battle towards the close of the fourth century. The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country. This book also tells us that our Savior made His appearance upon this continent after His resurrection; that He planted the Gospel here in all its fulness, and richness, and power, and blessing; that they had Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers, and Evangelists; the same order, the same priesthood, the same ordinances, gifts, powers, and blessings, as were enjoyed on the eastern continent, that the people were cut off in consequence of their transgressions, that the last of their prophets who existed among them was commanded to write an abridgment of their prophecies, history, &c, and to hide it up in the earth, and that it should come forth and be united with the Bible for the accomplishment of the purposes of God in the last days. For a more particular account I would refer to the Book of Mormon, which can be purchased at Nauvoo, or from any of our Traveling Elders.
(Joseph Smith. Wentworth Letter. JS, History, 1838–1856, vol. C-1, created 24 Feb. 1845–3 July 1845; handwriting of Thomas Bullock, Franklin D. Richards, Jonathan Grimshaw, and Leo Hawkins; 512 pages. Original available here)
Revelation given through Joseph Smith the Prophet to Oliver Cowdery, at Fayette, New York, September 1830. Calls Native Americans in North Central America “Lamanites.”
And now, behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them; and inasmuch as they receive thy teachings thou shalt cause my church to be established among them; and thou shalt have revelations, but write them not by way of commandment.
And now, behold, I say unto you that it is not revealed, and no man knoweth where the city Zion shall be built, but it shall be given hereafter. Behold, I say unto you that it shall be on the borders by the Lamanites. [of the Kansas/Oklahoma Territory, relocated there in 1830, see this link](D&C 28:8–9)
Revelation given through Joseph Smith the Prophet to Parley P. Pratt and Ziba Peterson, October 1830. Calls Native Americans in North Central America “Lamanites.”
And that which I have appointed unto him is that he shall go with my servants, Oliver Cowdery and Peter Whitmer, Jun., into the wilderness among the Lamanites. [of the Kansas/Oklahoma Territory, relocated there in 1830, see this link](D&C 32:2)
Revelation given through Joseph Smith the Prophet to Newel Knight, at Kirtland, Ohio, June 1831. Calls Native Americans in North Central America “Lamanites.”
And thus you shall take your journey into the regions westward, unto the land of Missouri, unto the borders of the Lamanites. [of the Kansas/Oklahoma Territory, relocated there in 1830, see this link](D&C 54:8)
Entry in The History of the Church showing that Nephites and Lamanites lived in the Illinois area (where Joseph Smith was traveling with Zion’s Camp).
During our travels we visited several of the mounds which had been thrown up by the ancient inhabitants of this country-Nephites, Lamanites, etc., and this morning I went up on a high mound, near the river, accompanied by the brethren. From this mound we could overlook the tops of the trees and view the prairie on each side of the river as far as our vision could extend, and the scenery was truly delightful.
Apparently assembled from the accounts of Heber C Kimball & Wilford Woodruff. Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 vols., introduction and notes by B. H. Roberts [Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1932-1951], 2: 79 – 80
On the top of the mound were stones which presented the appearance of three altars having been erected one above the other, according to the ancient order; and the remains of bones were strewn over the surface of the ground. The brethren procured a shovel and a hoe, and removing the earth to the depth of about one foot, discovered the skeleton of a man, almost entire, and between his ribs the stone point of a Lamanitish arrow, which evidently produced his death. Elder Burr Riggs retained the arrow. The contemplation of the scenery around us produced peculiar sensations in our bosoms; and subsequently the visions of the past being opened to my understanding by the Spirit of the Almighty, I discovered that the person whose skeleton was before us was a white Lamanite, a large, thick-set man, and a man of God. His name was Zelph. He was a warrior and chieftain under the great prophet Onandagus, who was known from the Hill Cumorah, or eastern sea to the Rocky mountains. The curse was taken from Zelph, or, at least, in part-one of his thigh bones was broken by a stone flung from a sling, while in battle, years before his death. He was killed in battle by the arrow found among his ribs, during the last great struggle of the Lamanites and Nephites.
Entry in The History of the Church showing that Nephites and Lamanites lived near Adam-ondi-Ahman in North Central America.
Saturday, 19.-This morning we struck our tents and formed a line of march, crossing Grand River at the mouth of Honey Creek and Nelson’s Ferry. Grand River is a large, beautiful, deep and rapid stream, during the high waters of Spring, and will undoubtedly admit of navigation by steamboat and other water craft. At the mouth of Honey Creek is a good landing. We pursued our course up the river, mostly through timber, for about eighteen miles, when we arrived at Colonel Lyman Wight’s home. He lives at the foot of Tower Hill (a name I gave the place in consequence of the remains of an old Nephite altar or tower that stood there), where we camped for the Sabbath.
Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 vols., introduction and notes by B. H. Roberts [Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1932-1951], 3: 34
See “Joseph Smith and the Question of Book of Mormon Geography” by Matthew Roper for arguments for/against a Central/eastern American setting..
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Quotes regarding Joseph Smith’s ‘vision’ of Zelph and the final battle, as well as confirmation that the Nephites & Jaredites spread across North America from sea to sea.
In multiple quotes directly attributed to Joseph Smith in the official history of the church Zelph is described in ways that make holding to a purely Mesoamerican final battle or 2 Cumorah model incredibly difficult. Zelph’s location is stated in a letter from Joseph to Emma as occurring in “the plains of the Nephites”. The accounts of Zelph are specifically attributed to a “vision”. Joseph states his death occurred “during the last great struggle of the Lamanites and Nephites”. His fame was known “from the Hill Cumorah, or eastern sea to the Rocky mountains”. Those who try to dismiss Zelph as being some lone Nephite survivor of the final battle who wandered 2000 miles north of Vera Cruz, Mexico after the final battle (despite Mormon 6:15 saying those who escaped went south) must make mental gymnastic leaps of logic which discount not only the direct quotes concerning Zelph himself, but also the corpus of other quotes given above in this paper.
all the [Zions] Camp is in as good a situation as could be expected; but our numbers and means are altogether too small for the accomplishment of such a great enterprise… The whole of our journey, in the midst of so large a company of social honest men and sincere men, wandering over the plains of the Nephites, recounting occasionaly the history of the Book of Mormon, roving over the mounds of that once beloved people of the Lord, picking up their skulls & their bones, as a proof of its divine authenticity, and gazing upon a country the fertility, the splendour and the goodness…
Letter to Emma Smith, 4 June 1834
See ‘Zelph Revisited’ section below for all available details on Zelph
A Final Note
Once again, for those trying to make the story of Zelph fit into a “2 Cumorah model.”
I ask, do you not see how you’re doing the same thing Heartlanders do when they use mental gymnastics to explain away Joseph’s quotes on a Mesoamerican setting? If you fall in this camp let me clearly and sequentially lay out the evidence that you must be missing.
1. First for those who argue that the radiocarbon dating of Naples-Russell Mound Number 8 in Pike County precludes Zelph from being what Joseph said use bad logic. (see Jason King et al, Time and Archaeological Traditions in the Lower Illinois Valley, American Antiquity 76(3), 2011, pp. 500-628). Note in the documentary evidence, it is said of Zelph saying “human bones were strewn over the surface of the ground. The brethren procured a shovel and hoe, and removing the earth to the depth of about one foot discovered skeleton of a man”
At a foot deep it wouldn’t even be in the wood tomb. But its almost ubiquitous for the mounds to have multiple period use, and late internments. Zelph was undoubtedly ABOVE the QL-4904 log tomb cap. (You are suggesting he was below, correct?) In fact its possible much of the top few feet of the mound were gone by the time excavation took place. (we could compare the current height to the ~100 ft height given in accounts?) Note that Wilford Woodruff recounts that they took the thigh bone home. So the chances that any skeletal remains of Zelph, or even his entire internment layer remained at excavation is skant. (https://bhroberts.org/records/b1mDub-GfvQjc/ww_records_the_discovery_of_zelph)
2. Second and worse. You’re cherry picking of quotes you dont like (just like heartlanders)
You don’t like the desolation aspect of Levi Hancock’s account (not Reuben Hancock, you might want to fix that type-o), so you just dismiss it.
Even though his son, Levi Hancock independently verifies his own personal communication from Joseph validating desolation being in North America.
https://josephsmithfoundation.org/autobiography-of-mosiah-hancock-1834-1907/
Its further verified by William McBride and Andrew M. Hamilton’s “map” (which people on this site love to dismiss) that matches the exact language and ideas expressed by Levi Hancock in his diary of Joseph telling him “I went and got my map for him. “Now”, he said, “I will show you the travels of this people”. I’m serious here… note the language similarity between the map and Levi’s account of Joseph’s words.
(I lay it out here. see “Quotes suggesting Joseph Smith believed the Land of Desolation extended from the southwest into the Great Plains)” @ https://gatheredin.one/449/joseph-smith-quotes-on-book-of-mormon-geography/)
But put that aside and you still have to dismiss all the history of the church accounts citing “He was killed in battle, by the arrow found among his ribs, during a last great struggle with the Lamanites.” Which would be easy to do if it were’nt for ALL the other quotes here…
https://bhroberts.org/records/b1mDub-7NKSMb/mh_official_account_about_zelph_discovery
You also have to dismiss the Heber C. Kimball bit that says Zelph was “an officer who fell in battle, in the last destruction among the Lamanites”
https://bhroberts.org/records/b1mDub-uN8Ixc/hck_recalls_when_they_found_zs_remains
You also have to dismiss WW details, because he says that the prophet said “onandagus, who was known from the Hill Cumorah, or eastern sea to the Rocky mountains”.
Do you see there that he equates Cumorah with New England?! So again we must suppose that detail was unprophetic and not part of the vision.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/489
https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/14079217-b2a7-4eff-8b53-1be6c1e9bea5/0/23
Do you see the bottomless rationalizations? We have to ‘explain away’ the whole plains of the Nephites quote. And none of this even begins to start on the quotes concerning a New England Cumorah. (and the visionary character to some of those quotes). Either believe Joseph was prophet in his ideas on BOM Geography or dont. Maybe he was clueless. Fine. Just dont pretend the zelph documentary evidence supports 2 cumorah’s WHEN IT ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT. Most people on this forum don’t care. But we should care about intellectual honesty and logic.
You can’t point at Heartlanders for their foolishness of dismissing all the times & seasons articles as “not actually from Joseph” and then turn around and do the same thing, and then expect people not to see you as just as intellectually dishonest as them. take my honest critique for what its worth.
Zelph Revisited
Text of ‘Zelph Revisited’, by Donald Q. Cannon, Church History Regional Studies, BYU Department of Church History and Doctrine, Regional Studies, Illinois. PDF available here.
[Although] most Latter-day Saints would not recognize the name Zelph. However, serious students of LDS Church history and Book of Mormon geography would likely know Zelph as the white Lamanite whose remains were found by Zion’s Camp as they traveled through central Illinois.The name Zelph first appears in LDS history in connection with Zion’s Camp. The most familiar version of the story
is in the History of the Church [written around 1843 written by James Mulholland, WW Phelps & Willard Richards]. The story of Zelph from that source follows:
Our enemies had threatened that we should not cross the Illinois river, but on Monday the 2nd we were ferried over without any difficulty. The ferryman counted, and declared there were five hundred of us, yet our true number was only about one hundred and fifty. Our company had been increased since our departure from Kirtland by volunteers from different branches of the Church through which we had passed. We encamped on the bank of the river until Tuesday the 3rd.
During our travels we visited several of the mounds which had been thrown up by the ancient inhabitants of this country-Nephites, Lamanites, etc., and this morning I went up on a high mound, near the river, accompanied by the brethren. From this mound we could overlook the tops of the trees and view the prairie on each side of the river as far as our vision could extend, and the scenery was truly delightful.
On the top of the mound were stones which presented the appearance of three altars having been erected one above the other, according to the ancient order; and the remains of bones were strewn over the surface of the ground. The brethren procured a shovel and a hoe, and removing the earth to the depth of about one foot, discovered the skeleton of a man, almost entire, and between his ribs the stone point of a Lamanitish arrow, which evidently produced his death. Elder Burr Riggs retained the arrow. The contemplation of the scenery around us produced peculiar sensations in our bosoms; and subsequently the visions of the past being opened to my understanding by the Spirit of the Almighty, I discovered that the person whose skeleton was before us was a white Lamanite, a large, thick-set man, and a man of God. His name was Zelph. He was a warrior and chieftain under the great prophet Onandagus, who was known from the Hill Cumorah, or eastern sea to the Rocky mountains. The curse was taken from Zelph, or, at least, in part-one of his thigh bones was broken by a stone flung from a sling, while in battle, years before his death. He was killed in battle by the arrow found among his ribs, during the last great struggle of the Lamanites and Nephites.
History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834] Note that the “‘or eastern sea”, although a supratext is indeed part of the original journal entry here.
The primary source material for the Zelph story comes from diaries kept by some members of Zion’s Camp.2 Six men wrote diary accounts concerning Zelph: Wilford Woodruff, Heber C. Kimball, George A. Smith, Levi Hancock, Moses Martin, and Reuben McBride.
What do these six contemporary accounts tell us about Zelph? The answer to that question is based upon a careful analysis of the primary sources. Each diary account is reproduced herein as it appeared in the original, without changes in spelling or grammar. Following the printed text of each diary account is a paragraph summarizing the account and including my own interpretations.
Wilford Woodruff, who was the preeminent LDS journal-keeper of the entire nineteenth century, prepared a characteristically detailed record of the events surrounding the discovery of Zelph. Woodruff’s reputation and stature is further attested to by his decade of church service as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and as president of the Church during a crucial period in its history. His journal entry about his experience in Zion’s Camp under the date May-June 1834 follows:
While on our travels we visited many of the mounds which were flung up by the ancient inhabitants of this continent probably by the Nephites & Lamanites. We visited one of those Mounds and several of the brethren dug into it and took from it the bones of a man.
We visited one of those Mounds: considerd to be 300 feet above the level of the Illinois river. Three persons dug into the mound & found a body. Elder Milton Holmes took the arrow out of the back bones that killed Zelph & brought it with some of the bones in to the camp. I visited the same mound with Jesse J. Smith. Who the other persons were that dug in to the mound & found the body I am undecided.
Brother Joseph had a vission respecting the person. He said he was a white Lamanite. The curs was taken from him or at least in part. He was killed in battle with an arrow. The arrow was found among his ribs. One of his thigh bones was broken. This was done by a stone flung from a sling in battle years before his death. His name was Zelph. Some of his bones were brought into the Camp and the thigh bone which was broken was put into my waggon and I carried it to Missouri. Zelph was a large thick set man and a man of God. He was a warrior under the great prophet /Onandagus/ that was known from the hill Camorah /or east sea/ to the Rocky mountains. The above knowledge Joseph receieved in a vision. 3 (link to original)
Wilford Woodruff tells us that these mounds were probably built by the Nephites and Lamanites. He also records that Joseph had a vision concerning the skeleton, learning that he was a white Lamanite, who had been killed in battle. His name was Zelph, “a large thick-set man and a man of God, he was a warrior under the great prophet that was known from the Hill Cumorah to the Rocky Mountains.”
Heber C. Kimball’s journal has a good reputation, a fact supported by the numerous times it has been published, both in extracts and in book form. The Zelph episode is found in one of these published versions in the Times and Seasons under the title “Extracts from H. C. Kimball’s Journal.” His comments on Zelph include the following:
On Tuesday the 3rd, we went up, several of us, with Joseph Smith jr. to the top of a mound on the bank of the Illinois river, which was several hundred feet above the river, and from the summit of which we had a pleasant view of the surrounding country: we could overlook the tops of the trees, on to the meadow or prairie on each side the river as far as our eyes could extend, which was one of the most pleasant scenes I ever beheld. On the top of this mound there was the appearance of three altars, which had been built of stone, one above another, according to the ancient order; and the ground was strewn over with human bones. This caused in us very peculiar feelings, to see the bones of our fellow creatures scattered in this manner, who had been slain in ages past. We felt prompted to dig down into the mound, and sending for a shovel and hoe, we proceeded to move away the earth. At about one foot deep we discovered the skeleton of a man, almost entire; and between two of his ribs we found an Indian arrow, which had evidently been the cause of his death. We took the leg and thigh bones and carried them along with us to Clay county. All four appeared sound. Elder B. Young has yet the arrow in his possession. It is a common thing to find bones thus drenching upon the earth in this country.
The same day, we pursued our journey.-While on our way we felt anxious to know who the person was who had been killed by that arrow. It was made known to Joseph that he had been an officer who fell in battle, in the last destruction among the Lamanites, and his name was Zelph. This caused us to rejoice much, to think that God was so mindful of us as to show these things to his servant. Brother Joseph had enquired of the Lord and it was made known in a vision. 4 (link to original)
From Heber C. Kimball’s account we learn that several men went with Joseph Smith to visit the mound, which was several hundred feet above the Illinois River. He tells of altars being located on top of the mound. They discovered a human skeleton about one foot below the surface. There was an Indian arrow between his ribs. He said that Brigham Young had the arrow in his possession.
George A. Smith’s church experience was similar to that of Woodruff and Kimball. He served as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and as a counselor in the First Presidency. He is known as a reliable witness. He recorded the event in his journal; however, the text which follows was prepared later in connection with the History of the Church: “Monday, 2 June 1834: Some of us visited a mound on a bluff about 300 feet high and dug up some bones, which excited deep interest among the brethren. The President and many others visited the mound on the following morning.”5
The record from George A. Smith is much shorter than the other accounts. He gives the full date (Monday, June 2, 1834), tells of the height of the mound, and indicates Joseph Smith visited the mound the following morning.
Another Church leader, Levi Hancock, served as one of the presidents of the Seventy. His account is the most detailed and complete of any of the six accounts. His diary is regarded as a reliable and accurate source for events he experienced.
On the way to Illinois River where we camped on the west side in the morning, many went to see the big mound about a mile below the crossing, I did not go on it but saw some bones that was brought with a broken arrow, they was layed down by our camp Joseph addressed himself to Sylvester Smith, “This is what I told you and now I want to tell you that you may know what I meant; this land was called the land of desolation and Onendagus was the king and a good man was he, there in that mound did he bury his dead and did not dig holes as the people do now but they brought there dirt and covered them untill you see they have raised it to be about one hundread feet high, the last man buried was Zelf, he was a white Lamanite who fought with the people of Onendagus for freedom, when he was young he was a great warrior and had his th[igh] broken and never was set, it knited together as you see on the side, he fought after it got strength untill he lost every tooth in his head save one when the Lord said he had done enough and suffered him to be killed by that arrow you took from his brest.” These words he said as the camp was moving of[f] the ground; as near as I could learn he had told them something about the mound and got them to go and see for themselves. I then remembered what he had said a few days before while passing many mounds on our way that was left of us; said he, “there are the bodies of wicked men who have died and are angry at us; if they can take the advantage of us they will, for if we live they will have no hope.” I could not comprehend it but supposed it was all right. 6
From Levi Hancock we learn some things previously known as well as some new information. Hancock identifies the Illinois River and says they were camped on the west side of the river. Further, he says the mound was a mile below the crossing, i.e., south [p.101] of the ferry. Following a vision, Joseph told the members of the camp, especially Sylvester Smith, about the bones. He told them this was the Land of Desolation and that Onandagus was their king. Zelph was a white Lamanite who fought for freedom. This mighty warrior was killed by an arrow.
Moses Martin, who was on site when the skeleton was excavated, wrote the following:
This being in the Co of Pike, here we discovered a large quantity of large mounds. Being filed with curiosity we excavated the top of one so[m]e 2 feete when we came to the bones of an extraordinary large person or human being, the thigh bones being 2 inches longer from one Socket to the other than of the Prophet \whi\ who is upwards of 6 feete high which would have constuted some 8 or 9 feete high. In the trunk of this skeleton near the vitals we found a large stone arrow which I suppose brougt him to his end. Soon after this Joseph had a vision and the Lord shewed him that this man was once a mighty Prophet and many other things concerning his people. Thus we found those mounds to have be[en] deposits for the dead which had falen no doubt in some great Batles. In addition to this we found many large fortifications which als[o] denotes siviliseation and an innumberable population which has falen by wars and comotion and the Banks of this Beautiful River became the deposit of many hundred thousands whose graves and fortifications \have\ are overgrown with the sturdy oak 4 feete in diameter. 7 (link to original)
From Moses Martin the following is reported. They were in Pike County, and there were several large mounds. He furnishes details such as the excavation being two feet deep, the skeleton being extra large. He estimated the skeleton to be eight or nine feet tall because of the size of the thigh bone. There was a stone arrow in his rib cage. Joseph had a vision concerning the event and learned that this was a mighty prophet. These mounds were graves for the dead who had fallen in great battles.
Reuben McBride’s account is important because it was written close to the time of the event. It is, however, somewhat confusing because the information on Zelph is written in two different parts of his journal. In order to clarify the meaning, the entries relating to Zelph have been compressed together and the intervening, extraneous information has been deleted.
Tuesday 3 visited the mounds. A skeleton was dug up. Joseph, said his name was Zelph a great warrior under the Prophet Omandagus. An arrow was found in his Ribs which he said he suposed ocaisoned his death \Said\ he was killed in battle. Said he was a man of God and the curse was taken off or in part he was a white Lamanite was known from the atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. 8 (link to original)
From Reuben McBride we learn that the date was Tuesday, the third, when they visited the mounds. They dug up a skeleton and Joseph identified the remains as Zelph, a warrior under the prophet Onandagus.
What do these six contemporary accounts tell us about Zelph and Book of Mormon geography? In order to answer this question, I will present the following summary containing the basic facts followed by the sources of information in parentheses. A key to abbreviations is also included.
SUMMARY
Key to Abbreviations:
GAS/GS = George A. Smith
HCK/HK = Heber C. Kimball
LH = Levi Hancock
MM = Moses Martin
RM = Reuben McBride
WW = Wilford Woodruff
Dates of Visits to Mounds
Group: Monday, June 2, 1834 (GAS), J. Smith: Tuesday, June 3, 1834 (HCK, RM) May-June 1834 (WW)
Detail (below) – Quote Author (right) | GS | HK | LH | MM | RM | WW |
Place Where Mounds are Located | ||||||
Illinois River (WW, HCK, LH) | X | X | X | |||
Pike County (MM) | X | |||||
Description of Mounds | ||||||
300 feet above River (WW, GAS) | X | X | ||||
Flung up by ancient inhabitants (WW) | X | |||||
Several hundred feet above River (HCK) | X | |||||
Three alters on top of Mound (HCK) | X | |||||
Big Mound (LH) | X | |||||
Large Quantity of Mounds (MM) | X | |||||
Fortifications (MM) | X | |||||
Artifacts Found | ||||||
Body (WW) | X | |||||
Arrow (WW, HCK, LH, MM, RM) | X | X | X | X | ||
Human Bones (HCK, GAS, LH, MM) | X | X | X | X | ||
Skeleton of a man (HCK, RM) | X | X | ||||
Zelph Identified | ||||||
Name Zelph (WW, HCK, LH, RM) | X | X | X | X | ||
Large, thick-set man (WW) | X | |||||
Warrior (WW, HCK, LH, RM) | X | X | X | X | ||
White Lamanite (LH, RM) | X | X | ||||
Mighty Prophet (MM) | ||||||
Man of God (RM) | X | |||||
Killed in Battle (WW, HCK, MM, RM) | X | X | X | X | ||
Nephite-Lamanite References | ||||||
Nephite (WW) | X | |||||
Lamanite (WW, HCK, LH, RM) | X | X | X | X | ||
Joseph Smith’s Vision of Zelph | ||||||
Vision received (WW, HCK, MM) | X | X | X | |||
Onandagus Identified | ||||||
Name (various spellings) (WW, LH, RM) | X | X | X | |||
Great Prophet (WW, RM) | X | X | ||||
Know from Atlantic to Rocky Mountains (WW, RM) | X | X |
From the foregoing summary it seems evident that these accounts indicate the possibility of some Book of Mormon events being located in North America.
The evidence in these journal accounts should be taken seriously for two reasons. First, there is a remarkable harmony and good agreement between the accounts. They are certainly not contradictory. Second, these are credible, competent witnesses. When one refers to the journal of Wilford Woodruff, for example, one is working with material which has been described by the experts as among the best nineteenth century journals. Indeed, [p.104] Woodruff’s journals constitute basic source material for the published history of the Church. Heber C. Kimball and George A. Smith are also well-known for the accuracy and integrity of their journals. These records have also been included in the History of the Church. While not as well known as the three mentioned above, the other three writers are also reliable witnesses of historical events.
Additional information is available to us beyond these diary accounts. Just two days later Joseph Smith wrote to his wife, Emma Smith, telling her about his experiences, and recounting, specifically, the experience at “Zelph Mound.” In the letter he writes that they were “wandering over the plains of the Nephites, recounting occasionaly the history of the Book of Mormon, roving over the mounds of that once beloved people of the Lord, picking up their skulls & their bones, as a proof of its divine authenticity.”9
This letter to his beloved Emma not only tells about the general news of the progress of Zion’s Camp, it specifically deals with Book of Mormon matters. Joseph Smith was obviously very excited about the findings. He refers to the geographic area in Illinois as “the plains of the Nephites.” He reports that the mounds belonged to the people of the Book of Mormon, and, further, that these discoveries were proof of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. This letter shows that Joseph Smith firmly believed that some Nephites had inhabited North America before their final destruction at the hands of the Lamanites.
Neither Joseph Smith nor the six journal writers associated with the Zelph incident were alone in writing and speaking about Book of Mormon geography. Nineteenth century Church members commonly referred to Book of Mormon locations in North America. Many of these people sincerely believed that at least some of the events described in the Book of Mormon took place in North America. The Times and Seasons, published by the Church in Nauvoo, often carried stories and statements about Book of Mormon geography. An example is this statement from Oliver Cowdery (original spelling has been preserved).
You are aquainted with the mail road from Palmyra, Wayne Co. to Canandaigue, Ontario Co., NY…you pass a large hill on the east side of the road…[a discription of the hill follows]. At about one mile west rises another ridge of less height, running parallel with the former leaving a beautiful vale between. The soil is of the first quality for the country and under a state of [p.105] cultivation which gives a prospect at once imposing, when one reflects on the fact, that here, between these hills, the entire power and national strength of both the Jaradites and the Nephites were destroyed. By turning to the 529th and 530th pages of the Book of Mormon you will read Mormon’s account of the last great struggle of his people, as they were encamped round this hill Cumorah…. This hill by the Jaredites was called Ramah: by it or around it, pitched the famous army of Coriantumr their tents.10
Concerning Adam-ondi-Ahman, Zerah Pulsipher, a member of the First Council of Seventy, wrote:
Daviess County was a beautiful place situated on Grand River. First rate land and plenty of good timber where we supposed there had been an ancient city of the Nephites, as the hewn stone were already there in piles also the mound or alter built by Father Adam, where he went to offer sacrifices when he was old. Leaning upon his staff, prophesying the most noted thing that should take place down to the latest generation therefore it was called Adam-ondi-Ahman. (11)
Orson Pratt, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and a leading intellectual figure in nineteenth century Mormonism, said the following about his belief that the Jaredites landed just south of the Gulf of California (Maztalan area) and that Omer fled to the New England area.
The [Jaredites] navigated the great Pacific ocean. …taking eight barges, launched on the eastern coast of China, and bringing them a voyage of three hundred and forty-four days and landing them… to the south of this, just below the Gulf of California, on our western coast. They inhabited North America, and spread forth on this Continent, and in the course of some sixteen hundred years’ residence here, they became a mighty and powerful nation. Although they became a great and mighty people…
The Jaredites had this decree before them, before they set foot on this Continent… On a certain occasion there were a very few individuals, Omer and his family and some few of his friends, that were righteous enough to be spared out of a whole nation. The Lord warned them by a dream to depart from the land of Moran, and led them forth in an easterly direction beyond the hill Cumorah, down into the eastern countries upon the sea shore. By this means a few families were saved, while all the balance, consisting of millions of people, were overthrown because of their wickedness. But after they were destroyed the Omerites, who dwelt in the New England States, returned again and dwelt in the land of their fathers on the western coast. 12 (Journal of Discourses 12:338, Orson Pratt, 1868 Sermon, SLC Utah)
Brigham Young said much about Book of Mormon geography and especially the Hill Cumorah. The following comment concerns the records stored in the Hill Cumorah:
When Joseph got the plates, the angel instructed him to carry them back to the hill Cumorah, which he did. Oliver says that when Joseph and Oliver went there, the hill opened, and they walked into a cave, in which there was a large and spacious room. He says he did not think, at the time, whether they had the light of the sun or artificial light; but that it was just as light as day. They laid the plates on a table; it was a large table that stood in the room. Under this table there was a pile of plates as much as two feet high, and there were altogether in this room more plates than probably many wagon loads; they were piled up in the corners and along the walls. The first time they went there the sword of Laban hung upon the wall; but when they went again it had been taken down and laid upon the table across the gold plates; it was unsheathed, and on it was written these words: “This sword will never be sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and his Christ.” I tell you this as coming not only from Oliver Cowdery, but others who were familiar with it, and who understood it just as well as we understand coming to this meeting, enjoying the day, and by and by we separate and go away, forgetting most of what is said, but remembering some things. So is it with other circumstances in life. I relate this to you, and I want you to understand it. I take this liberty of referring to those things so that they will not be forgotten and lost.13
These four quotations are a powerful statement concerning a North American location for events in Book of Mormon history. This belief of a North American location for certain Book of Mormon events was a certainty for these people.
There is still another body of evidence that is entirely independent of the Church. I refer to the evidence from archaeological and anthropological studies of the area near Zelph Mound.
Several studies have been undertaken, beginning in the nineteenth century. One of the earliest studies of this area took place in the 1870s and 1880s. The Smithsonian Institution published the results of these investigations in 1884 in its Annual Report. This report provides useful information on excavation undertaken directly on the site now identified as Zelph Mound. It describes the work of the mound builders who occupied the Illinois River Valley. Among the relics unearthed were clay pipes, copper axes, and arrow heads. No attempt was made to establish a precise date for the mound builders of the area. They did find some connection with other geographic areas such as Michigan and Mexico.14
Many studies of the area have been conducted during the twentieth century. Zelph Mound is referred to in scientific terms in [p.107] most of these reports as Naples-Russell Mound Number 8. Highway construction has prompted several recent archaeological investigations of the area. In order for the new state highway, Route 36, to span the Illinois River Valley, large cement and steel supports had to be constructed. The base of these supports on the west side of the river are located on the bluffs near Naples-Russell Mound Number 8. Before any major excavation began, teams of archaeologists came on site to conduct exploratory excavation and identify any artifacts recovered from the mounds. The results of these studies conducted by the state of Illinois, the University of Chicago, and other organizations are very revealing and interesting for Latter-day Saints. Although they use terminology such as Woodland and Hopewell Culture, which is not derived from Book of Mormon terms, the dates are clearly within the scope of Book of Mormon history. Some of the fabric recovered from the archaeological digs conducted on the bluffs dates between 100 BC and AD 400.15 I find this data to be absolutely astonishing. The various cultures and peoples which occupied the lower Illinois River Valley span several hundred years. Remarkably, items discovered in the Zelph Mound area fit precisely within the parameters of the Book of Mormon historical chronology. It seems to me that this general collection of evidence points to a possible North American Book of Mormon geographic location. At least it should be seriously considered and not ignored.
Stating that there is a North American location for some Book of Mormon events does not exclude the possibility of other Book of Mormon events having occurred elsewhere. It seems possible to have Book of Mormon history occurring in both Central America and North America. This raises the feasibility of a connection between Central America and North America.
Some studies link the people and culture of Central America with those in North America.16 These studies have been conducted by people who are not LDS and, consequently, do not share the same beliefs about the Book of Mormon and its origins. Nevertheless, they have made a connection between Meso-America and the Mississippi Valley, a connection which is potentially useful for Latter-day Saints.
One of the most convincing of these studies which link Central America to North America is the one conducted by Robert Silverberg, a scholar who has published over 130 books and articles. His [p.108] investigation shows a direct link between the mound builders of the Midwest and the cultures found in pre-classic Mexico. The presence of corn in both areas is one of several connections which exist between these two areas. As Silverberg explains: “The corn that is being found increasingly more often at Hopewell village sites seems to argue in favor of direct or indirect contact between Hopewell and Mexico.” 17
A recent book on the archaeology of North America adds corroborating evidence on the cultural connections between Mexico and North America. Specifically, temple mounds in Mississippian villages show evidence of Mexican influence.18
Conclusion
Where does all this lead us? What can we conclude about Zelph? What does the Zelph incident tell us about LDS Church history, Book of Mormon geography, and Joseph Smith?
We know for certain that some members of Zion’s Camp were on the west bank of the Illinois River in Pike County on 2 and 3 of June 1834. While in the area these men climbed up on a 300-foot earthen burial mound, overlooking the Illinois River. While on the mound on 2 June they uncovered a large skeleton. On 3 June Joseph Smith accompanied some of the men to the same burial mound. Later in the day he received a vision in which he learned that these skeletal remains belonged to Zelph, a white Lamanite, who had been a warrior under a leader named Onandagus.
On 4 June on the banks of the Mississippi River, Joseph Smith wrote a letter to his wife Emma. In that letter he told her they had been wandering among the land of the Nephites. According to Joseph Smith this experience attested to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.
The journal accounts of Joseph Smith’s activities and his letter indicate that he believed that Book of Mormon history, or at least a part of it, transpired in North America. What does one do with such a prophetic statement? Some have dismissed it as a joke or playful exercise of Joseph’s imagination.19 Others have chosen to emphasize discrepancies and possible contradictions in the source accounts, thereby discrediting what Joseph Smith said.20
It seems to me that either approach carries heavy risks. When one chooses to state that Joseph Smith can’t be taken seriously on [p.109] this issue, the door is opened to question his statements on other issues. Where does it stop? Does the First Vision, with the discrepancies in the primary source accounts, also come under the doubt and skepticism applied here to Zelph? Why can’t we simply take Joseph Smith at his word?
As I have shown, there is additional evidence which can be employed to support these claims. Statements made by nineteenth century Mormons about a North American location for the Book of Mormon can be used to support this position. Also, there is a considerable body of archaeological evidence concerning the people who lived in the Illinois Valley in ancient times.
A North American location for some Book of Mormon events does not rule out a Central American location for others. The two are not mutually exclusive. The Book of Mormon is a book of scriptures, a religious record-not a geography book. Why not link Meso-America and North America? There are, after all, studies which already connect these two areas of the world.
It seems to me that the foregoing conclusions dictate several challenges and tasks. It is important for Latter-day Saint scholars to further investigate the connections between Central America and North America. More work also needs to be done on nineteenth century LDS statements concerning Book of Mormon geography. There are interesting possibilities and much yet to be learned. I suggest we not reject the story of Zelph and its relationship to Book of Mormon geography until all these areas have been fully investigated. As things stand now we are still uncertain about any of the theories concerning Book of Mormon geography.
Notes:
1. History of the Church, ed. B. H. Roberts, 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1932-51), 2:79-80; hereafter HC.
2. Kenneth W. Godfrey, “The Zelph Story,” BYU Studies (Spr 1989): 31-56. This useful article contains a complete text of each of the six men who wrote diaries during the Zion’s Camp experience. The arrangement of the texts, however, differs from those used in this article.
3. Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, ed. Scott G. Kenney, 9 vols. (Midvale, UT: Signature Books, 1988), 1:10. Original Journal in the LDS Church Archives. I have deleted the note on the interlinear entry.
4. Times and Seasons 6 (1 Feb 1845): 788.
5. George A. Smith Journal (2 June 1834), LDS Church Archives.
6. Levi Hancock Diary, LDS Church Archives.
7. Moses Martin Diary, LDS Church Archives.
8. Reuben McBride Diary (3 June 1834), LDS Church Archives.
9. Dean C. Jessee, The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1984), 324.
10. Times and Seasons 2 (15 Apr 1841): 378.
11. Zera Pulsipher Autobiography, BYU Library.
12. Journal of Discourses 12:338; hereafter JD.
13. JD 19:38.
14. Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, Showing the Operations, Expenditures, and Condition of the Institution for the Year 1882 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1884), 684-721. See especially the report by John G. Henderson, “Aboriginal Remains Near Naples, Illinois.”
15. A general report is found in Douglas K. Charles, Steven R. Leigh, and Jane E. Buikstra, eds., The Archaic and Woodland Cemeteries at the Elizabeth Site in the Lower Illinois Valley (Kampsville: Illinois Department of Transportation by the Center for American Archeology, Kampsville Archeological Center, 1988). A brief account is in the Quincy Whig Herald (7 Nov 1975).
16. Clarence H. Webb, “The Extent and Content of Poverty Point Culture,” American Antiquity, No. 3, 33 (July 1968): 297-321; Robert Wauchope, General Editor, Handbook of Middle American Indians, Gordon F. Ekholm and Gordon R. Willey, eds., Archaeological Frontiers and External Connections (Austin, TX: The University of Texas at Austin Press, 1986), 4:110-131; Charles R. Wicke, “Pyramids and Temple Mounds: Mesoamerican Ceremonial Architecture in Eastern North America,” American Antiquity, No. 4, 30 (April 1965): 409-21; Robert Silverberg, Mound Builders of Ancient America (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1986), 2-3, 6-7, 20-21, 24-25, 88-97, 202-11, 214-23, 226-27, 236-39, 242-49, 252-55, 260-69, 278-79, 282-85, 288-89, 292-95, 339-51.
17. Silverberg, Mound Builders, 285.
18. Dean R. Snow, The Archaeology of North America in Indians of North America, Frank W. Porter III, General Editor (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989), 83.
19. See, for example, the comments in Klaus Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 36. Hansen says Joseph Smith was seeking relief from the burden of his office at the expense of his gullible followers. He was not serious about Zelph.
20. Godfrey, “Zelph Story,” 31-56. The differences between my arrangement of the sources and Godfrey’s arrangement underscores the possibility of using the same sources to prove different points of view. He has sought to discredit the Zelph story while I have tried to support it.
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The theories of Orson Pratt
Although unsubstantiated as a direct quotes from or directly reflecting the views of Joseph Smith, it is perhaps worth note that Orson Pratt had a very specific Hemispheric Book of Mormon model which he first purposed in his 1840 England publication “A[n] Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions.” His model does not appear to have been taught openly until the 1860’s in Utah, a record of which is preserved both in a sermon given in 1868 in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, as well as his 1879 annotated Edition of the Book of Mormon.
His model is relevant as three of his locations ARE substantiated by direct quotes of Joseph Smith, leading us to believe he at least based portions of it on Joseph Smith’s views. (A South American Landing, and Southwest/Northwest Mexico Jaredite heartland, and New England Cumorah, for instance).
However, in other regards Pratt’s evolving views directly contradicted quotes attributed to Joseph Smith. For instance Pratt first assigned the river Sidon to be the Magdalena river in Columbia (after earlier saying it was a tributary to the Amazon in Ecuador) as opposed to Central or Southern Mexico and Guatemala as presented by Smith in the Times and Seasons. One can read the whole of his reasoning at this link, by searching for the paragraph beginning “After the destruction of the Jaredites”. More can be read of Orson’s theories along with a compendium of most others in ‘A History of Ideas: The Geography of Book of Mormon Events in Latter-day Saint Thought‘ (see p. 14-17 & chart on p. 32).
It’s also of important note that in the Wentworth letter, Joseph may have copied large sections from Orson’s 1840 book (although its just as likely that both publications copied an earlier lost source). See similarities and differences here. Particularly note, that Joseph may have replaced or summarized and corrected Pratts geography, which includes South America, with phrases which emphasize “this continent“. Specifically emphasizing that Christ’s coming to Bountiful & Zarahemla was on “this continent”, not South America as would be the case in Pratt’s model.
“abridgement of the records of the ancient prophets that had existed on this continent“…
“The principal nation of the second race fell in battle towards the close of the fourth century. The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country. This book also tells us that our Saviour [Savior] made his appearance upon this continent after his resurrection, that he planted the gospel here in all its fulness” (Joseph Smith, Wentworth letter, 1842)
In summary Orson Pratt’s beliefs were:
-Jaredite landing = “brought across the great deep to the shores of North America”. (1840 Pub)
-Jaredite landing = “just below the Gulf of California, on our western coast”. (1868 Sermon)
-Mulekite Landing = “a few hundred miles north of the Isthmus on the western coast”. (1868 Sermon)
-Mulekite Landing = “They landed in North America; soon after… emigrated to.. South America. (1840 Pub)
-Lehite Landing = “on the coast of Chile”. & “believed to be on the coast of Chili, S. America” (AEBOM) (1840 Pub)
-Omer’s flight = “the Omerites, who dwelt in the New England States, returned again and dwelt in the land of their fathers on the western coast” [ie. Omer traveled from ‘Moron’ near California/Sonora to New York and then back.]. (1868 Sermon)
-City of Nephi = “Nephi and the righteous separated themselves from the Lamanites and traveled about eighteen hundred miles north until they came to the head waters of what we term the Amazon River. There Nephi located his little colony in the country supposed to be Ecuador, a very high region, many large and elevated mountains being in that region”
-Land of Nephi = “The land of Nephi is supposed to have been in or near Ecuador, South America” (AEBOM)
-Land of Zarahemla = “Nephites united with the Zarahemlaites in the northern portions of South America, and were called Nephites and became a powerful nation. The country was called the land Bountiful, and included within the land of Zarahemla”. (1868 Sermon)
-Land of Zarahemla = “the land of Zarahemla is supposed to have been north of the head waters of the river Magdalena, its northern boundary being a few days journey south of the isthmus” (AEBOM) (1840 Pub)
-Land Northward = “North America” (AEBOM) (1840 Pub)
-Land Southward = “South America called Lehi” (AEBOM, also fn Alma 22) (1840 Pub)
-North/South, East/West Seas = Atlantic, Pacific, Cape Horn, Arctic Ocean. (AEBOM)
-Ripliancum = “supposed to be lake Ontario” (AEBOM)
-Hill Cumorah = “in the New England States”. & “The hill Cumorah is in Manchester, Ontario Co. N. York.” (AEBOM)
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Conflicting stories of Huntsville, Missouri, being the either the site where a modern city of Manti was to be built or a few said Joseph named it as the site of the ancient city of Manti.
Here I include the few quotes relating to the early Mormon Midwest pioneer cities of Zarahemla and Manti. I believe that Joseph was following the ancient Toltec custom of re-naming cities in the Midwest of North America after the homelands in Mexico where Nephites travelled from before the final battle. New Manti or Aztlán or Acatlán being a major migration site of Mixtec natives of the original Manti in Mexico. And New Zarahemla or Tollancinco in Mesoamerican Aztec legends which was literally “little or new Tollan/new Tula”. Evidence of this ancient northern renaming of Mesoamerican Tollan is explained in DeSoto’s exploration party writings and existed somewhere in the area of Oklahoma or Arkansas, and although dismissed by many modern archaeologists is substantiated by DeSoto’s account AND linguistic matching of Uto-Azteca language groups among the Comanche and plains natives.
A mile and a half west of Huntsville we crossed the east branch of Chariton, and one and a half miles west of the river we found Ira Ames and some other brethren near the place where the city of Manti is to be built, and encamped for the night on Dark creek, six miles from Huntsville. Traveled this day seventeen miles. Distance from Kirtland, seven hundred and fifty-five miles.” (History of the Church, Volume 3, pg. 144)
In 1836, the Prophet Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and others, found it best, on account of apostasy and bitterness, to leave Kirtland and go to Far West, Mo., where the Saints were endeavoring to establish themselves. On September 25, they passed through Huntsville, Randolph Co., and the Prophet is said to have told the brethren that that place, where a stake of Zion had been established, was “the ancient site of the city of Manti.” (Andrew Jenson, Hist. Rec., p. 601.)
Whether “the ancient site of Manti” refers to the Manti in the Book of Mormon is a question that has been debated. Some prefer to regard it as a reference to a later City of Manti, built by descendants of Nephi in Missouri. In either case, the information is both important and interesting.” (Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 2, by George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl, 1960, pg. 324)
“The camp passed through Huntsville, in Randolph County, which has been appointed as one of the stakes of Zion, and is the ancient site of the City of Manti…” (Millennial Star, “History of Joseph Smith,” May 13, 1854, Vol. 16, pg. 296)
“…We passed through Huntsville, Co. seat of Randolph Co. Pop. 450, and three miles further we bought 32 bu. of corn off one of the brethren who resides in this place. There are several of the brethren round about here and this is the ancient site of the City of Manti, which is spoken of in the Book of Mormon and this is appointed one of the Stakes of Zion…” (Journal of Samuel D. Tyler, September 25, 1838, pp. 66-67)
A city opposite Nauvoo was to be given the name Zarahemla
The D&C commands a city be built in Iowa called Zarahemla. No indication is given that this WAS Zarahemla. Only that it was to be called so. It is included in this both because of its popularity and my belief that Joseph was commanded to follow the Toltec custom of naming a Land Northward city after the the original Mesoamerican one. (Tula vs Tulancinco/New Tula)
3 Let them build up a city unto my name upon the land opposite the city of Nauvoo, and let the name of Zarahemla be named upon it. (D&C 125:3)
A Few Final References
The following chart comes from ‘The Geography of Book of Mormon Events: A Source Book‘ by John L. Sorenson. It is a well researched compendium of past Book of Mormon geographic models and early LDS leader quotes concerning BOM geography. I have edited the first line, as it is flatly in error suggesting that the views pushed by Orson Pratt in 1850-60’s are representative of the general views of church leaders in the 1830’s & 1840’s. This is largely unprovable, and in some cases patently false. The reader can ascertain this for themselves by skimming through the dozen or so quotes given in Appendix A (all of which are quoted in the present work above), noting that nowhere does it suggest the land southward is South America before 1950, and in fact suggests to the contrary that Zarahemla was in Latin America. Also nowhere is the Magdalena river suggested to be Sidon until Orson Pratt’s quotes of the 1850/60’s. (Both these beliefs appear to have been developed by Orson Pratt post 1950, after the Saints came to Utah)
See more quotes from LDS Church leaders concerning Haggoth and the Polynesians at this article.
Book of Mormon Archeology Unearthed
/in Archaeology/by T.W.The views of this article are not entirely shared by the site author.
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INTRODUCTION
It may be helpful to read Introduction to scriptural archeology for an introduction to this article covering important background information on why archeological dating methods give screwed results and on the geographical alteration of the narrow neck of land.
(To clarify dates, throughout the rest of the text scriptural/historical dates are preceded by S/H; while archaeological dates, including carbon dates, are preceded by A/C. In printed versions, footnotes which reference scriptures are in red; footnotes which reference archaeological sources are in black).
THE SCATTERING AT BABEL AND THE EARLY JAREDITE CULTURE. Archaeologists place the first modern humans in the Near East’s fertile crescent around 100,00 years ago [72], which, according to our calibrated timeline, is immediately after the Flood. From there man was “scattered . . . abroad . . . upon the face of all the earth . . .” (Genesis 11:8) [73]; scientists following the path of homo sapiens identify a major scattering between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago when modern man spread from the Near East to Europe, the Far East, Australia, and the Americas [74]. In America, studies of hereditary traits on the first group of PaleoIndians to reach America have concluded that they consisted of no more than a handful of families (S/H: around 2100 BC; A/C: around 40,000 years ago) [75]/ [76]. The two earliest major PaleoIndian cultures that developed from this handful of families, the Clovis Culture and the Folsom Culture , spread widely but sparsely from the Southwestern United States to cover most of the continental United States [77]/ [78].
OMER AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. As this early period in American Prehistory was coming to a close, a small group of families left the core area and settled “by the seashore” directly east of the hill Cumorah (Ether 9:1–13) [79]. The group of sites, in and around northeastern Massachusetts, are called the Bull Brook Complex by archaeologists [80]. Clovis points found at several of the sites tie it to the Southwest [81]. Building on excavations by D.S. Byers in the mid-50’s [82], archaeological societies in the Northeast have pieced together the history of the Bull Brook Complex [83]. Their findings and subsequent analysis have shown the interactions of a system of organized, interdependent groups with specialized work force networks [84]. It is recognized as containing the highest level of social structure in America at that time [85], which would be expected in a “refugee camp” of the royal household [86].
PRE-DEARTH JAREDITE CULTURE. . As Moroni attests, the next archaeological period saw the rise of a richer and more diversified culture [87]/ [88]. The Plano and Early Eastern Archaic Cultures fanned across the continent (S/H: around 1600-1200 BC; A/C: around 8500-6000 BC) [89]. Scientists have found the full spectrum of plants and animals corresponding to the days of Emer. According to Moroni, during the early Pre-Dearth Jaredite time period they had “all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man.” [90]Archaeologists have found many species of American bison from this time period, which ruminants are classified by zoologists as wild cattle, oxen and cows (family Bovidae, genus Bos) [91]. Similarly, there are food remains of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep and Rocky Mountain goats at many sites from this period [92]. Peccaries are animals from this period which are classified as swine and are in the same group as domestic pigs and hogs (sub-order Suina) [93]. The “many other kinds of animals” of Moroni’s list would include deer, elk, moose, caribou, and pronghorn [94]. Thanks to new site-investigation methods, scientists have found that fruits, grains and vegetables were part of the PaleoIndian diet [95]; the Darwinian view that the PaleoIndians were merely carnivorous stockers of megafauna is being abandoned. More careful analysis of early sites and artifacts is yielding increasing evidence of fine textiles [96], which means the people didn’t just wear rough animal hides. Moroni also mentions that horses, elephants, cureloms and cumoms were useful to man, and that elephants and cureloms and cumoms were “more especially” useful to man (Ether 9:19). Potential beasts of burden which have been found in association with PaleoIndians include horses, tapirs, mammoths, mastodons, giant bison, giant ground sloths, and camels [97]. Coincidentally, the horse and the tapir would not have been very useful as beasts of burden because the Ice Age variety existent at this time were only about the size of a dog [98]; hence, it was the elephants and cureloms and cumoms which were “more especially” useful to man.
THE GREAT DEARTH. Then the PaleoIndian culture was rocked. In the scriptures, we read of secret combinations infesting society, and then a chastening, in the form of a great dearth (Ether 9:30–35). Archaeologists attest that it was probably the worst famine in North American history. Mass extinction spread across America as the Ice Age came to a rapid and catastrophic close [99]. Excess hunting by starving people and severe environmental changes drove the megafauna to extinction [100]. Scientists have found that serpents were abundant at that time in the American Southwest (as they are today) and the closing of the Ice Age caused many varied migrations in snake species across North America [101]. The serpents and the drought divided the people in the north from the fauna, which escaped to the south [102]. When the climate finally recovered, the people instigated a revolution in agriculture [103]/ [104], since they had now lost their domesticated animals.
POST-DEARTH JAREDITE CULTURE. Moroni’s next exposition on culture comes in the days of Lib (Ether 10:18–28). My corresponding period is labeled by archaeologists as the Middle and Late Archaic. Often indistinguishable from one another, these two cultural periods represent a major advancement over the preceding culture [105]. Again the culture spread across North America from coast to coast [106]. There were villages, agriculture, and widespread trade networks [107]. South of the narrow neck, in the Mexican highland and beyond, the only inhabitants we find are organized hunting parties, which “coincidentally” brought spear points of North American manufacture and style [108]/ [109]. Scientists recognize metallurgy from this time period, and copper is the most common metal found [110]/ [111]. Many fine textiles have also survived from this period [112]/ [113]. Moroni says they made “all manner of tools to till the earth, both to plow and to sow, to reap and to hoe, and also to thrash” [114]. He also says they had, “all manner of tools with which they did work their beasts” (Ether 10:26–27). Most of the tools on this list have been found by archaeologists at sites dating to the Middle and Late Archaic [115]. New weapons were also invented and manufactured, although archaeologists currently view them only as hunting weapons [116]/ [117]. Another major industry of the Jaredites was wood exploitation [118]. A huge assortment of woodworking tools has been found at Archaic period sites across the Nation [119]. Truly this was a highly-developed culture—a time of great prosperity. How tragic that they lost it all because of secret combinations! [120]
THE DESOLATION OF THE JAREDITES. The desolation of the Jaredites began in the Southwest and climaxed in New York State [121]. It is witnessed archaeologically by a widespread “cremation” burial culture [122]. Continent-wide scientists find a change in burial customs from proper burials to cremation burials and “ceremonial” burning of homes and entire villages (Shiz and his army) [123]/ [124]. Archaeologists have also found evidence of large-scale “bundle burials,” which is the practice of bundling the disarticulated, defleshed bones of dead people in bags or cordages, and then either burying them or dumping them in the trash [125]. Surely it was a gruesome scene that the first Nephites to re-inhabit the desolate land northward were required to witness and clean up [126].
THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEPHITES AND MULEKITES. The Jaredites were the sole inhabitants of America until two small groups of sea-going travelers crossed the Pacific (S/H: 600 BC; A/C: 3000 BC). As early as 1916 scholars had identified the general location of the two landing sites. G. Elliot Smith published an article with Science titled “The Origin of the Pre-Columbian Civilization of America” in which he detailed ethnological evidence of the landings and further showed how scholars of that day had attempted to cover up the findings because they lent support to the Bible and against Darwinism [127]. In his book, Articles of Faith, James E. Talmage describes the author’s findings: “Dr. Smith presents an impressive array of evidence pointing to the Old World and specifically to Egypt, as the source of many of the customs by which the American aborigines are distinguished. The article is accompanied by a map showing . . . two landing places on the west coast, one in Mexico and another near the boundary common to Peru and Chile, from which place the immigrants spread.” [128]Archaeological evidence has further refined these findings. Most archaeologists now agree to a South American landing, putting it a little further north, specifically in modern Ecuador [129](which “coincidentally” lies “a little south of the Isthmus of Darien” [130]). The location of the second landing spot is unknown; characteristic artifacts also point to the west coast of Mexico [131]— legend puts it at a place called “seven caverns” [132]. Both the Valdivia culture of Ecuador (the Lehites), and the Otomangue-speaking people of the Mexican highland (the Mulekites), brought the first true pottery to the Americas; in both cultures the pottery was already well-developed even at the earliest sites [133]. Both cultures are distinguished as being the first harvesters of cultigens (plants incapable of growing without human help), the most important cultigen being corn [134]. The architecture and burial customs of these two groups can easily be tied to the Old World. Square waddle and daub homes with storage pits in the floor dotted their lands [135]. Their temples and public buildings are extremely similar to those of Egypt and Israel. Subfloor burials and burial positions also match those of the Middle East [136].
EARLY MULEKITE CULTURE. The newly arrived Otomangue-speaking culture (Mulekites) began to spread across the Mexican highland (Zarahemla). Although they covered a large area, they lived in small scattered villages, and archaeologists recognize very little social structure among them [137] [138].
EARLY LEHITE CULTURE. The Valdivia culture also fanned out over a large area, stylistic pottery has been traced from Ecuador up through Columbia and Panama into Coastal areas of Guatemala and Southern Chiapas [139]. When Nephi fled from his brothers [140], it seems that he led his followers to the central depression of Chiapas and settled in the Grijalva river valley. The first cultural layers there are of a unique, tight-knit group (Zoque/early Nephite), centered around Chiapa de Corzo (the land of Nephi), which remained separate from the surrounding cultures that were developing (Maya/Lamanite) [141]/ [142]. The Nephite culture began the seeds of civilization which later influenced all of Mesoamerica, and eventually all of North America [143]. Some of the Lamanites appear to have followed Nephi’s party; a group associated with the early Maya (Lamanites) settled further up in the Grijalva river valley [144]. Other groups remained in South America which over time developed very independent cultures [145]; apparently not associated with the history outlined in the Book of Mormon.
EARLY LAMANITE CULTURE. The Lamanites (early Maya) digressed and became a very primitive people [146]/ [147]. Archaeologists label them as “hunters and gatherers,” because they stocked the forests for game, lived in tents and temporary shelters, and practiced limited agriculture [148]/ [149]. They did some fishing, and they had very limited agriculture (primarily limited to picking wild fruits and edible roots) [150]. Archaeologists think it was because they did not have the technology, the scriptures teach that it was because they were lazy.
Warfare is evident as archaeologists find a large assortment of weapons, far exceeding the needs of mere hunters [151]. The early Maya (Lamanites) set up chiefdoms in each local community; at this early date they do not appear to have been a cohesive unit, but rather groups of village communities, competing and perhaps fighting with each other for resources [152] — apparently united only in their hatred toward the Nephites [153]. Laman and Lemuel seem to have taught their children the pagan practices they had learned in Jerusalem. Archaeologists find cultic artifacts associated with the worship of a fertility goddess; they also worshipped Chac, who is the Maya equivalent of Baal from the Old World [154]. In this early period we also see the beginnings of the Jaguar cult. The Maya made costumes from the coats of beasts of prey and used these costumes in religious rituals [155]/ [156]. Early Mayan vices match those Enos and Jarom attributed to the Lamanites: pornography in the form of nude ceramic figurines, idleness, and drunkenness (typically chicha, an alcohol made from corn) [157]/ [158].
INTRODUCTION TO THE FORMATIVE. At the dawn of the formative period there were several major demographic shifts which set the stage for the developing cultures. First, King Mosiah I and his people left the Land of Nephi (Chiapa de Corzo) and traveled to Zarahemla (central Mexico) to join the Mulekites (S/H: around 200 BC; A/C: around 1400 BC) [159]. This is seen archaeologically as an influx of Mixe-zoquean culture brings new advances to central Mexico, and public buildings begin to appear in the larger villages [160].
THE PEOPLE OF ZENIFF. Back in Chiapa de Corzo (the land of Nephi), the surrounding culture (Maya/Lamanites) destroyed all traces of the departing group (Nephites) [161]/ [162]. Shortly, however, high culture returned to the valley [163]as Zeniff and his people arrive and begin to build anew many public buildings and restore the land [164]/ [165]. The new inhabitants of Chiapa de Corzo (people of Zeniff) were an ethnically distinct group which did not mix with the surrounding Maya (Lamanites) [166]/ [167]. Initially their culture was very similar to that of central Mexico (from which they had come), but the similarities decreased as time went on and they (the people of Zeniff, now led by King Noah) became extravagant in their prosperity. Lavishness dominates the architecture and material culture of this period [168]/ [169]. Just before Chiapa de Corzo returned to Mayan Culture (Lamanites), the people of the Grijalva depression gave birth to one of the richest and most influential Mesoamerican cultures of the pre-Christian era—the Olmecs (Amulonites) [170]/ [171].
THE AMULONITES AND THEIR INFLUENCE OVER THE LAMANITES. The Amulonite (Olmec) culture seems to have developed in the lowlands of Veracruz, Mexico. The simple farming village of San Lorenzo (probably Helam) [172]/ [173]suddenly began a massive public works effort using slave labor (probably the followers of Alma) [174]/ [175]. Soon a handful of great cities commenced, and Olmec influence spread to other lands [176]/ [177]. Olmec art and religious themes support an Amulonite correlation: powerful, dominating priests, were-jaguar babies, female dancers, and a plethora of demi-gods and idols [178]/ [179]. Throughout the Mayan lands, Olmec teachers began to train the Maya (Lamanites) in the language and learning of the Mexican highland people (the Nephites) [180]/ [181]. With this new education the Maya began to prosper and make many technological advances [182]/ [183]. New trade networks spread across southern Mexico, the Yucatan and Guatemala, and all roads passed through Olmec lands, which made them vastly rich and extremely influential [184]. Some archaeologists call the Olmecs the “mother culture” of Mesoamerica [185].
THE FALL OF THE AMULONITES. As prophesied by Abinadi, the Amulonites (Olmecs) were soon devastated [186]/ [187]. Using a cesium magnetometer to detect buried basalt, Michael Coe, a professor of Anthropology at Yale University, and his group found mounds of monuments purposefully defaced, smashed and buried at San Lorenzo [188]. Other Olmec sites excavated in the area told the same story: seemingly the Maya (Lamanites) living among the Olmecs (Amulonites) in their gulf-coast empire revolted, defacing and smashing monuments, destroying buildings [189]/ [190], and as the Book of Mormon teaches us, massacring the ruling class (the descendants of the priests of Noah) [191]. The great Olmecs suddenly disappeared, but their influence over the Maya was seen forever afterward. The sparsely-populated Mayan lands were soon covered with huge temples and city-centers with art and architecture reminiscent of the Olmec style [192].
THE NEPHITES- ALMA THE ELDER AND KING MOSIAH II. Meanwhile, in central Mexico, Alma and his followers escaped to Zarahemla and established the church throughout the Mexican highland [193], witnessed archaeologically by new temples and synagogues built throughout the land [194]. Then, several decades later, Mosiah II founded a new democratic government [195], and each land began to build government buildings alongside the new temples (S/H: 91 BC; A/C: around 850 BC) [196]. Under the leadership of these inspired founders, the diverse societies of central Mexico integrated to become a very prosperous people [197]/ [198]. Unfortunately, in many communities this prosperity led to pride, social classes, and perversions, which are all quite visible in the material culture they left behind [199]/ [200].
THE NEPHITES- CAPTAIN MORONI. These two great nations, the Nephites on the Mexican Plateau and the Lamanites (Maya) in Southern Mexico, Guatemala and Yucatan, began to experience greater conflicts [201]/ [202]. Foreseeing the coming challenges, Captain Moroni prepared his people and their lands [203]. First, the weak lands were fortified and the southern frontier was strengthened [204]/ [205]. Hilltop fortifications began to dot southern Mexico in Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Guerrero [206]/ [207]. Great urban fortresses were created [208]/ [209]. For example, at Monte Alban (Manti), researchers from the University of Michigan found that some leader (Moroni) inspired the people of the valley of Oaxaca to move to the top of a nearby hill in the former “no man’s land” between two warring nations, and there build a fortress with up to 10,000 inhabitants [210]. The site has natural cliffs surrounding the city, its temples and its public buildings on three sides; on the fourth side, excavators found a two-mile long wall of earth and stone which still stands almost 30 feet tall and 50-60 feet thick [211]/ [212]. No wonder Mormon venerated the leadership, courage and vision of Captain Moroni and the manner in which he prepared his people for war.
After Amalickiah’s first attack, a second phase of construction was begun in which fortified cities and hilltop fortresses were built throughout the land of Zarahemla [213]which appears to have stretched from Oaxaca to Jalisco and from southwestern Michoacan to northern Veracruz [214]. Also, the Book of Mormon records Moroni pushing the Lamanites out of the east wilderness and on the west, then building new cities in these areas in order to create a more defensible border [215]. Excavations in southern and western Oaxaca and Guerrero, as well as central Veracruz are now showing such movements of peoples and the construction of new large defensive cities and fortresses [216].
During the time that fortifications were being built in the Mexican highland, a massive weapons production industry commenced throughout Mesoamerica, both in the Mexican Highland (Zarahemla) and in Maya (Lamanite) lands [217]/ [218]. To accommodate these war preparations, the peoples of the Mexican Highland (Nephites) made major breakthroughs in agriculture and built massive irrigation systems [219]. From that time forward, urbanization and trade specialization, with accompanying prosperity, enveloped the Nephite lands [220]/ [221].
The great war of Moroni’s time, and the wars that followed, are seen archaeologically in demographic and cultural movements of this time period [222], and in numerous monuments depicting warriors and captives in both Highland Mexico and Maya lands [223]. The Lamanites displaced and jumbled the Nephites numerous times [224]. There was also a great cultural mixing when groups of Lamanites converted to the Nephite religion and went to live among the Nephites [225], and also when groups became captives [226]. Cities experienced occasional upheavals, but most of them changed hands without noticeable ruin [227]/ [228].
THE NEPHITES- 57 BC TO AD 33. Time brought greater prosperity [229], which led to ornamentation and extravagant housewares [230]. Robbers also infested the land during this period [231]—archaeologist have found that many of the graves of nobles and of wealthy people were broken into and the riches were stolen [232]. The Book of Mormon teaches that as wars continued numerous groups sought refuge and peace by migrating to far-away lands [233]. Archaeologists date the Adena people’s arrival in the Ohio River Valley at this time [234]. The Adena cleared the land of the carnage and waste the land’s former inhabitants (the Jaredites) had left [235]/ [236], and they brought a new culture with the advancements and technologies of their Mexican homeland [237]. Others moved to the Southwestern United States, becoming the earliest Mogollon peoples [238]. Those who arrived in North America found a land covered with lakes and rivers—a much more lush environment than the one they had left [239]. The Southwest Cultures are famous for their dwellings of stone and cement; cultures of the East for tents; both cultures also built simple homes of scrawny wood poles and thatched walls and roof [240]. In a short time the continent was covered with hamlets and villages [241]/ [242]. The people soon turned to pagan and perverted practices, which spoiled their previously wholesome culture [243]/ [244]. There is evidence that the first Polynesians reached the Pacific Islands around this same time period [245]/ [246].
THE NEPHITES- ZION. . The destruction at the time of Christ was discussed earlier. As the ash settled [247]/ [248], a new culture spread across the land [249]/ [250]. In some ways, this new culture was more monolithic; in other ways it was more diverse. Throughout the Americas a new two-room temple replaced varying former styles [251]. A utopia of peace and prosperity is spoken of in legends [252]/ [253]. There is no evidence of weapons being used at this time [254], and the murals, figurines, and architecture show designs of nature, lines of symmetry and harmony, and displays of pleasant animals and domestic life [255]. Gone are all signs of a military elite, governmental force, and coercion [256]. The Hopewell, the Anasazi, the Mogollon, Teotihuacan, the Maya—continent-wide, the traits are the same [257]. The great peace resulting “because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people” (4 Nephi 1:15).
The people were united in righteousness [258], yet at the same time, the culture became more diverse, as the focus turned from making a profit to making quality products and upholding the ideals of family and community [259]. Local artisans replaced the mass-production and expansive trade networks of the preceding period [260]. Thus there was no need to travel extensively “on business,” so people could spend more time with their families. Family gardens replaced mass-produced food [261]. People ate a greater variety of food, but their food was of more local origin [262]. Analysis of skeletons shows that the people were healthier and enjoyed longer life spans than during the preceding period [263]. The arts flowered during this period [264]. The number and variety of musical instruments greatly increased [265]. Pottery and other goods became more useful and more beautiful, and less ornamental and extravagant [266]. A much greater variety of artifacts is found, but in much smaller quantities than before, and with much less waste [267]. The prosperity was great throughout all of the Americas and in all areas of human development, “because of their prosperity in Christ” (4 Nephi 1:23).
In the early classic period the church became very wealthy [268]. The people donated their time and skills to the creation and maintenance of beautiful temples and public centers [269]. The population exploded [270], but at the same time, the cities became less dense as the communities were reorganized and the people spread out across the land [271]. Even the biggest “cities” were only lightly populated, yet they contained ceremonial centers and public buildings large enough to accommodate all the people of the surrounding villages [272]. Social classes disappeared, yet the standard of living increased everywhere [273]; And “they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God” (4 Nephi 1:17) [274].
It was beautiful. Everything Mormon said was true. Then they lost it all. The line is not clear, but little by little it all slipped away. The late pre-classic ugliness returned, and this time it was even more vile.
THE NEPHITES- PRIDE. As the people became proud, they began to flaunt the wealth they had accumulated over many years of righteousness and prosperity [275]. In the archaeological record, we begin to find much larger houses than existed in the preceding period [276], more decorated pottery [277], personal ornamentation (including pearls and elaborate clothing) [278]/ [279], extravagant burials of the dead [280], and new long-distance trade networks [281]/ [282]. They painted murals showing images of power, with soldiers, weapons, kings, priests, slaves, and eventually human sacrifice [283]. They built new cities with defense in mind [284], and the existing cities became more dense, decreasing in total area despite the fact that the population was still growing [285]/ [286]. We see evidence of the rise of social classes, with a new elite class and a definite peasant class [287]/ [288]. The social classes are most apparent in the big cities.
Political players began to build up monuments to themselves, often showing off their accomplishments [289]. We see a cultural split, as the people broke up into different groups [290]/ [291]. As displays of wealth and power emerged in society and later in government, the church was divided, as the people in every land sought to raise up their own version of Quetzalcoatl (Christ), and to join him with a new pantheon of gods and demigods [292]/ [293]. In the major ceremonial centers, a priestly class began to exercise power and influence [294]/ [295]. Temples and temple complexes became colossal and extravagant [296], and often the priests raised themselves to the position of gods or claimed descent from the gods [297]. Priests and government leaders began to deform the skulls of their children, and to give themselves and their children tattoos and body paint, all in an effort to separate themselves and their children from the “commoners” [298]. Gated communities were developed to protect the elite from the lower class [299].
On the eve of society’s collapse, the pride turned absolutely disgusting [300]. Most of the pottery and art became warped, lewd and pornographic [301]. Mass production fed trade networks which branched across the continent and resources were exploited on a massive scale [302]/ [303]. Food production became intense, and the general health of the people correspondingly deteriorated; the incidence of disease increased significantly and life expectancies dropped drastically [304]. Body piercing became the norm [305], tobacco and drugs were used widely; smoking was done in smoke houses and in private homes, with cigarettes and with pipes [306]. Huge ball courts covered the land [307], in some places ball players rose to the state of gods [308]. The ball games became very bloody [309], and in many places they were accompanied with mass killing and human sacrificing of the winners or losers depending on the local religion [310]; in other areas the losers become the slaves of the winners’ rulers [311]. Many people wasted their income on various forms of gambling—they rooted on their favorite teams, or played games of chance with dice and bones [312]. In many areas the workmanship of the structures built during this period was poor, but it was covered with decorative plaster, and was elaborately finished [313]. Cultic symbols and status symbols are found everywhere [314].
THE NEPHITES- DESTRUCTION. Truly this society was ripe for destruction [315]. The Book of Mormon tells us that the destruction took place quickly [316]. Archaeology tells us that it occurred on a massive scale [317], larger than most probably ever imagined— although Mormon tried to help us understand [318].
The great war appears to have been started in central Yucatan by a group which archaeologists call the Putun Maya [319]. As they gained power they continued west and north, and eventually attacked the Mexican highland [320]. Great murals tell the story of their advances; they were the eagle warriors of the jaguar cult (the Lamanites), and they sought to exterminate the cult of the feathered serpent named Quetzalcoatl (the Nephites) [321]. Eventually the great city of Zarahemla (Teotihuacan) was attacked, but the invaders were pushed back [322]/ [323]. Then, as Mormon relates, Zarahemla (Teotihuacan) was laid waste [324]. Archaeologists have uncovered the entire story: the great Teotihuacan was burned and looted, monuments were defaced, columns were toppled, temples were desecrated, and the luxurious palaces were left in ruin [325].
The Lamanites’ pursuit of the Nephites can be followed from Teotihuacan to Western Mexico, to sites such as Alta Vista and Chalchihuites (perhaps Angola or the Land of David?) [326]/ [327]and then to the seashore, to Amapa and other sites in Nayarit and southern Sinaloa (probably the land of Joshua) [328]/ [329], a land archaeologists have found was filled with robbers and Maya during this period [330]/ [331]. From there the Nephites continued their flight into the “land northward” [332]. It appears that the massacre stopped when the Nephites reached Chaco Canyon (Shem), in New Mexico and were able to fortify it [333]/ [334]. There the Nephites held back their pursuers and the bloodshed stopped for a season while God sent forth missionaries and prophets to give the people one last chance [335]. Archaeologists have found circular religious structures, called kivas, appearing throughout Anasazi lands during this period [336], which perhaps shows that Mormon knew some success [337], though his own testimony indicates that any success was short lived as the wickedness persisted [338].
For ten years a peace treaty was in effect [339]; archaeology shows that the Maya (Lamanites) of Yucatan and Maya Chichimec of West Mexico came together and began building the great Toltec kingdom [340]. Toltec legend speaks of the war between Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, and Tezcatlipoca, the principal god of the Jaguar Cult [341]. The Toltecs boast Quetzalcoatl’s defeat and subsequent flight [342]. As the population of Tula was exploding [343], archaeologists find an abandonment of Yucatan by that area’s elite [344]. Recruits by the thousands flooded out of Yucatan to their new blood-thirsty, warrior kingdom centered in the Mexican Highland [345]. Many were also moved to the battle line in Western Mexico, as archaeologists find a large influx of Toltec peoples with strong Maya ties building up fortresses and making war preparations [346].
The kingdom of the Nephites centered in the Southwestern United States, and although they focused on defending the land for a short time [347]/ [348], they soon turned their focus to the “god” of money [349]. Trade networks covered the Southwestern United States [350], and turquoise, which was lusted after by the Toltecs, was mined on a huge scale to be traded for exotic Mesoamerican goods [351]. Ball courts, gated communities, lewd pottery and art, body painting, body piercing, gigantic cities, social classes—the signs of pride and wickedness—have been found by archaeologists throughout the Southwest United States and Northwest Mexico (the Nephite lands) [352].
Then, at the end of this fragile moment of peace, destruction continued [353]. The blood-thirsty Lamanites (Toltecs) based in a city just south of our narrow neck of land (probably La Quemada) came up against the Nephite armies which were based in Desolation (Zape in northern Durango?) [354]/ [355]. The Lamanites were repulsed and counterattacked, but they soon swept Desolation and later Teancum (most likely Guasave on the Pacific Coast) [356]. From there the fleeing Nephites followed the turquoise trail to Boaz [357], now known as Paquime or Casas Grandes in Chihuahua. Charles C. Di Peso, the first archaeologists to conduct large-scale excavations at the site, found signs of a great slaughter at Paquime [358]. Unburied dead bodies were strewn across the site, some had been shoved into the ducts of the water system, others sacrificed to pagan gods, but the majority were just left to rot and be preyed upon by wolves and vultures [359]. Mormon painfully records these same events, as he stood back, watching: “And (the Nephites) fled again from before (the Lamanites), and they came to the city Boaz; and there . . . the Nephites were driven and slaughtered with an exceedingly great slaughter; [and]their women and their children were again sacrificed unto idols” (Mormon 4:20–21).
The slaughter spread across the entire Southwestern United States [360]. Thousands of sites from this period have been found in which the site was either abandoned or burned or the people were slaughtered [361]/ [362]. In many places the people abandoned their scattered farms and gathered together to build great fortified cities to defend themselves, only to be massacred [363]/ [364]. But this was not a peaceful, righteous people being victimized. There is evidence of cannibalism among the Anasazi and other Southwestern Cultures (the Nephites) [365]/ [366].
Archaeologists have found human bones in cooking vessels, necklaces made of human skin or bones, and mobiles made of human bones and skulls which seem to have been used as trophies—signs of status and prestige [367]. They have found apparent ceremonial assemblages of skulls which were presented to false gods [368]. At Salmon Ruin, New Mexico (possibly the tower of Sherrizah) [369] women and children were abandoned by their covenant protectors, and the children were burned alive, caught in the top of the tower [370]. There are countless archaeological and scriptural evidences of the deplorable state of the Anasazi/Nephites; their brutal mutilation and total annihilation are painful to read about.
The destruction in the Southwest climaxed at a line of sites from Mesa Verde, Colorado (probably Jordan [371]) to Albuquerque, New Mexico [372]. The entire Southwestern United States and Northwest Mexico was left desolate, except for a few small scattered groups of refugees who hid in caves [373]/ [374]. But the destruction continued.
The line of sites mentioned above was actually a line of defense built to protect the great expanse of the American Midwest [375]. The Nephites who covered the Midwest are called Mississippians by archaeologists. Highly influenced by Mesoamerica and the Southwest [376], their culture had also passed through the cycle of simple and peaceful [377]to ugly and proud [378]. Their artwork from this period glorifies death and perversion [379]. There are carvings of goules, war dances, and the murdering of captives, and these are found alongside symbols of Christ (hands with marks appearing to symbolize the crucifixion) and symbols of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, displaying decapitated heads as a symbol of his power [380]. These were not ignorant people suffering for the sins of their parents; they were in open rebellion against God [381]. They refused to repent and trust in God, but rather put their trust in the arm of flesh thinking that could protect their lives. It would not be and never has been [382].
Soon after the cultures of the American Southwest were slaughtered, the Mississippian culture disappeared [383]. Huge ceremonial centers, like Cahokia in southern Illinois, built in the styles of the Mexican Highland, were suddenly depopulated without evidence of struggle or warfare—sites are not burned as in the Southwest, nor are the dead strewn across the landscape [384]. Because of the late carbon dates obtained from these sites some archaeologist have attempted to show that the people just redistributed themselves around the local area [385]. However, the Book of Mormon as well as the immense collections of arrowheads dating all the way back to the archaic found canvassing parts of New York State and the entire New England area speaks of a great desolation (The Book of Mormon states the final battles occurred in the “land of Comorah”, which likely encompasses a large portion of New England; not just around the current Hill Comorah as many have supposed) [386]/ [387].
Truly God is unveiling his truth in the eyes of all the world. It remains for us to read with faith, work with strength, and repent of our pride. We must go forward in a definite way and bring to pass the covenants of the Father and build up the kingdom of God upon the earth; both in small and simple ways and by making preparations for works of greatness.
OLD WORLD (BIBLICAL) ARCHEOLOGY
After I had found many evidences of events in the Book of Mormon, and had developed a revised timeline for archaeology, I became curious as to whether my timeline would also work if I used it on Old World archaeology. I found many interesting “coincidences”. Following is a very brief account of a few of my findings. An entire paper on the subject will be forthcoming.
Evidence of pre-flood cultures appear to be entirely missing from the archaeological record. It is as if Earth’s baptism literally washed her clean. She contained no trace of the former sins of her inhabitants. Most of the early homo sapiens cultures that I would label Post-Flood are in the fertile crescent, and usually at a depth of between 30 and 50 feet below the surface [388].
Early Egypt was below water as Abraham attests [389]/ [390], and the earth was sparsely populated [391]. The climate during this period soon after the Flood was much milder and cooler than it is today, and the plants and animals from this period match those described in the Bible [392]. The desert climate would not come for many generations (after many droughts and curses). When we consider the depth at which these early cities are found, we realize that the only reason these sites have been found is that either the sites were continually inhabited until modern times, or the archaeologists were extremely lucky. Many early cities exist which have not yet been found as attested as by new sites which are continually popping up.
History really starts to take place after the Exodus. Let us consider Jericho. Using the “corrected” timeline we established by studying the Book of Mormon, and extrapolating our dates backward, we find that the Jericho of the Bible must be dated at around 7000-8000 BC. During this time period there was a Neolithic city at Jericho, surrounded with a great wall, and with a massive tower built right into the wall (possibly the house of Rahab/Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) [393]/ [394]. There is evidence that the people of the city were pagans, and that they were rich and proud [395]. The early city’s culture ends with the walls falling down and a new culture replacing Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, they are labeled Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (Sci- 6500 B.C.; Scr- 1450 B.C.) [396]/ [397]. Interestingly, the tower that was built into the wall survived to its full height into the next period (Rahab and her family were protected) [398].
This new nation had simple beginnings; archaeologists call it a retrogression because of the decrease in riches and more simplified art. However, there were many advances: they had a united nation seen in the form of a new wide-spread monolithic culture, they began inhabiting many new lands and developing the land, they respected their dead ancestors, they had domesticated animals, and they built nice square plaster-floored homes [399], which, “coincidentally,” were similar to the homes of the early Lehites and Mulekites [400]. After many years the nation became very wealthy (Pottery Neolithic A&B) [401], and then, as we can tell by studying cultural artifacts, the nation was divided [402]. One group inhabited the north, and the other group lived in the south (Chalcolithic Period) [403]/ [404].
The nation of Israel prospered during the entire period from the time it entered the Land of Canaan until the end of the Chalcolithic Period. Then suddenly the Kingdom of Israel in the north (the Ghassulian culture) was displaced, and new people from Syria and Southern Mesopotamia, labeled Proto-Urban A, were ushered into the region (Early Bronze Age) [405]/ [406].
The Kingdom of Judah in the south continued to prosper [407]. However, she did not learn from watching Israel fall (she did not repent), and little over a century later, she was also destroyed [408]. At the end of the Early Bronze Age every major city in the south was destroyed and depopulated—some incredibly violently [409]. The Bible clearly teaches that this was done by the hand of God—his tool being a new empire he had risen up in southern Mesopotamia—the Kingdom of Babylon [410]. Archaeologists also find this new kingdom in Mesopotamia but they have called it the kingdom of Akkad [411]. Judah was left desolate. Only small scattered villages and groups of wandering nomads remained (Intermediate Bronze Age) [412]/ [413].
When the Kingdom of Akkad (Babylon) fell [414], Judah was repopulated by a vigorous new group of people which began to rebuild the land (Middle Bronze Age) [415]/ [416]. The people prospered and the entire region flowered [417]. The succeeding period also saw a continued prosperity, but under Indo-Aryan influence (Alexander the Great) [418], followed by strong Egyptian (Ptolemaic) control (Late Bronze Age) [419].
As the period continued, Egyptian power weakened [420]and a group of “adventurers” are noted as coming down from Syria and establishing an Amorite kingdom (Seleucids) [421]. Archaeologists then find evidence of an internal revolt that occurs, led by the ‘Apiru (Hasidim under Maccabeans), in which a war commences by a guerrilla-type group of warriors that rally the principally Hebrew (Jewish) community to rise up against the Amorites (Seleucids) [422]. Many wars follow with great destructions but the nation that remains in the end is obviously Israel. The carbon dates for these events (about 1300-1200 B.C.) lead scholars to believe this may be the time of the exodus and subsequent conquest of Palestine. Little or no archaeological evidence of Joshua or the exodus exists at this time, however, and the carbon dates assigned to the various cities’ destructions do not match the Bible which declares the conquest to have occurred around 1400 B.C. [423]These discrepancies have led many biblical scholars to abandon the literal interpretation of the Bible and create many diluted theories that minimalize the book [424]. Interpreting the archaeology as evidence of the Maccabean revolt on the other hand, as we are proposing, matches almost exactly [425].
Next, archaeology shows the arrival of a new group of people called the “Sea People”. They ruled every land that touched the Mediterranean Sea [426], and though their origin continues to evade scholars they know it was somewhere in the area of Sicily, Italy, or Greece (Rome) [427]. The people conquer lands matching Rome’s accomplishment in Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Palestine [428].
Conclusions & Significance
Archaeologists and biblical scholars have long been at odds. As archaeology began to mount a horrendous amount of research, all placed by carbon dating, many biblical scholars began doubting the Bible. Scientific dates were given supremacy and new biblical scholars decided that the Bible was not completely accurate. They began trying to fit whatever they could into the archaeologists’ framework and discarded the rest as fable. The result was a great archaeological mess and a complete abandonment of the scriptures as the “Word of God” and absolute truth. Following the history of science and seeing societies turning away from God is very sad to read.
Now, our research seems to have discovered that the archaeologists are actually proving the Bible to be true and they don’t even know it because of the dating problem. So now, with the correlated time line created studying the Book of Mormon, we see the Book of Mormon proving the Bible to be true, which we are taught is one of its purposes (Mormon 7:8–9; 1 Nephi 13:38–41).
A future paper on Bible lands will show most all the fabulous stories of the Bible laid out in the dirt, just as the prophets said they happened, and just where the prophets said they happened. We will see that these wonderful stories which are disbelieved by most archaeologists, have actually been found by archaeologists!
These findings are of great importance. Our society has abandoned the scriptures. We have replaced the eighth article of faith with a new one that says: “We believe the scriptures to be the Word of God as far as they correspond with science; we believe science to be supreme truth on all subjects it chooses to address.” This cannot be. Geology, biology and archaeology cannot be allowed to replace the sure testimony we have of the creation. Psychology cannot be allowed to replace the reality of Christ as our healer. Any doctrine or teaching which denies Christ is not of God. Omitting God is denying God because God has clearly stated that he is the creator and he is the truth, the way, and the light so leaving him out is going against his word.
We need to see the scriptures for what they are—they are not exaggerated stories, and they are notjust stories told by old men who meant well but who were off on the details because they were limited to the scope of the learning of their own cultures. The scriptures are the word of God, told in truth by men who literally talked with him! They were written to warn the nations of the world to believe God and to fear God and to worship only him. The scriptural events happened just as we were taught when we were children. Moses was not just a Hebrew slave born in Egypt who had a limited understanding of time and a limited understanding of the size of the Earth, and of how the history of his people fit into the grand history of the earth. He had a deep understanding of these things because he learned them directly from God! When we realized that everything in the scriptures is literal, then suddenly we realize that we, as part of this great latter-day nation, must repent, or the destruction that has been prophesied will occur. We know that the proud and the learned who will not hearken to their Creator will be cast off forever. We must beware of those who perpetuate the Theology of Science and say there is no God because they have not seen him. These people deliberately discourage others from believing in God, and they do it using every imaginable discipline—history, archaeology, biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, and many other subjects. We must not allow people who live in sin, and therefore have not eyes to see, to lead us, for they will then be “blind leaders of the blind.” We must beware of the fanciful doctrines of Satan—precepts of men so wonderfully mingled with scripture that they appear to be true. We must beware of those who look beyond the mark. They despise plainness, and they “kill” the prophets with their words and their doctrines. God has taken his plainness away from them and has given them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it.
A new generation is being raised up, and to them God will prove all his words, because they believe. God will show them how he changed the times and seasons in order to blind the minds of the proud and the learned, that they would not understand his marvelous workings. (D&C 121: 12) This generation will prove the scriptures to be true, every whit. Fools have mocked the words of Moses and Mormon and Moroni, but they shall mourn. God’s great work will go forth!
I would plead with everyone to make the scriptures a more integral part of your education. I would encourage anyone with problems to seek from the Word of God first and only believe other teachings as they compliment the teachings of the prophets. I would encourage students to first read God’s take on every issue before diving into your studies so that you can have the spirit of prophecy and discern between truth and the speculations of man. Science is wonderful, it is the process of seeking truth in the world around us, but it is not absolute truth, it is not infallible, and it is not the word of God. Search the scriptures specifically on the subjects you are studying and you will be overwhelmingly amazed at the wealth of information.
Selected Bibliography can be found here
- Evolution pg. 461↵
- Genesis 11:1–9; Ether 1:5, 33↵
- Evolution pg. 461↵
- Ether 1:33, 6:16↵
- Prehistory pg. 61-64
” The PaleoIndians represented in the Western sites are broken into three sequent groups that are given culture names. The earliest is the Clovis, next comes the Folsom, and the latest is the Plano. Several slightly later Eastern complexes can be correlated, on topologic grounds, with the Clovis and Folsom divisions, and the Plano is represented in some places.”↵ - Ether 7:11 (7:1-9:1)↵
- Prehistory pg. 82 (81-94, 100-104)
“Some of these speculations are reasonable. Proof of the mating network isolates is probably distant, but the evidence for a dynamic environment, where floral change was rapid and the accompanying faunal distribution was fluid is convincing. The absence of tundra would mean no huge migrating herds of caribou…Deberet and Vail, however, because of their extreme northern location, would probably still have been harvesting herd caribou. The shifting of recourses would lead to the suggested loose and fluid settlement pattern, or at least to a far ranging hunting pattern, possibly out of a base camp.”↵ - Prehistory pg. 94-97↵
- ibid.↵
- ibid.↵
- Bull Brook1 pp. 343-51; Bull Brook2 pp. 274-76↵
- Prehistory pg. 94-97↵
- ibid.↵
- ibid.↵
- Ether 9:1–13↵
- Ether 9:17–19, 26 (14-29)↵
- Prehistory pg. 104-113, 120-124 (81-113, 120-124)↵
- ibid.↵
- Ether 9:18 (underline added)↵
- Prehistory pg. 104-113, 120-124 (81-113, 120-124); Grolier 1997, Bison
“Important data relevant to the Plainview-or at least to unfluted Folson-comes from the Bonfire Shelter location in the Armistad Reservoir in Texas. It is a cave location kill site with three sealed layers of bone. Two of the bone beds yielded bison. Bed 2 contained an extinct form, either Antiquus or Occidentails, and is radiocarbon dated at 10,250 B.P. Bed 3, dated at about 2800 B.P., of course contained modern bison. Plainview or Midland and Folsom points were recovered from bed 2. This location is an important one, in that it extends the range of two or three diagnostic projectile types much farther south.
There are several named complexes and cultures to be described, but the shared criteria are simple and well known. The stage began when the most available big game was a series of now-extinct species: mammoth, long-horned bison, camel, and horse.
At both sites Clovis fluted points were in directs association with mammoth remains. At Lehener other extinct creatures- horse, bison, and tapir- were represented.
Southeast Arizona may come to be known as “mammoth country” in view of two other locations, Murray Springs and Escapule, quite near the Lehener-Naco sites. At Murray Springs recent sediments sealed parts of two mammoth along with extinct bison, horse, camel, and wolf.”↵ - Prehistory pg. 104-113, 120-124 (81-113, 120-124)↵
- Prehistory pg. 104-113, 120-124 (81-113, 120-124); Zoology 1993 pg. 761↵
- Prehistory pg. 104-113, 120-124 (81-113, 120-124)
“Important data relevant to the Plainview-or at least to unfluted Folson-comes from the Bonfire Shelter location in the Armistad Reservoir in Texas. It is a cave location kill site with three sealed layers of bone. Two of the bone beds yielded bison. Bed 2 contained an extinct form, either Antiquus or Occidentails, and is radiocarbon dated at 10,250 B.P. Bed 3, dated at about 2800 B.P., of course contained modern bison. Plainview or Midland and Folsom points were recovered from bed 2. This location is an important one, in that it extends the range of two or three diagnostic projectile types much farther south.
There are several named complexes and cultures to be described, but the shared criteria are simple and well known. The stage began when the most available big game was a series of now-extinct species: mammoth, long-horned bison, camel, and horse.
At both sites Clovis fluted points were in directs association with mammoth remains. At Lehener other extinct creatures- horse, bison, and tapir- were represented.
Southeast Arizona may come to be known as “mammoth country” in view of two other locations, Murray Springs and Escapule, quite near the Lehener-Naco sites. At Murray Springs recent sediments sealed parts of two mammoth along with extinct bison, horse, camel, and wolf.”↵ - Prehistory pg. 104-113, 120-124 (81-113, 120-124)
“At the earlier sites perishable items were largely missing. Bones of the basic focal prey, if there were any, were not preserved, and the was no hint of vegetable foods. However, an early study of PaleoIndian sites in the southern Plains mentions the finding of seeds and evidence of storage.
The full list of species, presumably food sources, from both excavated sites and caves is almost endless. It includes large mammals such as deer, elk, and black bear and smaller ones such as woodchuck, beaver, and porcupine. Turkey, trumpeter swan, and ruffled grouse were common, as were box turtle and catfish. Vegetal foods included several species of nuts and the edible seed grasses.”↵ - Scientific America pg. 32-34↵
- Prehistory pg. 104-113, 120-124 (81-113, 120-124)
“There have been scattered reports of mastodon and artifact associations east of the Plains, but the data have been inadequate or flawed in one way or another so that none have bee fully accepted.”
Zapotec pg. 41-48: “Two of the more exciting kill sites of this era were found at Santa Isabel Iztapan in the Basin of Mexico. The animals butchered were imperial mammoths, Pleistocene elephants native to the New World but extinct since the Ice Age. Both mammoths had either been chased into the muck around the edge of a Pleistocene lake, or had become mired there on their own, reducing their mobility and allowing the hunters to spear them.
The deepest four levels of that cave were “living floors” from a series of camps, probably made between 12,000 and 9000 BC The campers, belonging to a period known as Early Ajuereado, had left behind 1200 identifiable bones from fifteen species of mammals, reptiles, and birds. There were remains of extinct Pleistocene horse; pronghorn antelope, red fox, and Texas gopher tortoise, none of which live in the area today; more than 700 bones of rabbits; and abundant smaller species such as skunk, ground squirrel, wood rat, quail, and others. Not a single mammoth bone was found.”↵ - Ice Age pg. 179-180↵
- Prehistory pg. 58-59; World Book pg. 42-55; Diffusion pg. 6
“Mention of mega fauna always raises the question of extinction. Why are there no mega fauna left? This reasonable query remains unanswered, but it has been the subject of much speculation. One favorite commonsense explanation is that changing climates and vegetation altered the regional ecology so greatly that the habitat no longer favored several species. Reduction or disappearance of the late Wisconsin precipitation would have rapidly reduced the amount of coarse grasses and reeds available for the bands of Pleistocene elephant (mammoth). That species could not adapt to a plains or desert ecobase; evidently the elephant population dwindled and disappeared in the West by about 11,200 B.P. The long-horned bison held on longer, but they, too, were gone by about 9500-9000 B.P.
Another explanation is again a biological one. In the face of the postulated worsening climate and result increased stress the elephants may have dropped below the critical biological mass. In this view a deteriorating environment would endure the disappearance of the species at a very rapid rate because it would lead to a minus birth rate. Disease has also been invoked as a cause. But the perennial favorite is that perennial favorite is that the human hunter, history’s most efficient predator, administered the coup de grace in a phenomenon called overkill. This means merely that regardless of environment the kill rate exceeded the regenerative capacity of the species. If all or some of the other causes cited above were operative, the overkill toll exerted could well have been the final push to extinction.”↵ - Prehistory pg. 58-59
“Mention of mega fauna always raises the question of extinction. Why are there no mega fauna left? This reasonable query remains unanswered, but it has been the subject of much speculation. One favorite commonsense explanation is that changing climates and vegetation altered the regional ecology so greatly that the habitat no longer favored several species. Reduction or disappearance of the late Wisconsin precipitation would have rapidly reduced the amount of coarse grasses and reeds available for the bands of Pleistocene elephant (mammoth). That species could not adapt to a plains or desert ecobase; evidently the elephant population dwindled and disappeared in the West by about 11,200 B.P. The long-horned bison held on longer, but they, too, were gone by about 9500-9000 B.P.
Another explanation is again a biological one. In the face of the postulated worsening climate and result increased stress the elephants may have dropped below the critical biological mass. In this view a deteriorating environment would endure the disappearance of the species at a very rapid rate because it would lead to a minus birth rate. Disease has also been invoked as a cause. But the perennial favorite is that perennial favorite is that the human hunter, history’s most efficient predator, administered the coup de grace in a phenomenon called overkill. This means merely that regardless of environment the kill rate exceeded the regenerative capacity of the species. If all or some of the other causes cited above were operative, the overkill toll exerted could well have been the final push to extinction.”↵ - Fossil Snakes pg. 1, 311-313↵
- Ether 9:30–35↵
- Ether 10:25↵
- Prehistory pg. 124-193↵
- Prehistory pg. 124-193↵
- ibid.↵
- ibid.↵
- Ether 10:19–20↵
- Zapotec pg. 49-63
“Lewis Binford has suggested that most hunting-gathering societies occupy a position along a continuum from “foraging” to “collecting”. Foragers, the most mobile, travel to where the food is, and their pattern of settlement becomes dispersed or aggregated as resources become dispersed or aggregated.
At certain times, however, these dispersed family bands came together to form larger “macroband” camps of 15-25 persons. Since the antelopes and jackrabbits of the late Ice Age were no longer abundant, these larger camps were not made for communal hunting drives. Instead, they were made for harvesting seasonally abundant plants found in the denser post-Pleistone vegetation.”↵ - Ether 10:23↵
- Prehistory pg. 124-193↵
- Ether 10:24↵
- Prehistory pg. 124-193↵
- Ether 10:25↵
- Prehistory pg. 124-193↵
- Ether 10:27↵
- Prehistory pg. 124-193↵
- Helaman 3:5–7, 9–10↵
- Prehistory pg. 124-193; Mysteries pg. 256↵
- Alma 37:21–32; Ether 8:18–21↵
- Ether 15:7–11 (7-32); Hancock pg. 28; Cowdery pg. 158-159; Pratt pg. 390-394; Fielding, Sept 10, 1938↵
- Prehistory pg. 141, 143
“The best known and last of the northeastern Archaic phases is the Orient. The Orient also had limited distribution in New Jersey, Long Island, upstate New York, and Massachusetts. Because the known sites are mostly cemetery locations, little is known of the day-to-day life. The burials were cremated, as in some other northeastern Archaic cultures, so the grave goods are the only source of information. The graves were deep pits sprinkled with red ocher. Grave goods included distinct, “fish-tailed” points, defaced and killed steatite bowls, and gorgets.”↵ - Ether 13:15- Ether 15:34↵
- Prehistory pg. 141, 143, ibid.↵
- Prehistory pg. 141, 143, 173, 340
“In western California, there was evidently a much greater concern with the dead. Many were buried in mounds, others in extensive cemeteries. An analysis of the grave goods of these many cemeteries has led some scholars to suggest that there was in California a social complexity quite unlike the simple egalitarian societies usually posited for most of the western Arachaic and quite at variance with the simple and relatively stable technology the archaeology reveals.
Burial, Bundle: Reburial of defleshed and disarticulated bones tied or wrapped together in a bundle.”↵ - Omni 1:21–22; Mosiah 8:7–11, 21:26-27; Alma 22:30↵
- Talmage pg. 456-457 quoting G. Elliot Smith; Science; vol. 44, pp. 190-195; August 11, 1916↵
- Talmage pg. 456-457↵
- Groleir 1997 “Indians, American (II)”; Diffusion pg. 5↵
- TJS 1976 pg. 267
SAME AS NOTE 3 ABOVE↵ - Diffusion chart 12, 13 (12-22)↵
- TJS pg. 266-267 quoting Stephens, John Lloyd; Incidents of Travel in Central America; 1841↵
- Mokaya pg. 35; Diffusion pg. 3-4, and chart 12, 13 (12-22); Tula pg. 21-22
Zapotec pg. 67-69: “Some time between 1900 and 1400 BC, the Indians of the Tehuacan and Oaxaca Valleys began to make undecorated buff-to-brown pottery in a few simple shapes: hemispherical bowls, globular jars with necks, globular jars without necks. Most of the shapes look like pottery imitations of gourd vessels.”
Mexico pg. 41-58: “In the late nineteenth century, there was really no idea at all of the sequence of developmental in pre-Spanish Mexico. Of course, everyone knew perfectly well that the Aztecs were quite late, and that the Aztecs had spoken of an earlier people called the Toltecs. There was also a vague feeling that the great ruins fo Teotihuacan were somehow the products of an even earlier people- but that was about all. Imagine the delight, then, of Mexican antiquarians when there began to appear in their collections little hadmade clay figurines, of naive and amusing style totally removed from that of the moldmade products of later peoples in the Valley of Mexico. Most astonishing was their obvious antiuity, for some had been recovered from deposits underlying the Pedregal, the lava covering much of the southwestern part of the Valley. Scholars, prone to labels, immediately named the culture which had produced the figurines and the very abundant pottery associated with it ‘Archaic,’ and in 1911 and 1912 Manuel Gamio demonstrated stratigraphically that the central Mexican sequence runs from earliest to latest: ‘Archaic,’ Teotihuacan, Aztec.”
Maya pg. 46-49: “From a technological point of view, the most signifcant innovation was the invention or introduction of pottery, which appears at the beginning of the Barra phase at about 1800 BC. Although Barra ceramics may well be the oldest in Mesoamerica, they are remarkable sophistication and beauty. They largely consist of thin-walled, neckless jars (called tecomates by archaeologists), the remainder comprising deep bowls. Vessel sufaces include monchomes, bichroms, and trichomes, and have been manipultaed by the potter by grooving, incising, and modeling
As Clark and Blake make clear, these were not mere cooking vessels; based on forms and decoration of gourd prototypes, they wer more likely containers for liquids and foods used during rituals. Then how did they cook? Quantities of fire-cracked rock indicate that the technique was stone-boiling: rocks were heated, then dropped into water contained in water-proofed baskets.”↵ - 71-75; Diffusion pg. 3-4; Chiapas Artifacts pg. 192; Tula pg. 21-22
Zapotec pg. 71-75: “Agriculture may have begun simply as one of a number of Archaic strategies, designed to give foragers more kilograms of food with less travel and harvest time. Eventually, however, selection led to domestic varieties of squash that were larger, produced more seeds, and had good-tasting flesh. It also led to beans that had larger and more water-soluble seeds, as well as tough, limp pods- much easier to harvest than the explosive, corkscrew pods of the wild bean, which can shatter to contact and scatter the seeds.
Eventually agriculture became an almost irreversible process, since the newly created domestic races could not survive without human assistance, and the humans in turn were beginning to rely more and more on the domestic races. In time, the increased effort put into agriculture took time away from the collecting of certain wild plants. As the use of squash and beans increased near Guila Naquitz, for example, the use of mesquite pods also increased, while the use of acorns, pinon nuts, susi nuts, and hackberry declined.
Of all of Mexico’s Archaic crops, however, none had a greater impact than maize or Indian corn (Zea mays). From its humble beginning as a wild grass with hard-to-process and relatively unappetizing seeds, maize was eventually transformed into the staple crop of Mexican civilization.”
Mexico pg. 38, 41-58: “The revived dispute has been largely settled. The Tehuacan cobs were those of pod corn, and archaeological and botanic evidence shows that annual teosinte never could have been their progenitor. On the other hand, perennial teosinte must have crossed at a very early date with pod corn to produce annual teosinte and perhaps the ancestral forms of domestic maize. The controversy, nevertheless, may be of more intrest to plant geneticists than to students of ancient Mexican culture, for the important point to remember is the world’s most productive domesticated plant had now come under human control; the process of domestication, in MacNeish’s present way of thinking, took place somewhere in the Puebla-Oaxaca region during 7000 to 5000 BC time period.
By the following San Jose phase (1300-1200 BC), San Jose Mogote, located in the Elta arm of the Valley 6 1/4 miles northwest of Monte Alban, had grown into a village of 80 to 120 households covering about 50 acres, with an estimated population of 400 to 600 persons. Carbonized seeds recovered by the flotation method show that a number of crops were raised, probably on the high alluvium: maize, chilie peppers, squashes, and possibley the avocado (although this may have been traded in from the lowlands). Our old friend teosinte grew in cornfields and crossed with local maize, either by accident or design.”
Maya pg. 46-49: “The Early Preclassic begins in Soconusco about 1800 BC, and is marked by profound changes in settlement pattern, susistence, technology, and even society. During this period, which lasted until about 1000 BC, settlements were located further inland, and consisted of real villages, occupied throuhout the year. Significantly, they wer placed next to a series of bajos- old stream channels or oxbow lakes- which flooded during the rainy season. As they dried up, fish became concentrated in these and could be easily taken; at the height of the dry season, as archaeologists John Clark and Micheal Blake have noted, the bajos could have served as sunken fields for agriculture, as they retained enough moisture for a third corn crop to be raised in addition to the two that are normal for the Soconusco plain.
What crop or crops were being grown to support these developments? Maize cobs are found in Soconusco sites beginning about 1700 BC, but these are from small and not very productive ears; further, carbon pathway analysis of human skeletal material has shown that maize was not very important in the diet of these Early Preclassic villagers. Gareth Lowe, of the New World Archaelological Foundation, and myself once speculated that they might have been relying on manioc or cassava, an ancient root cap of the New World tropics, rather than maize, but the evidence for this remains elusive, and the case is unproven.”↵ - Mediterranean pg. 65; Neolithic pg. 42-44
Zapotec pg. 71-75: “On the site chosen for the village, individual families built houses for themselves. These houses were made of pine posts brought down from the mountains, and had roofs thatched with reeds or grasses. The walls were constructed of bundles of canes lashed together, then plastered over with clay in the architectural style called “wattle-and-daub.” Over the simple, stamped-earth floor went a layer of river sand to provide a dry surface, and perhaps a reed mat or two to sleep on. Near the house, each family dug storage pits for its harvested maize. Larger than the pits seen at Guila Naquitz, these storage units could have held up to a metric ton on shelled corn, or a year’s supply for a family of 4-5.”
Mexico pg. 41-58: “Houses were rectangular and about 20 ft (6 m) long, with slightly sunken floors of clay covered with river sand. The sides of vertical canes between wooden posts, and were daubed with mud, and white-washed; roofs were thatched.
Food stoarge was probably the main function of the bell-shaped pits which here, as elsewhere in Preclassic Mesoamerica, are associated with household clusters. Many could have held a metric ton of maize, and if capped with a flat rock, might have inhibibted insect growth through the lack of oxygen. As they ‘soured’ or otherwise lost their usefulness for preservation of household items and implements, or for refuse disposal, or even as burial places.
Settled by about 1300 BC, Tlatilco was a very large village (or small town) sprawling over about 160 acres. Located to the west of the great lake on a small stream, it was not very far removed from the lakeshore where fishing and the snaring of birds could be pursued. In the Tlatilco refuse are aramdillo, opossum, wild turkey, bears, frogs, rabbits, fish, ducks, and turtles. Conspicuously present in those parts of the site actually excavated by archaeologists were the outlines of underground, bell-shaped pits. They were filled with dark earth, charcoal, ashes, figurine and pottery fragments, animal bones, and lumps of burned clay from the walls fo pole-and-thatch houses; as in Oaxaca, they must have served originally for the storage of grain belonging to various households.”↵ - ; Zapotec pg. 71-75; Chiapas Burials; Mediterranean pg. 65; Neolithic pg. 42-44
Mexico pg. 41-58: “No less than 340 burials were uncovered by archaeologists at Tlatilco, but there must have been many hundreds more destroyed by brickworkers (sometimes at the instigation of unscrupulous collectors). All these were extended skeletons accompanied by the most lavish offerings, especially by figurines which only rarely appear as buiral furniture in Preclassic Mexico.”↵ - Omni 1:14–17↵
- Zapotec pg. 71-75
“While the Early Archaic occupants of the Valley of Oaxaca did not lie ate the extreme of either continuum, they can be described as “foragers” because they changed residence several times during the year, traveling to where the recourses were most abundant. They also spent parts of the years in “microbands” of 4-6 persons, made up of both men and women. These small groups were probably analogous to the family collecting bands of the Paiute and Shoshone Indians of the western United States, who accepted the risk at the family level.
At certain times, however, these dispersed family bands came together to form larger “macroband” camps of 15-25 persons. Since the antelopes and jackrabbits of the late Ice Age were no longer abundant, these larger camps were not made for communal hunting drives. Instead, they were made fro harvesting seasonally abundant plants found in the denser post-Pleistoncene vegetation.”
Mexico pg. 45-46: “Survey and excavations carried out by the Michigan archaeologists have identified 17 permanent settlements of the Tierras Largas phase (1600-1300 BC), but almost all of these are little more than hamlets of ten or fewer households; the largest settlement in the Valley of Oaxaca at that time was San Jose Mogote, which ranked as a small village of about 150 persons, sharing a lime-plastered public building. The villagers grew maize and cultivated avacados, collected wild plant foods, and hunted deer, cottontail rabbits, and other game.”[139] Diffusion pg. 1-5; Mokaya pg. 34-35; Barra pg. 9-10, 21, 29, 33; Ancient Maya pg. 54
Mexico pg. 50: “There was great excitment in archaeological circles when the Tlatilco complex came to light, for something resembling it was already known elsewhere- thousands of miles to the south, in Peru. There also, in the very earliest civilization of the South American continent, the Chavin culture, were found such odd pottery shapes as stirrup spouts and long-necked bottles, associated with unusual techniques like rocker-samping and red-filled excising, as well as roller seals, figurines of Mexican appearance and split-face dualism. A chance resemblance or not?
Early editions of this book leaned heavily toward the idea, reminiscent of the old Spinden hypothosis, that such resemblances were the result of Mexican intrusion on the north coast of Peru, but this now seems unlikely. There is an overwhelming body of evidence which points to an indepnedent evolution of ceremonial architecture, art, and therefore civilization in Peru. Further, if there were intercontinental diffusion at such and early time, it might well have been cultural spread to both areas from the lowland Pacific coastal area of Ecuador, where such indications of settled life as large villages, ceramics, and maize agriculture extend back beyond 3000 BC. Two finds in western Mexico suggest that such was the case. At the site of Capacha, in Colima, Isabel Kelly unearthed grave goods dating to about 450 BC which emphasize pottery bottles and stirrup spouts, and which unmistakably point to an Equadorian origin; and an elaborate tomb in El Openo, in Michoacan, has very similar ceramics with a radiocarbon date of about 1300 BC.”[140] 2 Nephi 5:1–8↵
- tyle=”color: #808080;”>Note: The views of this article are not entirely shared by the site author.
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INTRODUCTION
It may be helpful to read Introduction to scriptural archeology for an introduction to this article covering important background information on why archeological dating methods give screwed results and on the geographical alteration of the narrow neck of land.
(To clarify dates, throughout the rest of the text scriptural/historical dates are preceded by S/H; while archaeological dates, including carbon dates, are preceded by A/C. In printed versions, footnotes which reference scriptures are in red; footnotes which reference archaeological sources are in black).
THE SCATTERING AT BABEL AND THE EARLY JAREDITE CULTURE. Archaeologists place the first modern humans in the Near East’s fertile crescent around 100,00 years ago [72], which, according to our calibrated timeline, is immediately after the Flood. From there man was “scattered . . . abroad . . . upon the face of all the earth . . .” (Genesis 11:8) [73]; scientists following the path of homo sapiens identify a major scattering between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago when modern man spread from the Near East to Europe, the Far East, Australia, and the Americas [74]. In America, studies of hereditary traits on the first group of PaleoIndians to reach America have concluded that they consisted of no more than a handful of families (S/H: around 2100 BC; A/C: around 40,000 years ago) [75]/ [76]. The two earliest major PaleoIndian cultures that developed from this handful of families, the Clovis Culture and the Folsom Culture , spread widely but sparsely from the Southwestern United States to cover most of the continental United States [77]/ [78].
OMER AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. As this early period in American Prehistory was coming to a close, a small group of families left the core area and settled “by the seashore” directly east of the hill Cumorah (Ether 9:1–13) [79]. The group of sites, in and around northeastern Massachusetts, are called the Bull Brook Complex by archaeologists [80]. Clovis points found at several of the sites tie it to the Southwest [81]. Building on excavations by D.S. Byers in the mid-50’s [82], archaeological societies in the Northeast have pieced together the history of the Bull Brook Complex [83]. Their findings and subsequent analysis have shown the interactions of a system of organized, interdependent groups with specialized work force networks [84]. It is recognized as containing the highest level of social structure in America at that time [85], which would be expected in a “refugee camp” of the royal household [86].
PRE-DEARTH JAREDITE CULTURE. . As Moroni attests, the next archaeological period saw the rise of a richer and more diversified culture [87]/ [88]. The Plano and Early Eastern Archaic Cultures fanned across the continent (S/H: around 1600-1200 BC; A/C: around 8500-6000 BC) [89]. Scientists have found the full spectrum of plants and animals corresponding to the days of Emer. According to Moroni, during the early Pre-Dearth Jaredite time period they had “all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man.” [90]Archaeologists have found many species of American bison from this time period, which ruminants are classified by zoologists as wild cattle, oxen and cows (family Bovidae, genus Bos) [91]. Similarly, there are food remains of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep and Rocky Mountain goats at many sites from this period [92]. Peccaries are animals from this period which are classified as swine and are in the same group as domestic pigs and hogs (sub-order Suina) [93]. The “many other kinds of animals” of Moroni’s list would include deer, elk, moose, caribou, and pronghorn [94]. Thanks to new site-investigation methods, scientists have found that fruits, grains and vegetables were part of the PaleoIndian diet [95]; the Darwinian view that the PaleoIndians were merely carnivorous stockers of megafauna is being abandoned. More careful analysis of early sites and artifacts is yielding increasing evidence of fine textiles [96], which means the people didn’t just wear rough animal hides. Moroni also mentions that horses, elephants, cureloms and cumoms were useful to man, and that elephants and cureloms and cumoms were “more especially” useful to man (Ether 9:19). Potential beasts of burden which have been found in association with PaleoIndians include horses, tapirs, mammoths, mastodons, giant bison, giant ground sloths, and camels [97]. Coincidentally, the horse and the tapir would not have been very useful as beasts of burden because the Ice Age variety existent at this time were only about the size of a dog [98]; hence, it was the elephants and cureloms and cumoms which were “more especially” useful to man.
THE GREAT DEARTH. Then the PaleoIndian culture was rocked. In the scriptures, we read of secret combinations infesting society, and then a chastening, in the form of a great dearth (Ether 9:30–35). Archaeologists attest that it was probably the worst famine in North American history. Mass extinction spread across America as the Ice Age came to a rapid and catastrophic close [99]. Excess hunting by starving people and severe environmental changes drove the megafauna to extinction [100]. Scientists have found that serpents were abundant at that time in the American Southwest (as they are today) and the closing of the Ice Age caused many varied migrations in snake species across North America [101]. The serpents and the drought divided the people in the north from the fauna, which escaped to the south [102]. When the climate finally recovered, the people instigated a revolution in agriculture [103]/ [104], since they had now lost their domesticated animals.
POST-DEARTH JAREDITE CULTURE. Moroni’s next exposition on culture comes in the days of Lib (Ether 10:18–28). My corresponding period is labeled by archaeologists as the Middle and Late Archaic. Often indistinguishable from one another, these two cultural periods represent a major advancement over the preceding culture [105]. Again the culture spread across North America from coast to coast [106]. There were villages, agriculture, and widespread trade networks [107]. South of the narrow neck, in the Mexican highland and beyond, the only inhabitants we find are organized hunting parties, which “coincidentally” brought spear points of North American manufacture and style [108]/ [109]. Scientists recognize metallurgy from this time period, and copper is the most common metal found [110]/ [111]. Many fine textiles have also survived from this period [112]/ [113]. Moroni says they made “all manner of tools to till the earth, both to plow and to sow, to reap and to hoe, and also to thrash” [114]. He also says they had, “all manner of tools with which they did work their beasts” (Ether 10:26–27). Most of the tools on this list have been found by archaeologists at sites dating to the Middle and Late Archaic [115]. New weapons were also invented and manufactured, although archaeologists currently view them only as hunting weapons [116]/ [117]. Another major industry of the Jaredites was wood exploitation [118]. A huge assortment of woodworking tools has been found at Archaic period sites across the Nation [119]. Truly this was a highly-developed culture—a time of great prosperity. How tragic that they lost it all because of secret combinations! [120]
THE DESOLATION OF THE JAREDITES. The desolation of the Jaredites began in the Southwest and climaxed in New York State [121]. It is witnessed archaeologically by a widespread “cremation” burial culture [122]. Continent-wide scientists find a change in burial customs from proper burials to cremation burials and “ceremonial” burning of homes and entire villages (Shiz and his army) [123]/ [124]. Archaeologists have also found evidence of large-scale “bundle burials,” which is the practice of bundling the disarticulated, defleshed bones of dead people in bags or cordages, and then either burying them or dumping them in the trash [125]. Surely it was a gruesome scene that the first Nephites to re-inhabit the desolate land northward were required to witness and clean up [126].
THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEPHITES AND MULEKITES. The Jaredites were the sole inhabitants of America until two small groups of sea-going travelers crossed the Pacific (S/H: 600 BC; A/C: 3000 BC). As early as 1916 scholars had identified the general location of the two landing sites. G. Elliot Smith published an article with Science titled “The Origin of the Pre-Columbian Civilization of America” in which he detailed ethnological evidence of the landings and further showed how scholars of that day had attempted to cover up the findings because they lent support to the Bible and against Darwinism [127]. In his book, Articles of Faith, James E. Talmage describes the author’s findings: “Dr. Smith presents an impressive array of evidence pointing to the Old World and specifically to Egypt, as the source of many of the customs by which the American aborigines are distinguished. The article is accompanied by a map showing . . . two landing places on the west coast, one in Mexico and another near the boundary common to Peru and Chile, from which place the immigrants spread.” [128]Archaeological evidence has further refined these findings. Most archaeologists now agree to a South American landing, putting it a little further north, specifically in modern Ecuador [129](which “coincidentally” lies “a little south of the Isthmus of Darien” [130]). The location of the second landing spot is unknown; characteristic artifacts also point to the west coast of Mexico [131]— legend puts it at a place called “seven caverns” [132]. Both the Valdivia culture of Ecuador (the Lehites), and the Otomangue-speaking people of the Mexican highland (the Mulekites), brought the first true pottery to the Americas; in both cultures the pottery was already well-developed even at the earliest sites [133]. Both cultures are distinguished as being the first harvesters of cultigens (plants incapable of growing without human help), the most important cultigen being corn [134]. The architecture and burial customs of these two groups can easily be tied to the Old World. Square waddle and daub homes with storage pits in the floor dotted their lands [135]. Their temples and public buildings are extremely similar to those of Egypt and Israel. Subfloor burials and burial positions also match those of the Middle East [136].
EARLY MULEKITE CULTURE. The newly arrived Otomangue-speaking culture (Mulekites) began to spread across the Mexican highland (Zarahemla). Although they covered a large area, they lived in small scattered villages, and archaeologists recognize very little social structure among them [137] [138].
EARLY LEHITE CULTURE. The Valdivia culture also fanned out over a large area, stylistic pottery has been traced from Ecuador up through Columbia and Panama into Coastal areas of Guatemala and Southern Chiapas {{139}}. When Nephi fled from his brothers {{140}}, it seems that he led his followers to the central depression of Chiapas and settled in the Grijalva river valley. The first cultural layers there are of a unique, tight-knit group (Zoque/early Nephite), centered around Chiapa de Corzo (the land of Nephi), which remained separate from the surrounding cultures that were developing (Maya/Lamanite) {{141}}/ {{142}}. The Nephite culture began the seeds of civilization which later influenced all of Mesoamerica, and eventually all of North America {{143}}. Some of the Lamanites appear to have followed Nephi’s party; a group associated with the early Maya (Lamanites) settled further up in the Grijalva river valley {{144}}. Other groups remained in South America which over time developed very independent cultures {{145}}; apparently not associated with the history outlined in the Book of Mormon.
EARLY LAMANITE CULTURE. The Lamanites (early Maya) digressed and became a very primitive people {{146}}/ {{147}}. Archaeologists label them as “hunters and gatherers,” because they stocked the forests for game, lived in tents and temporary shelters, and practiced limited agriculture {{148}}/ {{149}}. They did some fishing, and they had very limited agriculture (primarily limited to picking wild fruits and edible roots) {{150}}. Archaeologists think it was because they did not have the technology, the scriptures teach that it was because they were lazy.
Warfare is evident as archaeologists find a large assortment of weapons, far exceeding the needs of mere hunters {{151}}. The early Maya (Lamanites) set up chiefdoms in each local community; at this early date they do not appear to have been a cohesive unit, but rather groups of village communities, competing and perhaps fighting with each other for resources {{152}} — apparently united only in their hatred toward the Nephites {{153}}. Laman and Lemuel seem to have taught their children the pagan practices they had learned in Jerusalem. Archaeologists find cultic artifacts associated with the worship of a fertility goddess; they also worshipped Chac, who is the Maya equivalent of Baal from the Old World {{154}}. In this early period we also see the beginnings of the Jaguar cult. The Maya made costumes from the coats of beasts of prey and used these costumes in religious rituals {{155}}/ {{156}}. Early Mayan vices match those Enos and Jarom attributed to the Lamanites: pornography in the form of nude ceramic figurines, idleness, and drunkenness (typically chicha, an alcohol made from corn) {{157}}/ {{158}}.
INTRODUCTION TO THE FORMATIVE. At the dawn of the formative period there were several major demographic shifts which set the stage for the developing cultures. First, King Mosiah I and his people left the Land of Nephi (Chiapa de Corzo) and traveled to Zarahemla (central Mexico) to join the Mulekites (S/H: around 200 BC; A/C: around 1400 BC) {{159}}. This is seen archaeologically as an influx of Mixe-zoquean culture brings new advances to central Mexico, and public buildings begin to appear in the larger villages {{160}}.
THE PEOPLE OF ZENIFF. Back in Chiapa de Corzo (the land of Nephi), the surrounding culture (Maya/Lamanites) destroyed all traces of the departing group (Nephites) {{161}}/ {{162}}. Shortly, however, high culture returned to the valley {{163}}as Zeniff and his people arrive and begin to build anew many public buildings and restore the land {{164}}/ {{165}}. The new inhabitants of Chiapa de Corzo (people of Zeniff) were an ethnically distinct group which did not mix with the surrounding Maya (Lamanites) {{166}}/ {{167}}. Initially their culture was very similar to that of central Mexico (from which they had come), but the similarities decreased as time went on and they (the people of Zeniff, now led by King Noah) became extravagant in their prosperity. Lavishness dominates the architecture and material culture of this period {{168}}/ {{169}}. Just before Chiapa de Corzo returned to Mayan Culture (Lamanites), the people of the Grijalva depression gave birth to one of the richest and most influential Mesoamerican cultures of the pre-Christian era—the Olmecs (Amulonites) {{170}}/ {{171}}.
THE AMULONITES AND THEIR INFLUENCE OVER THE LAMANITES. The Amulonite (Olmec) culture seems to have developed in the lowlands of Veracruz, Mexico. The simple farming village of San Lorenzo (probably Helam) {{172}}/ {{173}}suddenly began a massive public works effort using slave labor (probably the followers of Alma) {{174}}/ {{175}}. Soon a handful of great cities commenced, and Olmec influence spread to other lands {{176}}/ {{177}}. Olmec art and religious themes support an Amulonite correlation: powerful, dominating priests, were-jaguar babies, female dancers, and a plethora of demi-gods and idols {{178}}/ {{179}}. Throughout the Mayan lands, Olmec teachers began to train the Maya (Lamanites) in the language and learning of the Mexican highland people (the Nephites) {{180}}/ {{181}}. With this new education the Maya began to prosper and make many technological advances {{182}}/ {{183}}. New trade networks spread across southern Mexico, the Yucatan and Guatemala, and all roads passed through Olmec lands, which made them vastly rich and extremely influential {{184}}. Some archaeologists call the Olmecs the “mother culture” of Mesoamerica {{185}}.
THE FALL OF THE AMULONITES. As prophesied by Abinadi, the Amulonites (Olmecs) were soon devastated {{186}}/ {{187}}. Using a cesium magnetometer to detect buried basalt, Michael Coe, a professor of Anthropology at Yale University, and his group found mounds of monuments purposefully defaced, smashed and buried at San Lorenzo {{188}}. Other Olmec sites excavated in the area told the same story: seemingly the Maya (Lamanites) living among the Olmecs (Amulonites) in their gulf-coast empire revolted, defacing and smashing monuments, destroying buildings {{189}}/ {{190}}, and as the Book of Mormon teaches us, massacring the ruling class (the descendants of the priests of Noah) {{191}}. The great Olmecs suddenly disappeared, but their influence over the Maya was seen forever afterward. The sparsely-populated Mayan lands were soon covered with huge temples and city-centers with art and architecture reminiscent of the Olmec style {{192}}.
THE NEPHITES- ALMA THE ELDER AND KING MOSIAH II. Meanwhile, in central Mexico, Alma and his followers escaped to Zarahemla and established the church throughout the Mexican highland {{193}}, witnessed archaeologically by new temples and synagogues built throughout the land {{194}}. Then, several decades later, Mosiah II founded a new democratic government {{195}}, and each land began to build government buildings alongside the new temples (S/H: 91 BC; A/C: around 850 BC) {{196}}. Under the leadership of these inspired founders, the diverse societies of central Mexico integrated to become a very prosperous people {{197}}/ {{198}}. Unfortunately, in many communities this prosperity led to pride, social classes, and perversions, which are all quite visible in the material culture they left behind {{199}}/ {{200}}.
THE NEPHITES- CAPTAIN MORONI. These two great nations, the Nephites on the Mexican Plateau and the Lamanites (Maya) in Southern Mexico, Guatemala and Yucatan, began to experience greater conflicts {{201}}/ {{202}}. Foreseeing the coming challenges, Captain Moroni prepared his people and their lands {{203}}. First, the weak lands were fortified and the southern frontier was strengthened {{204}}/ {{205}}. Hilltop fortifications began to dot southern Mexico in Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Guerrero {{206}}/ {{207}}. Great urban fortresses were created {{208}}/ {{209}}. For example, at Monte Alban (Manti), researchers from the University of Michigan found that some leader (Moroni) inspired the people of the valley of Oaxaca to move to the top of a nearby hill in the former “no man’s land” between two warring nations, and there build a fortress with up to 10,000 inhabitants {{210}}. The site has natural cliffs surrounding the city, its temples and its public buildings on three sides; on the fourth side, excavators found a two-mile long wall of earth and stone which still stands almost 30 feet tall and 50-60 feet thick {{211}}/ {{212}}. No wonder Mormon venerated the leadership, courage and vision of Captain Moroni and the manner in which he prepared his people for war.
After Amalickiah’s first attack, a second phase of construction was begun in which fortified cities and hilltop fortresses were built throughout the land of Zarahemla {{213}}which appears to have stretched from Oaxaca to Jalisco and from southwestern Michoacan to northern Veracruz {{214}}. Also, the Book of Mormon records Moroni pushing the Lamanites out of the east wilderness and on the west, then building new cities in these areas in order to create a more defensible border {{215}}. Excavations in southern and western Oaxaca and Guerrero, as well as central Veracruz are now showing such movements of peoples and the construction of new large defensive cities and fortresses {{216}}.
During the time that fortifications were being built in the Mexican highland, a massive weapons production industry commenced throughout Mesoamerica, both in the Mexican Highland (Zarahemla) and in Maya (Lamanite) lands {{217}}/ {{218}}. To accommodate these war preparations, the peoples of the Mexican Highland (Nephites) made major breakthroughs in agriculture and built massive irrigation systems {{219}}. From that time forward, urbanization and trade specialization, with accompanying prosperity, enveloped the Nephite lands {{220}}/ {{221}}.
The great war of Moroni’s time, and the wars that followed, are seen archaeologically in demographic and cultural movements of this time period {{222}}, and in numerous monuments depicting warriors and captives in both Highland Mexico and Maya lands {{223}}. The Lamanites displaced and jumbled the Nephites numerous times {{224}}. There was also a great cultural mixing when groups of Lamanites converted to the Nephite religion and went to live among the Nephites {{225}}, and also when groups became captives {{226}}. Cities experienced occasional upheavals, but most of them changed hands without noticeable ruin {{227}}/ {{228}}.
THE NEPHITES- 57 BC TO AD 33. Time brought greater prosperity {{229}}, which led to ornamentation and extravagant housewares {{230}}. Robbers also infested the land during this period {{231}}—archaeologist have found that many of the graves of nobles and of wealthy people were broken into and the riches were stolen {{232}}. The Book of Mormon teaches that as wars continued numerous groups sought refuge and peace by migrating to far-away lands {{233}}. Archaeologists date the Adena people’s arrival in the Ohio River Valley at this time {{234}}. The Adena cleared the land of the carnage and waste the land’s former inhabitants (the Jaredites) had left {{235}}/ {{236}}, and they brought a new culture with the advancements and technologies of their Mexican homeland {{237}}. Others moved to the Southwestern United States, becoming the earliest Mogollon peoples {{238}}. Those who arrived in North America found a land covered with lakes and rivers—a much more lush environment than the one they had left {{239}}. The Southwest Cultures are famous for their dwellings of stone and cement; cultures of the East for tents; both cultures also built simple homes of scrawny wood poles and thatched walls and roof {{240}}. In a short time the continent was covered with hamlets and villages {{241}}/ {{242}}. The people soon turned to pagan and perverted practices, which spoiled their previously wholesome culture {{243}}/ {{244}}. There is evidence that the first Polynesians reached the Pacific Islands around this same time period {{245}}/ {{246}}.
THE NEPHITES- ZION. . The destruction at the time of Christ was discussed earlier. As the ash settled {{247}}/ {{248}}, a new culture spread across the land {{249}}/ {{250}}. In some ways, this new culture was more monolithic; in other ways it was more diverse. Throughout the Americas a new two-room temple replaced varying former styles {{251}}. A utopia of peace and prosperity is spoken of in legends {{252}}/ {{253}}. There is no evidence of weapons being used at this time {{254}}, and the murals, figurines, and architecture show designs of nature, lines of symmetry and harmony, and displays of pleasant animals and domestic life {{255}}. Gone are all signs of a military elite, governmental force, and coercion {{256}}. The Hopewell, the Anasazi, the Mogollon, Teotihuacan, the Maya—continent-wide, the traits are the same {{257}}. The great peace resulting “because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people” (4 Nephi 1:15).
The people were united in righteousness {{258}}, yet at the same time, the culture became more diverse, as the focus turned from making a profit to making quality products and upholding the ideals of family and community {{259}}. Local artisans replaced the mass-production and expansive trade networks of the preceding period {{260}}. Thus there was no need to travel extensively “on business,” so people could spend more time with their families. Family gardens replaced mass-produced food {{261}}. People ate a greater variety of food, but their food was of more local origin {{262}}. Analysis of skeletons shows that the people were healthier and enjoyed longer life spans than during the preceding period {{263}}. The arts flowered during this period {{264}}. The number and variety of musical instruments greatly increased {{265}}. Pottery and other goods became more useful and more beautiful, and less ornamental and extravagant {{266}}. A much greater variety of artifacts is found, but in much smaller quantities than before, and with much less waste {{267}}. The prosperity was great throughout all of the Americas and in all areas of human development, “because of their prosperity in Christ” (4 Nephi 1:23).
In the early classic period the church became very wealthy {{268}}. The people donated their time and skills to the creation and maintenance of beautiful temples and public centers {{269}}. The population exploded {{270}}, but at the same time, the cities became less dense as the communities were reorganized and the people spread out across the land {{271}}. Even the biggest “cities” were only lightly populated, yet they contained ceremonial centers and public buildings large enough to accommodate all the people of the surrounding villages {{272}}. Social classes disappeared, yet the standard of living increased everywhere {{273}}; And “they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God” (4 Nephi 1:17) {{274}}.
It was beautiful. Everything Mormon said was true. Then they lost it all. The line is not clear, but little by little it all slipped away. The late pre-classic ugliness returned, and this time it was even more vile.THE NEPHITES- PRIDE. As the people became proud, they began to flaunt the wealth they had accumulated over many years of righteousness and prosperity {{275}}. In the archaeological record, we begin to find much larger houses than existed in the preceding period {{276}}, more decorated pottery {{277}}, personal ornamentation (including pearls and elaborate clothing) {{278}}/ {{279}}, extravagant burials of the dead {{280}}, and new long-distance trade networks {{281}}/ {{282}}. They painted murals showing images of power, with soldiers, weapons, kings, priests, slaves, and eventually human sacrifice {{283}}. They built new cities with defense in mind {{284}}, and the existing cities became more dense, decreasing in total area despite the fact that the population was still growing {{285}}/ {{286}}. We see evidence of the rise of social classes, with a new elite class and a definite peasant class {{287}}/ {{288}}. The social classes are most apparent in the big cities.
Political players began to build up monuments to themselves, often showing off their accomplishments {{289}}. We see a cultural split, as the people broke up into different groups {{290}}/ {{291}}. As displays of wealth and power emerged in society and later in government, the church was divided, as the people in every land sought to raise up their own version of Quetzalcoatl (Christ), and to join him with a new pantheon of gods and demigods {{292}}/ {{293}}. In the major ceremonial centers, a priestly class began to exercise power and influence {{294}}/ {{295}}. Temples and temple complexes became colossal and extravagant {{296}}, and often the priests raised themselves to the position of gods or claimed descent from the gods {{297}}. Priests and government leaders began to deform the skulls of their children, and to give themselves and their children tattoos and body paint, all in an effort to separate themselves and their children from the “commoners” {{298}}. Gated communities were developed to protect the elite from the lower class {{299}}.
On the eve of society’s collapse, the pride turned absolutely disgusting {{300}}. Most of the pottery and art became warped, lewd and pornographic {{301}}. Mass production fed trade networks which branched across the continent and resources were exploited on a massive scale {{302}}/ {{303}}. Food production became intense, and the general health of the people correspondingly deteriorated; the incidence of disease increased significantly and life expectancies dropped drastically {{304}}. Body piercing became the norm {{305}}, tobacco and drugs were used widely; smoking was done in smoke houses and in private homes, with cigarettes and with pipes {{306}}. Huge ball courts covered the land {{307}}, in some places ball players rose to the state of gods {{308}}. The ball games became very bloody {{309}}, and in many places they were accompanied with mass killing and human sacrificing of the winners or losers depending on the local religion {{310}}; in other areas the losers become the slaves of the winners’ rulers {{311}}. Many people wasted their income on various forms of gambling—they rooted on their favorite teams, or played games of chance with dice and bones {{312}}. In many areas the workmanship of the structures built during this period was poor, but it was covered with decorative plaster, and was elaborately finished {{313}}. Cultic symbols and status symbols are found everywhere {{314}}.
THE NEPHITES- DESTRUCTION. Truly this society was ripe for destruction {{315}}. The Book of Mormon tells us that the destruction took place quickly {{316}}. Archaeology tells us that it occurred on a massive scale {{317}}, larger than most probably ever imagined— although Mormon tried to help us understand {{318}}.
The great war appears to have been started in central Yucatan by a group which archaeologists call the Putun Maya {{319}}. As they gained power they continued west and north, and eventually attacked the Mexican highland {{320}}. Great murals tell the story of their advances; they were the eagle warriors of the jaguar cult (the Lamanites), and they sought to exterminate the cult of the feathered serpent named Quetzalcoatl (the Nephites) {{321}}. Eventually the great city of Zarahemla (Teotihuacan) was attacked, but the invaders were pushed back {{322}}/ {{323}}. Then, as Mormon relates, Zarahemla (Teotihuacan) was laid waste {{324}}. Archaeologists have uncovered the entire story: the great Teotihuacan was burned and looted, monuments were defaced, columns were toppled, temples were desecrated, and the luxurious palaces were left in ruin {{325}}.
The Lamanites’ pursuit of the Nephites can be followed from Teotihuacan to Western Mexico, to sites such as Alta Vista and Chalchihuites (perhaps Angola or the Land of David?) {{326}}/ {{327}}and then to the seashore, to Amapa and other sites in Nayarit and southern Sinaloa (probably the land of Joshua) {{328}}/ {{329}}, a land archaeologists have found was filled with robbers and Maya during this period {{330}}/ {{331}}. From there the Nephites continued their flight into the “land northward” {{332}}. It appears that the massacre stopped when the Nephites reached Chaco Canyon (Shem), in New Mexico and were able to fortify it {{333}}/ {{334}}. There the Nephites held back their pursuers and the bloodshed stopped for a season while God sent forth missionaries and prophets to give the people one last chance {{335}}. Archaeologists have found circular religious structures, called kivas, appearing throughout Anasazi lands during this period {{336}}, which perhaps shows that Mormon knew some success {{337}}, though his own testimony indicates that any success was short lived as the wickedness persisted {{338}}.
For ten years a peace treaty was in effect {{339}}; archaeology shows that the Maya (Lamanites) of Yucatan and Maya Chichimec of West Mexico came together and began building the great Toltec kingdom {{340}}. Toltec legend speaks of the war between Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, and Tezcatlipoca, the principal god of the Jaguar Cult {{341}}. The Toltecs boast Quetzalcoatl’s defeat and subsequent flight {{342}}. As the population of Tula was exploding {{343}}, archaeologists find an abandonment of Yucatan by that area’s elite {{344}}. Recruits by the thousands flooded out of Yucatan to their new blood-thirsty, warrior kingdom centered in the Mexican Highland {{345}}. Many were also moved to the battle line in Western Mexico, as archaeologists find a large influx of Toltec peoples with strong Maya ties building up fortresses and making war preparations {{346}}.
The kingdom of the Nephites centered in the Southwestern United States, and although they focused on defending the land for a short time {{347}}/ {{348}}, they soon turned their focus to the “god” of money {{349}}. Trade networks covered the Southwestern United States {{350}}, and turquoise, which was lusted after by the Toltecs, was mined on a huge scale to be traded for exotic Mesoamerican goods {{351}}. Ball courts, gated communities, lewd pottery and art, body painting, body piercing, gigantic cities, social classes—the signs of pride and wickedness—have been found by archaeologists throughout the Southwest United States and Northwest Mexico (the Nephite lands) {{352}}.
Then, at the end of this fragile moment of peace, destruction continued {{353}}. The blood-thirsty Lamanites (Toltecs) based in a city just south of our narrow neck of land (probably La Quemada) came up against the Nephite armies which were based in Desolation (Zape in northern Durango?) {{354}}/ {{355}}. The Lamanites were repulsed and counterattacked, but they soon swept Desolation and later Teancum (most likely Guasave on the Pacific Coast) {{356}}. From there the fleeing Nephites followed the turquoise trail to Boaz {{357}}, now known as Paquime or Casas Grandes in Chihuahua. Charles C. Di Peso, the first archaeologists to conduct large-scale excavations at the site, found signs of a great slaughter at Paquime {{358}}. Unburied dead bodies were strewn across the site, some had been shoved into the ducts of the water system, others sacrificed to pagan gods, but the majority were just left to rot and be preyed upon by wolves and vultures {{359}}. Mormon painfully records these same events, as he stood back, watching: “And (the Nephites) fled again from before (the Lamanites), and they came to the city Boaz; and there . . . the Nephites were driven and slaughtered with an exceedingly great slaughter; {{and}}their women and their children were again sacrificed unto idols” (Mormon 4:20–21).
The slaughter spread across the entire Southwestern United States {{360}}. Thousands of sites from this period have been found in which the site was either abandoned or burned or the people were slaughtered {{361}}/ {{362}}. In many places the people abandoned their scattered farms and gathered together to build great fortified cities to defend themselves, only to be massacred {{363}}/ {{364}}. But this was not a peaceful, righteous people being victimized. There is evidence of cannibalism among the Anasazi and other Southwestern Cultures (the Nephites) {{365}}/ {{366}}.
Archaeologists have found human bones in cooking vessels, necklaces made of human skin or bones, and mobiles made of human bones and skulls which seem to have been used as trophies—signs of status and prestige {{367}}. They have found apparent ceremonial assemblages of skulls which were presented to false gods {{368}}. At Salmon Ruin, New Mexico (possibly the tower of Sherrizah) {{369}} women and children were abandoned by their covenant protectors, and the children were burned alive, caught in the top of the tower {{370}}. There are countless archaeological and scriptural evidences of the deplorable state of the Anasazi/Nephites; their brutal mutilation and total annihilation are painful to read about.
The destruction in the Southwest climaxed at a line of sites from Mesa Verde, Colorado (probably Jordan {{371}}) to Albuquerque, New Mexico {{372}}. The entire Southwestern United States and Northwest Mexico was left desolate, except for a few small scattered groups of refugees who hid in caves {{373}}/ {{374}}. But the destruction continued.
The line of sites mentioned above was actually a line of defense built to protect the great expanse of the American Midwest {{375}}. The Nephites who covered the Midwest are called Mississippians by archaeologists. Highly influenced by Mesoamerica and the Southwest {{376}}, their culture had also passed through the cycle of simple and peaceful {{377}}to ugly and proud {{378}}. Their artwork from this period glorifies death and perversion {{379}}. There are carvings of goules, war dances, and the murdering of captives, and these are found alongside symbols of Christ (hands with marks appearing to symbolize the crucifixion) and symbols of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, displaying decapitated heads as a symbol of his power {{380}}. These were not ignorant people suffering for the sins of their parents; they were in open rebellion against God {{381}}. They refused to repent and trust in God, but rather put their trust in the arm of flesh thinking that could protect their lives. It would not be and never has been {{382}}.
Soon after the cultures of the American Southwest were slaughtered, the Mississippian culture disappeared {{383}}. Huge ceremonial centers, like Cahokia in southern Illinois, built in the styles of the Mexican Highland, were suddenly depopulated without evidence of struggle or warfare—sites are not burned as in the Southwest, nor are the dead strewn across the landscape {{384}}. Because of the late carbon dates obtained from these sites some archaeologist have attempted to show that the people just redistributed themselves around the local area {{385}}. However, the Book of Mormon as well as the immense collections of arrowheads dating all the way back to the archaic found canvassing parts of New York State and the entire New England area speaks of a great desolation (The Book of Mormon states the final battles occurred in the “land of Comorah”, which likely encompasses a large portion of New England; not just around the current Hill Comorah as many have supposed) {{386}}/ {{387}}.
Truly God is unveiling his truth in the eyes of all the world. It remains for us to read with faith, work with strength, and repent of our pride. We must go forward in a definite way and bring to pass the covenants of the Father and build up the kingdom of God upon the earth; both in small and simple ways and by making preparations for works of greatness.
OLD WORLD (BIBLICAL) ARCHEOLOGY
After I had found many evidences of events in the Book of Mormon, and had developed a revised timeline for archaeology, I became curious as to whether my timeline would also work if I used it on Old World archaeology. I found many interesting “coincidences”. Following is a very brief account of a few of my findings. An entire paper on the subject will be forthcoming.Evidence of pre-flood cultures appear to be entirely missing from the archaeological record. It is as if Earth’s baptism literally washed her clean. She contained no trace of the former sins of her inhabitants. Most of the early homo sapiens cultures that I would label Post-Flood are in the fertile crescent, and usually at a depth of between 30 and 50 feet below the surface {{388}}.
Early Egypt was below water as Abraham attests {{389}}/ {{390}}, and the earth was sparsely populated {{391}}. The climate during this period soon after the Flood was much milder and cooler than it is today, and the plants and animals from this period match those described in the Bible {{392}}. The desert climate would not come for many generations (after many droughts and curses). When we consider the depth at which these early cities are found, we realize that the only reason these sites have been found is that either the sites were continually inhabited until modern times, or the archaeologists were extremely lucky. Many early cities exist which have not yet been found as attested as by new sites which are continually popping up.
History really starts to take place after the Exodus. Let us consider Jericho. Using the “corrected” timeline we established by studying the Book of Mormon, and extrapolating our dates backward, we find that the Jericho of the Bible must be dated at around 7000-8000 BC. During this time period there was a Neolithic city at Jericho, surrounded with a great wall, and with a massive tower built right into the wall (possibly the house of Rahab/Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) {{393}}/ {{394}}. There is evidence that the people of the city were pagans, and that they were rich and proud {{395}}. The early city’s culture ends with the walls falling down and a new culture replacing Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, they are labeled Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (Sci- 6500 B.C.; Scr- 1450 B.C.) {{396}}/ {{397}}. Interestingly, the tower that was built into the wall survived to its full height into the next period (Rahab and her family were protected) {{398}}.
This new nation had simple beginnings; archaeologists call it a retrogression because of the decrease in riches and more simplified art. However, there were many advances: they had a united nation seen in the form of a new wide-spread monolithic culture, they began inhabiting many new lands and developing the land, they respected their dead ancestors, they had domesticated animals, and they built nice square plaster-floored homes {{399}}, which, “coincidentally,” were similar to the homes of the early Lehites and Mulekites {{400}}. After many years the nation became very wealthy (Pottery Neolithic A&B) {{401}}, and then, as we can tell by studying cultural artifacts, the nation was divided {{402}}. One group inhabited the north, and the other group lived in the south (Chalcolithic Period) {{403}}/ {{404}}.The nation of Israel prospered during the entire period from the time it entered the Land of Canaan until the end of the Chalcolithic Period. Then suddenly the Kingdom of Israel in the north (the Ghassulian culture) was displaced, and new people from Syria and Southern Mesopotamia, labeled Proto-Urban A, were ushered into the region (Early Bronze Age) {{405}}/ {{406}}.
The Kingdom of Judah in the south continued to prosper {{407}}. However, she did not learn from watching Israel fall (she did not repent), and little over a century later, she was also destroyed {{408}}. At the end of the Early Bronze Age every major city in the south was destroyed and depopulated—some incredibly violently {{409}}. The Bible clearly teaches that this was done by the hand of God—his tool being a new empire he had risen up in southern Mesopotamia—the Kingdom of Babylon {{410}}. Archaeologists also find this new kingdom in Mesopotamia but they have called it the kingdom of Akkad {{411}}. Judah was left desolate. Only small scattered villages and groups of wandering nomads remained (Intermediate Bronze Age) {{412}}/ {{413}}.
When the Kingdom of Akkad (Babylon) fell {{414}}, Judah was repopulated by a vigorous new group of people which began to rebuild the land (Middle Bronze Age) {{415}}/ {{416}}. The people prospered and the entire region flowered {{417}}. The succeeding period also saw a continued prosperity, but under Indo-Aryan influence (Alexander the Great) {{418}}, followed by strong Egyptian (Ptolemaic) control (Late Bronze Age) {{419}}.
As the period continued, Egyptian power weakened {{420}}and a group of “adventurers” are noted as coming down from Syria and establishing an Amorite kingdom (Seleucids) {{421}}. Archaeologists then find evidence of an internal revolt that occurs, led by the ‘Apiru (Hasidim under Maccabeans), in which a war commences by a guerrilla-type group of warriors that rally the principally Hebrew (Jewish) community to rise up against the Amorites (Seleucids) {{422}}. Many wars follow with great destructions but the nation that remains in the end is obviously Israel. The carbon dates for these events (about 1300-1200 B.C.) lead scholars to believe this may be the time of the exodus and subsequent conquest of Palestine. Little or no archaeological evidence of Joshua or the exodus exists at this time, however, and the carbon dates assigned to the various cities’ destructions do not match the Bible which declares the conquest to have occurred around 1400 B.C. {{423}}These discrepancies have led many biblical scholars to abandon the literal interpretation of the Bible and create many diluted theories that minimalize the book {{424}}. Interpreting the archaeology as evidence of the Maccabean revolt on the other hand, as we are proposing, matches almost exactly {{425}}.
Next, archaeology shows the arrival of a new group of people called the “Sea People”. They ruled every land that touched the Mediterranean Sea {{426}}, and though their origin continues to evade scholars they know it was somewhere in the area of Sicily, Italy, or Greece (Rome) {{427}}. The people conquer lands matching Rome’s accomplishment in Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Palestine {{428}}.
Conclusions & Significance
Archaeologists and biblical scholars have long been at odds. As archaeology began to mount a horrendous amount of research, all placed by carbon dating, many biblical scholars began doubting the Bible. Scientific dates were given supremacy and new biblical scholars decided that the Bible was not completely accurate. They began trying to fit whatever they could into the archaeologists’ framework and discarded the rest as fable. The result was a great archaeological mess and a complete abandonment of the scriptures as the “Word of God” and absolute truth. Following the history of science and seeing societies turning away from God is very sad to read.Now, our research seems to have discovered that the archaeologists are actually proving the Bible to be true and they don’t even know it because of the dating problem. So now, with the correlated time line created studying the Book of Mormon, we see the Book of Mormon proving the Bible to be true, which we are taught is one of its purposes (Mormon 7:8–9; 1 Nephi 13:38–41).
A future paper on Bible lands will show most all the fabulous stories of the Bible laid out in the dirt, just as the prophets said they happened, and just where the prophets said they happened. We will see that these wonderful stories which are disbelieved by most archaeologists, have actually been found by archaeologists!
These findings are of great importance. Our society has abandoned the scriptures. We have replaced the eighth article of faith with a new one that says: “We believe the scriptures to be the Word of God as far as they correspond with science; we believe science to be supreme truth on all subjects it chooses to address.” This cannot be. Geology, biology and archaeology cannot be allowed to replace the sure testimony we have of the creation. Psychology cannot be allowed to replace the reality of Christ as our healer. Any doctrine or teaching which denies Christ is not of God. Omitting God is denying God because God has clearly stated that he is the creator and he is the truth, the way, and the light so leaving him out is going against his word.
We need to see the scriptures for what they are—they are not exaggerated stories, and they are notjust stories told by old men who meant well but who were off on the details because they were limited to the scope of the learning of their own cultures. The scriptures are the word of God, told in truth by men who literally talked with him! They were written to warn the nations of the world to believe God and to fear God and to worship only him. The scriptural events happened just as we were taught when we were children. Moses was not just a Hebrew slave born in Egypt who had a limited understanding of time and a limited understanding of the size of the Earth, and of how the history of his people fit into the grand history of the earth. He had a deep understanding of these things because he learned them directly from God! When we realized that everything in the scriptures is literal, then suddenly we realize that we, as part of this great latter-day nation, must repent, or the destruction that has been prophesied will occur. We know that the proud and the learned who will not hearken to their Creator will be cast off forever. We must beware of those who perpetuate the Theology of Science and say there is no God because they have not seen him. These people deliberately discourage others from believing in God, and they do it using every imaginable discipline—history, archaeology, biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, and many other subjects. We must not allow people who live in sin, and therefore have not eyes to see, to lead us, for they will then be “blind leaders of the blind.” We must beware of the fanciful doctrines of Satan—precepts of men so wonderfully mingled with scripture that they appear to be true. We must beware of those who look beyond the mark. They despise plainness, and they “kill” the prophets with their words and their doctrines. God has taken his plainness away from them and has given them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it.
A new generation is being raised up, and to them God will prove all his words, because they believe. God will show them how he changed the times and seasons in order to blind the minds of the proud and the learned, that they would not understand his marvelous workings. (D&C 121: 12) This generation will prove the scriptures to be true, every whit. Fools have mocked the words of Moses and Mormon and Moroni, but they shall mourn. God’s great work will go forth!
I would plead with everyone to make the scriptures a more integral part of your education. I would encourage anyone with problems to seek from the Word of God first and only believe other teachings as they compliment the teachings of the prophets. I would encourage students to first read God’s take on every issue before diving into your studies so that you can have the spirit of prophecy and discern between truth and the speculations of man. Science is wonderful, it is the process of seeking truth in the world around us, but it is not absolute truth, it is not infallible, and it is not the word of God. Search the scriptures specifically on the subjects you are studying and you will be overwhelmingly amazed at the wealth of information.
Selected Bibliography can be found here
[[141]] 2 Nephi 5:9–34, Jacob 1:1–14; Enos 1:13–24; Jarom 1:6–14; Omni 1:1–11 [[141]]
[[142]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 192; Mokaya pg. 40 [[142]]
[[143]] There are various quotes in the Times and Seasons, typically associated with the book Stephen’s Incidents in Travels in Central America, which credit the raise of civilization in Mesoamerica to the Nephites and from there to North America (see also Sorenson pg. 371-390). [[143]]
[[144]] Chiapas Excavations pg. 1-4 [[144]]
[[145]] Diffusion chart 10, 15, 17-19, 21-23; Grolier, Indians, American (II)
Mexico pg. 50: “On the other hand, it is certain that domestic maize was transmitted to Peru from the north, and only a few South American specialists are opposed to the idea that Early Formative (Preclassic) incongraphy- focused upon the awesome images of the jaguar, cayman, and harpy eagle- was shared through diffusion between the two ideas. It must be admitted, however, that the conlusive evidence bearing on this most important problem of long-range diffusion in the hemisphere has yet to be gathered.
No mention has yet been made of another curious element in the burial offerings of Tlatilco, namely, the distinct presence of a strange art style known to have originated at the same time in the swampy jungles of the Gulf Coast. This style, called ‘Olmec,’ was produced by the first civilization of Mesoamerica, and its weird inconoraphy which often combined the lineaments of a snarling jaguar with that of a baby is unmistakably apparent in many of the figurines and in much of the pottery. The great expert on the pre-Spanish art of Mexico, Miguel Covarrubias, reasoned that the obviously greater wealth and social superiority of the Tlatilco people over their more simple contemporaries in the Valley of Mexico were the result of an influx of Olmec arstocrats from the eastern lowlands. This may possibly have been so, but it is equally that these villagers were a favorably placed people under heavy influence from ‘missionaries’ spreading the Olmec faith, without a necessary movement of populations.” [[145]]
[[146]] 2 Nephi 5:34 (21-25, 34) ; Jacob 7:24; Enos 1:20; Jarom 1:6–9 [[146]]
[[147]] Mokaya pg. 25-45; Barra pg. 10
Maya pg. 46-49: “If conditions before 1000 BC were less than optimum for the spread fo effective village farming except for the Pacific littoral, in the following centuries the reverse must have been true. Heavy populations, all with pottery and most of them probably Mayan-speaking, began to establish themselves in both highlands and lowlands during the Middle Preclassic period, which lasted until about 300 BC. In only one instance do we have the remains suggesting that these were anything more than simple peasants: there was no writing, little that could be called architecture, and hardly any development of art. In fact, nothing but a rapidly mounting population would make us think that the Maya in this period were much different from their immediate ancestors.” [[147]]
[[148]] 2 Nephi 5:21–25; Enos 1:20; Jarom 1:6 [[148]]
[[149]] Mokaya pg. 25-45; Barra pg. 10
Maya pg. 46-49: (SAME AS NOTE 147 ABOVE) [[149]]
[[150]] Mokaya pg. 25-45; Barra pg. 10
Maya pg. 46-49: (SAME AS NOTE 147 ABOVE)
“Numerous shell middens located in the mangrove-lined estuaries seem to represent seasonal occupation by somewhat mobile, non-farming groups that largely subsisted upon hunting and fishing.” [[150]]
[[151]] Mokaya pg. 25-45; Barra pg. 10
Maya pg. 46-49: [[151]]
[[152]] Mokaya pg. 25-45; Barra pg. 10
Maya pg. 46-49: ” [[152]]
[[153]] 2 Nephi 5:34 (21-25, 34) ; Jacob 7:24; Enos 1:20; Jarom 1:6–9 [[153]]
[[154]] Gods and Symbols pg. 59-60, 111-112, 183-184 [[154]]
[[155]] Enos 1:20; Jarom 1:6–9 [[155]]
[[156]] Mokaya pg. 25-45; Barra pg. 10
Maya pg. 46-49: [[156]]
[[157]] 2 Nephi 5:34 (21-25, 34) ; Jacob 7:24; Enos 1:20; Jarom 1:6–9 [[157]]
[[158]] Mokaya pg. 25-45; Barra pg. 10
Maya pg. 46-49: “Barra also marks the beginning of fired clay figurens in Mesoamerica, a tradition that was to continue throughout the Preclassic. These objects, generally feamle, were made by the thousands in many later Preclassic villages of both Mexio and the Maya area, while nobody is exactly sure of their meaning, it is genneraly thought that they had something to do with the fertility of crops, in much the same way as did the Mother Goddess figurines of Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe.” [[158]]
[[159]] Omni 1:12–19; Mosiah 2:1–8 [[159]]
[[160]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 192; Tula pg. 22
Zapotec pg. 92: “When discovered intact, the aforementioned pits were filled with powdered lime, perhaps stored for use with a ritual plant such as wild tobacco, jimson weed, or morning glory. At the time of the Spanish Conquest, both the Zapotec and the Mixtec used wild tobacco mixed with lime during their rituals. The Zapotec belived that it had curative powers and could increase physical strength, making it an appropriate drug to use before rituals.
We do not belive that anyone actually lived in these buildings, which were swept virtually clean. Thus they cannot be compared to buildings like the New Guinea katiam, where some senior males actually reside. We see them as limited access structures where a small number of fully initiated men could assemble to plan raids or hunts, carry out agricultural rituals, smoke or ingest sacred plants, and/or communicate with the spirits. While no bones or relics of the ancestors were found in these small white buildings, it is perhaps significant that two of our seated burials of middle-aged men found nearby.”
Mexico pg. 43-50: Survey and excavations carried out by the Michigan archaeologists have identified 17 permanent settlements of the Tierras Largas phase, but almost all of these are little more than hamlets of ten or fewer households; the largest settlement in the Valley of Oaxaca at the time was San Jose Mogote, which ranked as a small village of about 150 persons, sharing a lime-plastered public building. [[160]]
[[161]] Omni 1:12–13 [[161]]
[[162]] Chiapas #8 pg. 7, 13; Chiapas Burials pg. 66 [[162]]
[[163]] Chiapas #8 pg. 7-9; Chiapas Burials pg. 66-68; Chiapas Artifacts pg. 192 [[163]]
[[164]] Omni 1:27–30; Mosiah 9:1–9 [[164]]
[[165]] Chiapas #8 pg. 2-3, 7-9; Chiapas Burials pg. 66-68; Chiapas Artifacts pg. 193-194 [[165]]
[[166]] Mosiah 9-10 [[166]]
[[167]] Chiapa #8 pg. 2 [[167]]
[[168]] Mosiah 11:1–15 [[168]]
[[169]] Chiapas #10 pg. 5; Chiapas Burials pg. 66-68; Chiapas Artifacts pg. 192-194 [[169]]
[[170]] Mosiah 11, 19-20, 23:25-24:9 [[170]]
[[171]] Chiapas Burials pg. 68-71; Chiapas Artifacts pg. 192-194; Ancient Maya pg. 55-61;Zapotec pg. 92: “Finally, we are struck by our current lack of evidence for similar public buildings on the Gulf Coast of southern Veracruz and Tabasco. Thirty years ago that coastal plain, sometimes referred to as the Olmec region, was labeled “precocious” in its social evolution. The last two decades have shown that view to be partly true, partly hyperbole, and partly the result of our previous ignorance of Chiapas and Oaxaca. There were indeed villages in the Olmec region between 1400 and 1200 BC, but their pottery has recently been described as a “country-cousin version” of the more sophisticated ceramics at contemporary sites on the Chiapas Coast.”
Mexico pg. 62: “In contradiction to this hypothesis, some compelling evidence has been advanced by the linguists Lyle Campbell and Terence Kaufman strongly suggesting that the Olmecs spoke an ancestral form of Mixe-Zoquean. There are a large number of Mixe-Zoquean loan words, such as pom (‘copan incense’), associated with high-status activities and ritual typical of early civilization. Although the dominant language of the Olmec area was until recently a form of Nahua, this is generally believed to be a relatively late arrival; on the other hand, Popoloca, a member of the Mixe-Zoquean family, is still spoken along the eastern slopes of the Tuxtla Mountains, in the very region from which the Olmec obtained the basalt for their monuments. Since the Olmec wer the great, early, culture-bearing force in Mesoamerica, the case for Mixe-Zoquean is very strong.”
Maya pg. 63: “Who might have they been? It will be remembered from Chapter 1 that the most likely candidate for the language of the Olmecs was an early form of Mixe-Zoquean; languages belonging to this group are still spoken on the Isthmus of Tehuantapec and in western Chiapas. Many scholars are now willing to ascribe the earliest Long Count monumnets outside the Maya area prope to Mixe-Zoquean as well, adn a recent dicovery in southern Veracruz may provide confirmation. This is Stela I from La Majarra, a magnificent monumnet inscribed with two Bak’tun 8 dates corresponding repectively to AD 143 and 156. These are accompanied by a text of about 400 signs, in a script which is now called “Isthmian.” [[171]]
[[172]] Mosiah 23:1–20 [[172]]
[[173]] Grolier, San Lorenzo; Zapotec pg. 92, 118
Mexico pg. 66-70: “San Lorenzo had first been settled about 1700 BC, perhaps by Mixe-Zoqueans from Soconusco, but by 1500 BC had become thoroughly Olmec. At its height, some of the most magnificent and awe-inspiring sculptures ever discovered in Mexico were fashioned without the benefit of metal tools.
In his work at San Lorenzo, Stirling had encoutered trough-shaped basalt stones which he hypothesized were fitted end-to-end to form a kind of aqueduct. In 1997, we acutally came across and excavated such a system in situ. This deeply buried drain line was in the southwestern portion of the site, and consisted of 560 ft of laboriously pecked-out stone troughs fitted with basalt covers; three subsidiary lines met it from above at intervals. We have reason to believe that a drain system symmetrical to this exists on the southeastern side of San Lorenzo, and that both served periodically to remove the water from cermonial pools on the surface of the plateau. Evidence fro drains has been found at other Olmec centers, such as La Venta and Laguna de los Cerros, and must have been a feature of Olmec ritual life.”[174] Mosiah 24:8–15 [[173]]
[[175]] Mexico pg. 66-70; Zapotec pg. 118-119; Ancient Maya pg. 57 [[175]]
[[176]] Mosiah 24:1–7; Alma 21:1–2 (1-13) [[176]]
[[177]] Mokaya pg. 38-43; Mexico 60-81
Maya pg. 55: “In the southeastern corner of the Central Area, the pioneers who first settled in the rich valley surrounding the ancient city of Copan had other roots. Towards the end of the Early Preclassic, village cultures all along the Pacific littoral as far as El Salvador had become “Olmec-ized,” a tradition that was to continue into the Middle Preclassic, and that was to be manifested in carved ceramics of Olmec type and even in Olmec stone monuments. This Olmec-like wave even penetrated the Copan Valley, during the Middle Preclassic Uir phase (900-400 BC), with the sudden appearance of pottery bowls incised and carved with such Olmec motifs as the paw-wing and the so-called “flame-eyebrows.” In a deep layer of an outlying suburb of teh Classic city, William Fash discovered a Uir phase burial accompanied by Olmecoid ceramics, 9 polished stone cells, and over 300 drilled jade objects. Although the rest of the Maya lowlands seems to have been a little interest to the Olmec peoples, the Copan area definitely was.” [[177]]
[[178]] Mosiah 11, 20:1-5; 21:20-21; 23:25-39; 24:1-12 [[178]]
[[179]] Maya pg. 50; Mysteries pg. 136
Mexico pg. 60-81: “In its heyday, the site must have been vastly impressive, for different colored clays were used for floors, and the sided of platforms were painted in solid colors of red, yellow, and purple. Scattered in the plazas fronting these rainbow-hued structures were a large number of monuments sculptured from basalt. Outstanding among these are the Colossal Heads, of which four were found at La Venta. Large stelae (tall, flat monuments) of the same material were also present. Particularly outstanding is Stela 3, dubbed ‘Uncle Sam’ by archaeologists. On it, two elaborately garbed men face each other, both wearing fantasitic headdresses. The figure on the right has a long, aquiline nose and a goatee. Over the two float chubby were-jaguars brandishing war clubs. Also typical are teh so-called ‘altars.’ The finest is Altar 5, on which the central figure emerges from the niche holding a jaguar-baby in his arms; on the sides, four subsidiary adult figures hold other little were-jaguars, who are squalling and gesticulating in a lively manner. As usual, their heads are cleft, and mouths drawn in the Olmec snarl.
The Early Preclassic sculptures of San Lorezo include eight Colossal Heads of great distinction. These are up to 9 ft 4 in in height and weigh many tons; it is believed that they are all portraits of mighty Olmec rulers, with flat-faced, thick-lipped features. They wear headgear rather like American football helmets which probably served as protection in both war and in ceremonial game played with a rubber ball throughout Mesoamerica. Indeed, we found not only figurines of ball players at San Lorenzo, but also a simple, earthen court contructed for the game. Also typical are the so-called ‘altars:’ large basalt rocks with flat tops which may weigh up to 40 metric tons. the fronts of these ‘altars’ have niches in which sits the figure of a ruler, either holding a were-jaguar baby in his arms (probably the theme of royal descent) or holding a rope which binds captives (theme of the warefare and conquest), depicted in relief on the sides.”
Maya pg. 50: “During the Middle Preclassic, following the demise of San Lorenzo, the great Olmec center was La Venta, situated on an island in the midst of the swampy wastes of the lower Tonala River, and dominated by an 100-ft-high mound of clay. Elaboarte tombs and spectacular offerings of jade and serpentine figures were concealed by various constructions, both there and at other Olmec sites. The Olmec art style was centered upon the representations of cratures which combined the features of a snarling jaguar with those of a weeping human infant; among these were were-jaguars almost surely was a rain god, one of the first recognizable deities of the Mesoamerican pantheon.”
People pg. 481: “The Olmec people lived on the Mexican south Gulf Coast from about 1500 to 500 BC. Their homeland is lowlying, tropical, and humid with fertile soils. The swamps, lakes, and rivers are rich in fish, birds, and other animals. It was in this region that the Olmec created a highly distinctive art style. Olmec art was executed in sculpture and in relief. The artists concentrated on natural and supernatural beings, the dominant motif being the “were-jaguar,” or humanlike jaguar. Many jaguars were givin infantile faces; drooping lips; and large, swollen eyes, a style also applied to human figures, some of whom resemble snarling demons. Olmec contributions to Mesoamerican art and religion were enormously significant.” [[179]]
[[180]] Mosiah 24:1–7 [[180]]
[[181]] Mokaya pg. 38-43; ; Ancient Maya pg. 58-59
Zapotec pg. 118-119, 138: “By 800 BC, Chalcatzingo had become the dominant civic-ceremonial center for more than 50 settlements. As in the case of San Jose Mogote, its centripetal pull was such that 50 percent of the region’s population clustered within a 6-km radius of Chalcatzingo. Also like San Jose Mogote, it attracted and held most of the craftspeople of its region and served as a middleman for the movement of local white kaolin clay, Basin of Mexico obsidian, and jade. Between 750 and 500 BC Chalcatzingo had reached 25 ha in extent, with 6 ha devoted to public buildings. Its elite had also commissioned several monumental reliefs, carved into the living rock of the cliffs above the site.
A similar process can be seen as San Lorenzo in southern Veracruz, excavated in the 1960’s by Michael Coe and Richard Diehl and in the 1990’s by Ann Cyphers Guillen. In 1350 BC San Loernzo appears to have been no more than a village, its exact dimensions hidden by later overburden. Between 1350 and 1150 BC there is evidence for the construction of earhern mounds, but as yet no information on whether Men’s Houses or “initiates’s temples” like those in Oaxaca were built.
During the San Lorenzo phase the site grew enormously; while its exact limits have not yet been ascertained, Coe and Diehl estimate its population at 1000. At this point San Lorenzo had undergone its own ethnogenesis and become a chiefly center of the Olmec culture. Coe and Diehl’s work produced no actual buildings of the San Lorenzo phase, no burials, and little in the way of jade. They did, however, produce numbers of magnetite mirrors and considerable evidence for earthen mound construction.”
Mexico pg. 86-87: “The real importance of the Izapan civilization is that it is the connecting link in time and space between the earlier Olmec civilization and the later Classic Maya. Izapan monuments are found scattered down the Pacific Coast of Gautemala and up into the highlands in the vicinity of Guatemala City. On the other side of the highlands, in the lowland jungle of northern Guatemala, the very earliest Maya monuments appear to be derived from Izapan prototypes. Moreover, not only the stela-and-altar complex, the ‘Long-lipped Gods,’ and the baroque style itself were adopted from the Izapan culture by the Maya, but the priority of Izapa in the very important adoption of the Long Count is quite clear-cut: the most ancient dated Maya monument reads AD 292, while a stela in Izapan style at El Baul, Guatemala, bears a Long Count date 256 years earlier.”
Maya pg. 50: “More important to the study of the Maya, there are also good reasons to believe that it was the late Olmecs who devised the elaborate Long Count calendar. Whether or not one thinks of the Olmecs as the “mother culture” of Mesoamerica, the fact is that many other civilizations, including the Maya, were ultimately dependent on the Olmec achievement. This is especially true during the Middle Preclassic, when lesser peasant cultures away from the Gulf Coast were aquiring traits which had filtered to them from their more advanced neighbors, just as in ancient Europe barbarian peoples in the west and north eventually had the benefits of the achievments of the contemporaneous Bronze Age of the Near East.” [[181]]
[[182]] Mosiah 24:1–7 [[182]]
[[183]] Mokaya pg. 38-43
Zapotec pg. 118-119, 138: “By 800 BC, Chalcatzingo had become the dominant civic-ceremonial center for more than 50 settlements. As in the case of San Jose Mogote, its centripetal pull was such that 50 percent of the region’s population clustered within a 6-km radius of Chalcatzingo. Also like San Jose Mogote, it attracted and held most of the craftspeople of its region and served as a middleman for the movement of local white kaolin clay, Basin of Mexico obsidian, and jade. Between 750 and 500 BC Chalcatzingo had reached 25 ha in extent, with 6 ha devoted to public buildings. Its elite had also commissioned several monumental reliefs, carved into the living rock of the cliffs above the site.
A similar process can be seen as San Lorenzo in southern Veracruz, excavated in the 1960’s by Michael Coe and Richard Diehl and in the 1990’s by Ann Cyphers Guillen. In 1350 BC San Loernzo appears to have been no more than a village, its exact dimensions hidden by later overburden. Between 1350 and 1150 BC there is evidence for the construction of earhern mounds, but as yet no information on whether Men’s Houses or “initiates’s temples” like those in Oaxaca were built.
During the San Lorenzo phase the site grew enormously; while its exact limits have not yet been ascertained, Coe and Diehl estimate its population at 1000. At this point San Lorenzo had undergone its own ethnogenesis and become a chiefly center of the Olmec culture. Coe and Diehl’s work produced no actual buildings of the San Lorenzo phase, no burials, and little in the way of jade. They did, however, produce numbers of magnetite mirrors and considerable evidence for earthen mound construction.”
Mexico pg. 60-81: (SEE NOTE 173) [[183]]
[[184]] Ancient Maya pg. 57-61
Zapotec pg. 118-119, 138: “Unquestionably San Jose Mogote was in contact with these chiefly societies, as well as others in the Basin of Mexico and Chiapas. Microscopic studies of pottery show that luxury gray ware from the Valley of Oaxaca was traded to San Lorenzo, to Aquiles Serdan on the Pacific Coast of Chiapas, and to Tlapacoya in the Basin of Mexico. Obsidian from the Basin of Mexico, from a source 100 km north of Tehuacan, and from a source in the Guatemalan highlands circulated among all these regions. Oaxaca magnetite reached San Lorenzo and the Valley of Morelos. Pure white pottery, some of it possibly made in Varacruz, was traded to Chalcatzingo, Tehucan, Oaxaca, and the Chiapas-Guatemala Coast. This means that no rank society of 1150-850 BC arose in isolation; all borrowed ideas on chiefly behavior and symbolism from each other.”
Mexico pg. 77: “Notwithstanding their intellectual and artistic achievements, the Olmecs were by no means a peaceful people. Their monuments show that they fought battles with war clubs, and some individuals carry what seems to be a kind of cestus or knuckle-duster. Whether the indubitable Olmec presence in higland Mexico represents actual invasion from of prestigious nature, which were unobtainable in their homeland- obsidian, iron-ore for mirrors, serpentine, and (by Middle Preclassic times) jade- and they probably set up trade networks over much of Mexico to get these items. Thus, according to one hypothesis, the frontier Olmec sites could have been trading stations. Kent Flannery has put forth the idea that the reult of emulation by less advanced peoples who had trade and perhaps even marriage ties with Olmec pantheon over a wide area of Mesoamerica suggests the possiblity of missionary efforts on the wide part of the heartland Olmecs.”
People pg. 482: “In short, the Olmec was the “mother culture” of Mesoamerican civilization. Increasingly, this theory is being questioned.” [[184]]
[[185]] Mokaya pg. 38-43; Ancient Maya pg. 58-61
Mexico pg. 62: “There has been much controversy about the dating of the Olmec civilization. Its discoverer, Matthew Sterling, consitently held that it predated the Classic Maya civilization, a position which was vehemently opposed by such Mayanists as Sir Eric Thompson. Stirling was backed by the great Mexican scholars Alfonso Caso and Miguel Covarrubias, who held for a placement in the Preclassic period, largely on the grounds that Olmec traits had appeared in sites of that period in the Valley of Mexio and in the state of Morelos. Time has fully borne out Stirling and the Mexican shool. A long series of radiocarbon dates from the important Olmec site of La Venta spans the centuries from 1200 to 400 BC, placing the major development of this center entierly within the Middle Preclassic. Another set of dates shows that the site of San Lorenzo is even older, falling within the Early Preclassic (1800-1200 BC), making it contemorary with Tlatilco and other highland sites in which influence from San Lorenzo can be detected. There is now little doubt that all later civilizations in Mesoamerica, wheter Mexican or Maya, ultimately rest on Olmec base.”
People pg. 481-482: “For years, scholars have believed that elements of their art style and imagery were diffused southward to Guatemala and San Salvador and northward into the Valley of Mexico. In short, the Olmec was the “mother culture” of Mesoamerican civilization. Increasingly, this theory is being questioned.”
Maya pg. 50: (SAME AS NOTE 181 ABOVE) [[185]]
[[186]] Mosiah 17:15–19; Alma 25:1–12 [[186]]
[[187]] Maya pg. 50-55; 63-66; 78-79
Zapotec pg. 119: “In each case a small hamlet, unprepossessing at its founding, underwent a period of rapid and spectacular growth, becoming the demographic center of gravity for a network of smaller sites. Each emerging center- San Jose Mogote, Chalcatzingo, and San Lorenzo- not only dwarfed the other sites in its region but seems to have exerted a centripetal pull on its entire hinterland. All grew so fast that they must have encouraged immigration, not just normal growth; all emptied the surrounding region of artisans and concentrated them in the paramount chief village. All were aware of each other and perhaps even competitive; some clearly suffered occasional attacks that left their monuments defaced or their public buildings burned. ”
Mexico pg. 69-70, 74: There was nothing egalitarian about San Lorenzo society, as the Colossal Heads testify. The Nature fo the controls and compulsion required to build the great plateau and transport the monuments eventually led to a mighty cataclysm. About 1200 BC San Lorenzo was destroyed either by invasion or revolution, or a bomination of these. The grandiose monuments glorifying its rulers and gods were ruthlessly smashed and defaced, then ritually buried in long lines within the ridges, from which some of them (those seen by Stirling) eventually eroded out and tumbled into the ravines. Thanks to the ability of the cesium magnetometer to detect buried basalt, and to the good luck that attended our exedition, we found some of these buried lines, including a magnificent but decapitated figure of a half-kneeling figure of an ancient royal ballplayer. The fury of the destructive force visited upon these stones astounded us, for in some respects it matched the labor and ingenuity which went into their creation. Civiliations went out with a bang, not a whimper, in early Mesoamerica.
[[187]]
[[188]] Mexico pg. 69-70
(SAME AS NOTE 187 ABOVE) [[188]]
[[189]] Alma 25:1–12 [[189]]
[[190]] Maya pg. 50-55; 63-66; 78-79Zapotec pg. 119: “In each case a small hamlet, unprepossessing at its founding, underwent a period of rapid and spectacular growth, becoming the demographic center of gravity for a network of smaller sites. Each emerging center- San Jose Mogote, Chalcatzingo, and San Lorenzo- not only dwarfed the other sites in its region but seems to have exerted a centripetal pull on its entire hinterland. All grew so fast that they must have encouraged immigration, not just normal growth; all emptied the surrounding region of artisans and concentrated them in the paramount chief village. All were aware of each other and perhaps even competitive; some clearly suffered occasional attacks that left their monuments defaced or their public buildings burned. ”
Mexico pg. 69-70, 74: “Like the earlier San Lorenzo, La Venta was deliberately destroyed in ancient times. Its fall was certanily violent, as twenty-four out of forty sculptured monuments were intentionally mutilated. This probably occured at the end of Middle Preclassic times, around 400-300 BC, for subseuently, following its abandonment as a center, offerings were made with pottery of Late Preclassic cast. As a matter of fact, La Venta may never have lost its signicance as a cult center, for among the very latest caches found was a Spanish olive jar of the early Colonial period, and Professor Heizer suspected that offerings may have been made in modern times as well.”
(SAME AS NOTE 187 ABOVE)
[[190]]
[[191]] Alma 25:1–12 [[191]]
[[192]] Mexico pg. 69-70, 74, 86-87
“The waterlogging has resulted in extraordinary preservation of otherwise perishable Olmec materials, all belonging to the fianl stages of the San Lorenzo phase, about 1200 BC. In 1988 and 1989, and archaeological team directed by Ponciano Ortiz of the University of Veracruz was able to study and conserve ten wooden figures, all ‘baby-faced’ just like Olmec hollow clay figurines, and each just under 20 inches high; all were little more than libless torsos, and most had been carefully wrapped in mats and tied up, before being placed with heads pointing in the direction of the hill’s summit. Other objects included polished stone axes, jade and serpentine beads, a wooden staff with a bird’s head on one end and a shark’s tooth (surely a bloodletter) on the other, and an obsidian knife with an asphalt handle. Most surprisingly, the archaeologists turned up a cache of three rubber balls; measuring from 3 to 5 inches in diameter, these are the only examples to have survived from the pre-Conquest Mesoamerica of what must have been a very common artifact. They confirm that the ball game is a least as old as the Olmec civilization.”
Maya pg. 50-55; 63-66; 78-79: “The lowland Maya almost always built their temples over older ones, so that in the course of centuries the earliest constructions would eventually come to be deeply buried within the towering accrections of Classic period rubble and plaster. Consequently, to prospect for Mamom temples in one of the larger sites would be extremely costly in time and labor.
But towards the close of the Late Preclassic, writing had begun to appear sporadically, and it deinitely celebrated the doings of great personages. A good example of this would be the greenstone pectoral at Dumbarton Oaks, said to be from Quintana Roo. A were-jaguar face on one side indicates that the object was orginally Olmec.” [[192]]
[[193]] Mosiah 25:14–24 [[193]]
[[194]] Mexico pg. 52-55
“The most notable advance in the Late Preclassic of central Mexico was the appearance of the temple-pyramid. The earliest temples of the highlands were thatch-roof, perishable structures not unlike the houses of the common people, erected within the community on low earthen platforms face with sun-hardened clay. There are a few slight indications that some such platforms once existed at Tlatilco. By the Late Preclassic, however, they had become almost universal, as the nuclei of enlarged villages and even towns. Towards the end of the period, clay facings for the platforms were occasionally replaced by retaining-walls of undressed stones coated with a thick layer of stucco, and the substructures themselves had become greatly enlarged, sometimes rising in several stages or tiers. Here we have, then, a definite progression from small villages of farmers with but household figurine cults, to hierarchical societies with rulers who coulo call the populace to build and maintain sizeable religious establishments.”
Zapotec pg. 108-110 (93-110): “Structures 1 and 2 were two of the most impressive buildings of the San Jose phase. Each appears to be the pyramidal platform for a wattle-and-daub public building, and their construction involved the first use of an adobe brick so far known for Oaxaca. Used mainly for small retaining walls within the earthen fill, these early adobes were circular in plan and plano-convex, or “bun-shaped,” in section.
Structure 2 was 1 m high and at least 18 m wide. Its sloping face had been built with boulders, some obtained locally and some brought in from at least 5 km away. Some of the latter were of limestone from west of the Atoyac River, while others were of travertine from east of the river. Two carved stones, one depicting a feline and one a raptorial bird, had fallen from a collapsed section of wall. The east face of the platform included two stone stairways which although narrow, are the earliest of their kind for the region.
Structure 1, above and to the west, rose in several stages that may have reached 2.5 m in height. Its facing was of smaller stones set in clay, somewhat rough-and-ready, but clearly masonry- the first stage in an architectural tradition brillinantly developed by the Zapotec.”
People pg. 485-486: “The diffusion of common art styles throughout Mesoamerica may have resulted both from an increased need for religious rituals to bring the various elements of society together and because [[194]]
[[195]] Mosiah 29:37–47 [[195]]
[[196]] Zapotec pg. 111-120
“The rival center of Huitzo built comparable structures during the Guadalupe phase. The earliest of these was Structure 4, a pyramidal platform 2 m high and more than 15 m wide, built of earth and faced with stones in the manner of Structure 8 at San Jose Mogote. Atop this platform, the architects of Huitzo built a series of buildings that may have been one-room temples. The best preserved of these was Structure 3, a large wattle-and-daub building on an adobe platform with a stairway. Built of bun-shaped adobes and fill, the platform was 1.3 m high and 11.5 m long. There were three steps to its wide stairway, each inset into the platform to strengthen it. The entire structure had been coated with lime plaster. In spite of all the small size of the Huitzo community relative to San Jose Mogote, its public architecture was as impressive as anything built at the latter site during the Guadalupe phase.”
Mexico pg. 52-55: “How grandiose some of these substructures were can be seen at Cuicuilco, located to the south of Mexico City near the National University, in an area covered by the Pedregal – a grim landscape of broken, soot-black lava witha sparce flora eking out its existence in rocky crevices. The principal feature of Cuicuilco is a round platform, 387 ft. in diameter and rising in four inwardly sloping tiers to a present height of 75 ft. Two ramps placed on either side of the platform provide access to the summit, which was crowned at one time by a cone-like contruction which brought the total height to about 90 ft. Faced with volcanic rocks, the interior of the surviving structure is filled with sand and rubble, with a total volume of 60,000 cubic meters.”
People pg. 485-486: “Monte Alban went on to develop into a vast ceremonial center with splendid public architecture; its settlement area included public buildings, terraces, and housing zones that extended over approximately 15 square miles. More than 2000 terraces all held one or two houses, and small ravines were dammed to pond valuable water supplies. Blanton suggests that between 30,000 and 50,000 people lived at Monte Alban between AD 200 and 700. Many very large villages and smaller hamlets lay within easy distance of the city. The enormous platforms on the ridge of Monte Alban supported complex layouts of temples and pyramid-temples, palaces, patios, and tombs. A hereditary elite seems to have ruled Monte Alban, the leaders of a state that had emerged in the Valley of Oaxaca by AD 200.” [[196]]
[[197]] Mosiah 27:6–7 [[197]]
[[198]] Zapotec chap 8-10; Tula pg. 23
Mexico pg. 46-58: “A word of caution, however- because of our first knowladge of these sites, the impression has been given that the Valley had more acnient Preclassic beginnings than elsewhere. On the contrary, that isolated basin was probably a laggard in cultural development until the Classic period, when it became and stayed the flower of Mexican cuivilization. Notwithstanding its later glory, the Valley was then a prosperous but provincial backwater, which occasionally received new items developed elsewhere.”
People pg. 485-486: “The evolution of larger settlements in Oaxaca and elsewhere was closely connected with the developlment of long-distance trade in obsedian and other luxuries such as seashells and stingray spines from the Gulf of Mexico. The simple barter networks for obsidian of earlier times evolved into sophisticated regional trading organizations in which village leaders controlled monopolies over sources of obsidian and its distribution. Magnetite mirrors, seashells, feathers, and ceramics were all traded on the highlands, and from the highlands ot the lowlands as well. Olmec pottery and other ritual objects began to appear in highland settlements between 1150 and 650 BC, many of them bearing the distinctive were-jaguar motif of the lowlands, which had an important place in Olmec comology.” [[198]]
[[199]] Alma 1-4 [[199]]
[[200]] Zapotec chap. 8-10
Mexico pg. 46-58: “At these two sites and elsewhere in the Valley the midden deposits are literally stuffed with thousands of fragments of clay figurines, all female, providing a lively view of the costume of the day, or its lack. Although nudity was apparently the rule, these little ladies have elaborate face and body painting in black, white, and red; headdresses and coiffures as shown were very fancy, wraparound turbans being most common. The technique of manufacture was about like that with which gingerbread men are made, features being indicated by a combination of punching and filleting. Significantly, no recognizable depictions of gods or goddesses have ever been identified in these villages, suggesting the possibility that the only cult was that of the figurines, which may have been objects of household devotion like the Roman lares, perhaps concerned with the fertility of the crops.”
People pg. 485-486: “There were marine fish spines, too, probably used in personal bloodletting ceremonies that were still practiced even in Aztec times. The Spanish described how Aztec nobles would gash themselves with knives or with the spines of fish or stingray in acts of mutilation before the gods, penances required of the devout. [[200]]
[[201]] Alma 2:1–4:3; 16:1-11; 28:1-12; 43-60; battles increase in size, severity and frequency. [[201]]
[[202]] Mexico pg. 77, 82-83, 86-87
“Most of the constructions that meet the eye at Monte Alban are of the Classic period. However, in the southwestern corner of the site, which is laid on a north-south axis, excavations have diclosed the Temple of the Danzantes, a stone-faced platform contemporary with the first occupation of the site, Monte Alban I. The so-called Danzantes (i.e. ‘dancers’) are basrelief figures on large stone slabs set into the outside of the platform. Nude men with slightly Olmecoid features (i.e. the down-turned mouth), the Danzantes are shown in strange, rubbery postures as though they were swimming or dancing in viscous fluid. Some are represented as old, bearded individuals with toothless gums or with only a single protuberant incisor. About 150 of these strange yet powerful figures are known as Monte Alban, and it might be reasonably asked exactly what their function was, or what they depict. The disorted pose of the limbs, the open mouth and closed eyes indicate that these are corpses, undoubltedly cheifs or kings slain by the earliest rulers of Monte Alban. In many individuals the genitals are clearly delineated, usually the stigma laid on captives in Mesoamerica where nudity was considered scandalous. Furthermore, there are cases of sexual mutilation depicted on some Danzantes, blood streaming in flowery patterns from the severed part. Evidence to corroborate such violence comes from one Danzante, which is nothing more than a severed head.”
Zapotec pg. 121-171:”Warfare, as the lines at the start of this chapter say, can “powerfully shape” chiefdoms. While Carnerio’s conlusions were based on Colombia’s Cauca Valley, what he says is equally true of the Valley of Oaxaca. Several lines of evidence indicate that warefare had begun to affect Roario society.
Chiefly warfare usually results from competition between paramounts, or between a paramount and his ambitious subcheifs. Paramounts try to aggrandize themselves by taking followers away from their rivals. Ambitious subchiefs try to replace the paramount at the top of the hierarhcy.”
Maya pg. 63, 75: “Some of the Late Preclassic tombs at Tik’al prove that the Chikanel elite did not lag behind the nobles of Miraflores in wealth and honor. Burial 85, for instance, like all the others enclosed by platform substructures and covered by a primative corbel vault, contained a single skeleton. Suprisingly, this individual lacked head and thigh bones, but from the richness of the goods placed with him it may be guessed that he must have perished in battle and been depoiled by his enemies, his mutilated body being later recovered by his subjects.” [[202]]
[[203]] Alma 48:8–10; 49:13; 52:6 [[203]]
[[204]] Alma 48:8–10 [[204]]
[[205]] [[205]]
[[206]] Alma 48:8–10; 49:13; 52:6 [[206]]
[[207]] Zapotec chap. 10-11; see note on endnote 203
“The founding of Monte Alban also changed the demography of the central Valley of Oaxaca, including the 80-km area that had been no-man’s-land during the Rosario phase. The central valley had only five small Rosario villages. By Monte Alban Ia, that figure had risen to 38 villages, and by Monte Alban Ic it had exploded to 155 villages and small towns. In effect, the entire demographic center of gravity of the valley had shifted from Elta to the region surrounding the Monte Alban.
Settlement Pattern Project estimates it at 50,000. One-third of that poplulation lived at Monte Alban; in addition, three-quaters of the population increase between Monte Alban Ia and Ic had taken place within 20 km of the city. Below Monte Alban were 744 communities. A few villages with populations estimated at less than 150.” [[207]]
[[208]] Alma 48:8–10; 49; 50:1-16 [[208]]
[[209]] [[209]]
[[210]] Zapotec Figure 128, 157, pg. 142-154
“During the Monte Alban Ia- which probably began by 500 BC and ended by 300 BC- there were 261 sites in the Valley of Oaxaca. Some 192 of these, including Monte Alban itself, were brand new settlements. Despite this unprecedented redistribution of the valley’s population, strong continuities in ceramics and architecture from Rosario to Monte Alban Ia indicate that we are dealing with villages of fewer than 100 persons. In contrast, Monte Alban’s estimated population exceeded 5000. This was a very high percentage of the valley’s population, which we estimate to be between 8000 and 10,000.
The founding of Monte Alban also changed the demography of the central Valley of Oaxaca, including the 80-km area that had been a no-man’s-land during the Rosario phase. The central valley had only five small Rosario villages. By Monte Alban Ia, that figure had risen to 38 villages, and by Monte Alban Ic it had exploded to 155 villages and small towns. In effect, the entire demographic center of gravity of the valley had shifted from Etla to the region surrounding Monte Alban.” [[210]]
[[211]] Alma 50:7–11; 58:1-30 [[211]]
[[212]] Zapotec pg. 150-151 [[212]]
[[213]] Alma 50:1–24 [[213]]
[[214]] [[214]]
[[215]] Alma 50:7–16 [[215]]
[[216]] [[216]]
[[217]] Alma 43:16–21; 50:1-6 (Alma 43-62) [[217]]
[[218]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 194-195
Mexico pg. 58, 69: “An earlier school of thought held that this shaft-tomb sculpture was little more than a kind of genre art: realistic, anecdotal, and with no more reigious meaning than a Dutch interior. This view has been vigorously challenged by the ethnologist Peter Furst, who has worked closely with the contemporary Huichol Indians of Nayarit, almost certainly the descendants of the people who made the tomb figures. Among the Huichol and their close relatives, the Cora, religious practitioners are always shamans, powerful specialists who effect cures and maintain the well-being of their people by battling against demons and evil shamans. Professor Furst noted that the warriors with clubs from Nayarit and Jalisco tombs are down on one knee, the typical fighting stance of the shaman. The Nayarit house models are interpreted by him not just as two-storey village dwellings, but as chthonic dwellings of the dead: above would be the house of the living, below is the house of the dead. Such a belief is consonant not only with Huichol ideas about death and the soul, but also with the supernatural concepts of Southwestern Indians like the Hopi.” [[218]]
[[219]] Zapotec pg. 135-138, 146-150, 169-170
“The southern Tehuacan Valley is a hot, dry area where the probability of insufficient rainfall for most kinds of farming is 80 percent. It does, however, have the protential for irragation. That potential is perhaps best exemplified by the Arroyo Lencho Diego, a steep-sided canyon investigated by Richard S. MacNeish, Richard Woodbury, James A. Neely, and Charles Spencer.
Canal irrigation has a long history in the Valley of Oaxaca, but its use increased dramatically in Monte Alban Ic. Almost cerainly that escalation resulted from the need to provision the city of Monte Alban. It is not so much the Atoyac River that was used for canal irrigation in ancient Oxaca, but its smaller tributaries in the piedmont. Many of those streams can, with a relatively low espenditure of manpower, have part of their water diverted into small canals by the use of brush-and-boulder dams. All such systems are small, usually serving the lands of one or two communities. The Valley of Oxaca is therefore a region of numerous small canal systems, rather than one large system. In contrast to regions like southern Mesopotamia, the north coast of Peru, or even the nearby Tehuacan Valley, central Oaxaca is not an area conducive to models of “dospotic control” of downsteam polities by upstream polities. The Atoyac River, the larges watercourse in the valley, creates a strip of periodically flooded yuh kohp in which canal irrirgation is usually unnecessary.”
Mexico pg. 81: “Toward the close of the Middle Preclassic, the Zapotec of the Valley were practicing several forms of irrigation. At Hierve el Agua, in the mountains east of the Valley, there has been found an artificially terraced hillside, irrigated by canals coming from permanent sprigns charged with calcareous waters that have in effect created a fossilized record from their deposits.” [[219]]
[[220]] Alma 50:17–24; 62:46-52; Helaman 6:6–13, 16–17; 11:20; 3 Nephi 6:4 [[220]]
[[221]] Chiapas Burials pg. 71-72; Chiapas Artifacts pg. 194-196
Zapotec chap. 11-12: “One unintended consequence of bringing together thousands of people in a new city can be an explosion of arts and crafts, especially if many of those people are forced to abandon agriculture. Several urban relocations in archaic Greece “created enviroments in which intellectual life flourished. Early Monte Alban was such an enviroment, and its sponsorship of craftspeople penetrated even to the towns in its hinterland. What emerged during Monte Alban I was an art style distinct from that of any region, a style so closely associated with the Valley of Oaxaca that it is generally referred to as Zapotec.
In Monte Alban Ia, there were 261 communities in the valley; 192 of these, like Monte Alban itself, were newly founded. Monte Alban, with 365 ha of Early Period I sherds and an estimated population in excess of 5000, was the only community in Tier I. Many formely large communities of the Etla region, including San Jose Mogote, had been drained of population during the Monte Alban synoikism.” [[221]]
[[222]] Mexico pg. 77-81
“Yet whatever we call it, it can hardly be denied that during the Early and Middle Preclassic, there was a powerful, unitary religion which had manifested itself in an all-pervading art style; and that this was the offical ideology of the first complex society or societies to be seen in this part of the New World. Its rapid spread has been variously linkened to that of Christianity under the Roman Empire, or to that of westernization (or ‘modernization’) in toady’s world. Wherever Olmec influence or the Olmecs themselves went, so did civilized life.” [[222]]
[[223]] Mexico pg. 77-88
“By that time, it had full-fledged masonary buildings of a public nature; in a corridor connecting two of these, Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus found a bas-relief threshold stone showing a dead captive with stylized blood flowing from his chest, so placed that anyone entering or leaving the corridor would have to tread on him. Between his legs is a glyphic group possibly representing his name, ‘I Earthquake’ in the 260-day ritual calendar.”
(SAME AS NOTE 202 ABOVE)
Maya pg. 63-79: “The Izapan art style consists in the main of large, ambitiously conceived but somewhat cluttered scenes carried out in bas-relief. Many of the activities shown are profane, such as richly attired person decapitaing a vanquished foe, but there are deities as well.”
Zapotec chap 10-12:”Sixteenth-century documents tell us that when later Mesoamerican societies raided one another, a main objective was to burn their enemies’ temple. So common was this practice that a picture of a burning temple became an iconographic convention for raiding among Aztec.
Monument 3 makes possible the following inferences about the Rosario pahse. (1) The 260-day calendar clearly existed by this time. (2) The use of Xoo, a known Zapotec day-name, relates the hieroglyphis to an archaic form of the Zapotec language. (3) The carving makes it clear that Rosario phase sacrifice was not limited to drawing one’s own blood with stingray spines; it now included human sacrifice by heart removal. (4) Since I Earthquake is shown naked, even stripped of whatever ornaments he might have worn, he fits our sixteenth-century discriptions of prisoners taken in battle. This carving of a prisoner, combined with the burning of the temple, suggests that by 600 BC the well-known Zapotec pattern of raiding, temple burning, the capture of enemies for sacrifice had begun. (5) Many later Mesoamerican peoples, including the Maya, set carvings of their enemies where they could be literally and metaphorically “trod upon.” The horizontal placement of Monument 3 suggests that it, too, was designed for that visual metaphor.”
[[223]]
[[224]] Alma 51:22–28; 56:13-15; Alma 62:38; Helaman 1:14–34; 4:1-18; 3:12-4:1 [[224]]
[[225]] Alma 27:13–27; Helaman 5:13–20, 49–52; 6:1-7 [[225]]
[[226]] Alma 62:26–29 [[226]]
[[227]] Alma 48-62 [[227]]
[[228]] Zapotec chap 10-12; defensive sites and evidences of warfare are numerous but the only destructions seem to be the occasional burning of a wood building, most stone structures seem to have been unharmed by the wars which is consistent with the Book of Mormon.
Mexico pg. 82: “Monte Alban is the greatest of all Zapotec sites, and was constructed on a series of eminences about 1,300 ft above the Valley floor, at the close of the Middle Preclassic, about 500-450 BC, when San Jose Mogote’s fortunes waned. Probably the main reason for its preeminence is its strategic hilltop location near the juncture of the Valley’s three arms. It lies in the heart of the region still occupied by the Zapotec peoples; since there is no evidence for any major disruption in central Oaxaca until the beginning of the Post-Classic, about AD 900, archaeologists feel reasonably certain that the inhabitants of that language.” [[228]]
[[229]] Alma 62:46–52; Helaman 6:6–13, 16–17; 11:20; 3 Nephi 6:4 [[229]]
[[230]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 194-196
Zapotec pg. 155-171: “There are several elite houses at Monte Negro. Like the Rosario phase elite residences at San Jose Mogote, each consisted of an open patio surrounded by three or four rooms with adobe walls. The Monte Negro houses, however, had stone foundations two courses high, and each room had at least two columns supporting its roof. The courtyards were paved with flagstones, and there were drains below some buildings.
Monte Negro’s elite households have been compared to the Roman inpluvium residence, in which an inner paved court trapped rain runoff and channeled it to subterranean reservoirs. While more elegant than those of the Rosario phase, the Monte Negro houses fall short of the later palaces at Monte Alban. Like so much in Late Monte Alban I, they seem transitional between the house of a chief and the palace of a king.
While the largest of the elite residences at Monte Negro lies along the east-west street, several others are connected to temples by secret passageways or roofed corridors. These corridors- which made it possible for members of important families to enter and leave the temple without being seen by lower-staus persons- appear to be forerunners of the Monte Alban II passageways, tunnels, and roofed stairways of Monte Alban and San Jose Mogote. The implications of such special entrances for the elite are twofold. First, they indicate that rank differences were still associated with differential access to the supernatural. Second, they suggest an escalation in rank to the point where chiefly individuals did not have to use the same stairways and entrances as more lowly individuals.”
Mexico pg. 83-88: “The development from the first phase of the site to Monte Alban II, which is terminal Preclassic and therefore dates from about 200 BC to AD 150, was peaceful and gradual. In the southernmost plaza of the site was erected Building J, a stone-faced contruction in the form of a great arrowhead pointing southwest. The peculiar orintation of this building has been examined by the asronomer Anthony Aveni and the architect Horst Hartung, who have pointed out important alignments with the bright star Capella. Withing Building J is a complex of dark, narrow chambers which have been roofed over by leaning stone slabs to meet at the apex. The exterior of the building is set with a great many inscribed stone slabs all bearing a very similar text. These Monte Alban II inscriptions generally consist of an upside-down head with closed eyes and elaborate headdress, below a stepped glyph for ‘mountain’ or ‘town’; over this is the same of the place, seemingly given phonetically in rebus fasion. In its most complete form, the text is accompanied by the symbols for year, month, and day. There are also various yet-untranslated glyphs. Such inscriptions were correctly interpreted by Alfonso Caso as records of town conquests, the inverted heads being the defeated kings. It is certain that all are in the Zapotec langauage.”
Maya pg. 63-79: “In lieu of easily worked building stone, which was unavailable in the vicinity, these platforms were built from ordinary clay and basketloads of earth and household rubbish. Almost certainly the temples themselves were thatched-roof affairs supported by upright timbers. Apparently each successive building operation took place to house the remains of an exalted person, whose tomb was cut down from the top in a series of stepped rectangles of decreasing size into the earlier temple platform, and then covered over with a new floor of clay. The function of Maya pyramids as funerary monuments thus harks back to Preclassic times.”
[[230]]
[[231]] Helaman 1:7–12; 2:2-13; 6:15-41; 7:1-6; 8:1, 26-28; 3 Nephi 1:27–30; 2:11-4:33 [[231]]
[[232]] Chiapas Burials pg. 73
Maya pg. 70: “The corpse was wrapped in finery and covered from head to toe with cinnabar pigment, then laid on a wooden litter and lowered into the tomb. Both sacrificed adults and children accompanied the illustrious dead, together with offerings of an astonished richness and profusion. In one tomb, over 300 objects of the most beautiful workmanship were placed with the body or above the timber roof, but ancient grave-robbers, probably acting after noticing the slump in the temple floor caused by the collapse of the underlying tomb, had filched from the corpse the jades that which once covered the chest and head. Among the finery recovered were the remains of a mask or headdress of jade plaques perhaps once fixed to a background of wood, jade flares which once adorned the ear lobes of the honored dead, bowls carved from chlorite-schist engraved with Miraflores scroll designs, and little carved bottles fo soapstone and fuchsite.” [[232]]
[[233]] Alma 63:4–9; Helaman 3:3–14 [[233]]
[[234]] Prehistory pg. 230-235
“The Hopewell culture is one of the many called Middle Woodland. It seems to have appeared in Illinois by about 2300 B.P. The southern manifestations lasted until 400 A.D. and later. The Ohio Hopewell probably grew out of the strong local Adena pattern, so the elaborate mortuary complex called Classic Hopewell actually developed in Ohio. That complex of traits and its associated relationships has been called the Hopewell Interaction Sphere, a phase that takes account of a cluster of traits, artifacts, burial mounds- a mortuary cult or religion rooted in veneration of the dead- that can be recognized almost everywhere east of the Mississippi.” [[234]]
[[235]] Omni 1:20–22; Mosiah 8:7–11; 21:25-27; Alma 22:29–31; Helaman 3:6 [[235]]
[[236]] Prehistory pg. 141, 143, 173, 340
“In western California, there was evidently a much greater concern with the dead. Many were buried in mounds, others in extensive cemeteries. An analysis of the grave goods of these many cemeteries has led some scholars to suggest that there was in California a social complexity quite unlike the simple egalitarian societies usually posited for most of the western Arachaic and quite at variance with the simple and relatively stable technology the archaeology reveals.
Burial, Bundle: Reburial of defleshed and disarticulated bones tied or wrapped together in a bundle.” [[236]]
[[237]] Prehistory pg. 223-235
“The Hopewell culture is one of the many called Middle Woodland. It seems to have appeared in Illinois by about 2300 B.P. The southern manifestations lasted until 400 A.D. and later. The Ohio Hopewell probably grew out of the strong local Adena pattern, so the elaborate mortuary complex called Classic Hopewell actually developed in Ohio. That complex of traits and its associated relationships has been called the Hopewell Interaction Sphere, a phase that takes account of a cluster of traits, artifacts, burial mounds- a mortuary cult or religion rooted in veneration of the dead- that can be recognized almost everywhere east of the Mississippi.”
“note21”> [[237]]
[[238]] SW Indians pg. 46-52; Warfare pg. 119-121
Prehistory pg. 299-303: “First defined in 1936 the Mogollon tradition possibly developed out of the Chiricahua and San Pedro Archaic. It seems to have acquired maize before 1 A.D., but pottery came considerably later at about 300 A.D. Once erroneously believed to have had maize by 4000 B.P. and ceramics by 2300 B.P, the Mongollon time span has been reduced by the later research to less that half of those figures.
Usually the Mogollon is divided into four or five periods. The Pine Lawn-Georgetown begins about 300 A.D. and lasts until about 650 A.D., to be followed by San Francisco, Three Circle, and Reserve, which ends at 1100 A.D. With the end of the Reserve phase, the simplicity of the Mogollon is lost and heavy increments of Anasazi concepts-aboveground masonry dwellings, black-on-white pottery, some religious ideas, and increasing village size- essentially change the Mogollon into what is today called the Western Pueblo Tradition.” [[238]]
[[239]] Mosiah 8:8; Alma 50:29; Helaman 3:3–6; Mormon 6:4 [[239]]
[[240]] Prehistory chap 5-6 early dates; SW Indians pg. 46-58 [[240]]
[[241]] Helaman 3:3–14 [[241]]
[[242]] Prehistory chap 5-6 early dates; SW Indians pg. 46-58 [[242]]
[[243]] Helaman 3:3–14; 6:6; 7:1-3 [[243]]
[[244]] Warfare chapter 4; SW Indians pg. 46-52
Prehistory pg. 230-235: “Many were destroyed by fire; the outlines formed by postholes are frequently encountered under the mounds, as if the burning of a house was the first step in construction of a burial mound. It has been suggested that the Adena “houses” were actually mortuary structures called charnel houses were bodies were defleshed and stored until the major ceremony: the burning of the house, placement of bodies in the crypts, and the building of the initial mounds.
A few examples of an unusual artifact have been reported. It’s the upper jaw of a wolf, cut so that the incisors and canines are intact on a kind of handle made by carving the palate to a spatulate form. It probably was part of an animal mask; the user would have had his upper incisors removed, putting the spatula in his mouth through the opening thus created. Human skulls thus mutilated have also been found, lending some credence to the idea.” [[244]]
[[245]] Alma 63:5–8 [[245]]
[[246]] Grolier, Fiji; Grolier, Western Samoa; Grolier, Easter Island; Grolier, French Polynesia [[246]]
[[247]] 3 Nephi 8:19–23 [[247]]
[[248]] Ancient Maya pg. 51 [[248]]
[[249]] 4 Nephi 1:1–18 [[249]]
[[250]] Ancient Kingdoms pg. 85-91; Atlas pg. 104-105 [[250]]
[[251]] Chiapas #9 pg. 8
Zapotec pg. 193-194: “Between the next two building stages, a second room was built in front of the previously existing one. The back walls of this outer chamber, which was 27 m in extent, abutted the sides of the inner room. That inner room was now given two doorways on either side, one of which led to a stairway. By stage G2- perhaps 150-100 BC- the floor of the inner room had been raised 15 cm above the floor of the outer room.” [[251]]
[[252]] 4 Nephi 1:2–18 [[252]]
[[253]] Mexican History pg. 16-18; BofM Evidence pg. 95-99; Atlas pg. 104-105 [[253]]
[[254]] Mexican History pg. 16-18 [[254]]
[[255]] Ancient Kingdoms pg. 95; Mexican History pg. 16-18; Prehistory pg. 240-242; Chiapas Artifacts pg. 196-198; Atlas pg. 104-105 [[255]]
[[256]] Ancient Kingdoms pg. 95; Mexican History pg. 16-18; Chiapas Artifacts pg. 196-198 [[256]]
[[257]] Ancient Kingdoms pg. 85-91; Atlas pg. 104-105 [[257]]
[[258]] 4 Nephi 1:1–18 [[258]]
[[259]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 196-198
Prehistory pg. 238-245: “The presence of skillfully manufactured objects seems to point to an artisan class. The finely wrought objects not only were beautiful, but also may have had extra value because of their cost in effort both to import and to manufacture. Their mere possession would no doubt give the owners prestige, and their innate properties may have included sacred or symbolic values beyond whatever other values they may have had. The splendor of the Ohio center was never equaled elsewhere, but a few specific Ohio artifact types are found all over the interaction sphere. They are the single and double cymbal ear spools of copper, they Busycon shell bowls, copper panpies, and mica mirrors; those are only items found in graves in all of the eight traditions. But some uniformly styled pottery types were common in all areas.” [[259]]
[[260]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 196-198; Prehistory pg. 243; Chiapas Burials pg. 73-74 [[260]]
[[261]] Mexican History pg. 16
Prehistory pg. 293: “The Hohokam were generally restricted to deserts of the southern Basin and Range province along the lower Salt and middle Gila rivers and used these waters for large-scale irrigation. The modern city of Phoenix, Arizona, is built upon the ruins of many Hohokam settlements and complex system of irrigation ditches that made life possible. The major canals of the Hohokam system underwent constant repair and modification. The biotic recourses in these valleys were undoubtedly much restricted, as they are today. The summer heat is intense. Faunal resources are scarce, but many edible plant species occur, including fruits of several cacti and beans from tree legumes such as acacia and mesquite. Rainfall is low except to the east, and of the three traditions the Hohokam were probably the most dependent on their fields for food.
As described above, the southwestern cultures represent a complex subsistence pattern of balanced gardening and gathering in a land where farming is difficult, if not impossible. The environmental settings of the three traditions range from Colorado’s green mesas to the sere wastes of Arizona’s deserts. All depended on the careful use of limited water. There has long been general consensus that all three traditions evolved from the local Archaic cultures after stimulus from an unspecified Mexican source.” [[261]]
[[262]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 198 [[262]]
[[263]] Chiapas Burials pg. 74 [[263]]
[[264]] Mexico pg. 89-91; Maya pg. 81
“On the basis of a technology that was essentially Neolithic- for metals were unknown until after AD 900- the Mexicans raised fantastic numbers of buildings, deocrated them with beautiful polychrome murals, produced pottery and figurines in unbelieveable quantitiy, and covered everything with sculptures. Even mass production was introduced, with the inovation (or importation from South America) of the clay mold for making figurines and incense burners.” [[264]]
[[265]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 197-198 [[265]]
[[266]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 196-198; Prehistory pg. 279, 299; Chiapas Burials pg. 73-74
Zapotec pg. 172: “Monte Alban II had the most colorful and distinctive pottery seen in Oaxaca since the San Jose phase. Burnished gray ware remained popular, but it was joined by waxy red, red-on-orange, red-on-cream, black, and white-rimmed black vessels, many of whose shapes and colors reflect an exchange of ideas with neighboring Chiapas. The distinctiveness of this pottery makes it relatively easy to identify on the surface of the ground, and some 518 communities of this period have been identified in the Valley of Oaxaca.” [[266]]
[[267]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 196-198
Prehistory pg. 245: “The grave goods were numerous but not particularly flamboyant. There were pottery vessels, many turtle carapace dishes, several busycon shell bowls, awls, projectile points, scraps of mica, mussel shell spoons, numerous lumps of much oxidized pyrite, eagle and falcon jaws, beaver incisors, bone and antler scrap, and some cobble hammers or anvil stones. An interesting note was that many of the crania had perforated left parietal bones. The excavators speculate that these individuals may have been sacrificed as part of the burial ceremony. The pottery particularly shows marked similarity to the Illinois Hopewell variant, leading the assignment of the Norton group to an Illinois expansion, rather than to the nearer Ohio Hopewell climax.” [[267]]
[[268]] Ancient Kingdoms pg. 98-99; Prehistory pg. 243; Mexican History pg. 20-21; Atlas pg. 104-105 [[268]]
[[269]] Teotihuacan pg. 1-2; Mexican History pg. 16-17; Atlas pg. 105 [[269]]
[[270]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 197 [[270]]
[[271]] Morelos pg. 135-150; Teotihuacan pg. 2; Mexican History pg. 16-17; Chiapas Artifacts pg. 1997
Zapotec pg. 172-175: “For one thing, the ring of 155 settlements that had surronded Monte Alban during Late Period I was now gone. The central region of the Valley of Oaxaca, once densely populated, was now reduced to 23 communities. This suggests that Monte Alban no longer needed to concentrate farmers, warriors, and laborers within 15 km of the city, because its rulers could now count on the support of the entire valley.
In addition, there no longer seems to be any ambiguity about a four-tiered hierarchy of communities in the valley. Monet Alban, now covering 416 ha, was the only “city,” or occupant of Tier I; its population is estimated at 14,500.”
Mexico pg. 91: “Very clearly, the Classic florescence saw the intensification of sharp social cleavages thoughout Mexico, and the consolidation of elite classes. It has long been assumed on a priori grounds that the mode of government was theocratic, with a priestly group exercising temporal power. In lieu of actual documents from the period, there is little for or against this idea to be gained from archaeoligical record. At any rate, below the intellecutal group which held the political reins was a peasantry which had hardly changed an iota from Preclassic times. Apart from the post-Conquest introduction of animal husbandry and steel tools, and old village-farming way of life has hardly been altered until today.”
[[271]]
[[272]] Mexican History pg. 16; Mayas pg. 1, 3
Zapotec pg. 172-175: “Two other settlements, classified as Tier 2 centers on the basis of size, do not seem to have been surrounded by comparable cells of large villages. Magdelena Apasco seems to have been a town in the San Jose Mogote cell. Scuhilquitongo, a hilltop center near the upper Atoyac River, may have served to defend the northern entrance to the valley. (A smaller mountaintop center, El Choco, may have defended the pass where the Atoyac River exits the valley on its way south.)” [[272]]
[[273]] Atlas pg. 105; Chiapas Artifacts pg. 198 [[273]]
[[274]] 4 Nephi 1:2–3, 15–17 [[274]]
[[275]] 4 Nephi 1:23–24 [[275]]
[[276]] Prehistory pg. 282, 294
“The Monroe phase was characterized by distinctive rectangular houses with vertical wall posts in a straight line, three center supports (for gabled roofs, as sometimes in the Mississippian), and a fireplace toward the narrow entry ramp. The entry ramp sloped down to meet the sunken floor of the lodge. A striking fact about the Monroe villages was their compactness, in contrast to the randomness of earlier settlements. The houses were located uniformly with the long axis oriented southwest-northeast and with the entryway toward the southwest.
The village is large. House lodges even now number more than one hundred; the erosion of the Missouri has destroyed an unknown number. The dominant house type was a rectangular structure built of vertical posts or poles with an entryway opening to the west. Houses were large, averaging 30 by 33 feet. The roof was supported by central posts or pillars arranged down the midline of the house. The covering for the houses is not definitely known, but they are believed to have been roofed with sod. The vertical walls were of wattle and daub. A most impressive component of the village was the encircling fortification, an earthen embankment behind which small posts set about 12 inches apart formed a palisade. Ten projecting bastions were equally spaced along its sides and at the two western shores.”
Zapotec pg. 208-209: “The Zapotec cocui, or hereditary lord, and his xonaxi, or royal wife, lived in residential palaces fitting the historic description of the yoho quehui, or “royal house.” Many of these were residents 20-25 m on one side, divided into 10-12 rooms arranged around an interior patio. Typical features were L-shaped corner rooms, some with apparent sleeping benches. Privacy was provided by a “curtian wall” just inside the main doorway, which screened the interior of the palace from view. Doors were probably closed with elegant weavings, or even brightly colored feather curtians. In some Zapotec palaces, no two rooms have their floors at exactly the same level. This might have been a way of ensuring that the coqui’s head was higher than anyone else’s, even when he was asleep.”
[[276]]
[[277]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 199; Chiapas Burials pg. 74-75; Mexican History pg. 43-48
Prehistory pg. 247, 271-272, 294: “The objects are an exquisite expression of artistry combined with skilled craftsmanship. The artifacts were created in every medium: wood, shell, clay, stone, and hammered copper. The art is concerned with depicting animals, humans, mythical creatures, tools, and weapons, using a dozens of themes and scores of motifs. The artifacts are not utilitarian but ornamental and are undoubtedly rich in conventional and symbolic meaning. As a subject for study they have attracted attention for a century. Much speculation has attended that study; the complex artifacts is said to have been a death cult because of the skull, hand-eye, and other motifs”
Zapotec pg. 208-209: “As for the rulers themselves, they are often depicted in ceramic sculpture- seated on thrones or crosslegged on royal mats, weighed down with jewelry and immense feather headdresses. Rulers evidently had a variety of masks, so many that one wonders if their faces were ever seen by commoners. Rulers in many cultures have disguised themselves to maintain the myth that they were not mere mortals, and Zapotec kings seem to have had numerous costumes depending on the occasion. Their ties to Lightning were reinforced by jade or wooden masks depicting the powerful face of Cociyo; their roles as warriors were reinforced by wearing a mask made from the facial skin of a flayed captive.
A magnificent example of the latter can be seen in the funerary urn from Tomb 103, a royal burial beneath a palace at Monte Alban. The Zapotec ruler sits on his throne in the guise of a warrior, holding a staff or war club in his right hand. In his left he grasps the hair of an enemy’s severed head, as he peers through the dried skin of a flayed enemy’s face. His headdress, featuring the plumes of birds from distant cloud forests, covers not only his head but also the back of his throne. Jade spools in his earlobes, a massive jade necklace, and a kilt covered with tubular sea shells add to his elegance. Note that, in the tradition of the figurines of 850-700 BC, the sculptor has paid great attention to every detail of the lord’s sandals, right down to the tying of the laces.” [[277]]
[[278]] 4 Nephi 1:24 [[278]]
[[279]] Chiapas Artifacts pg. 199
Prehistory pg. 238, 249, 262-263, 294-297, 299, 308, 319-320: “In the mounds were rich caches of goods, not always with the burials. The cached objects were created from exotic materials, both local Ohio items and imported ones. Mica, in sheets or cutout geometric or animal forms, was a commonly used mineral. Copper, recovered in free sheets and nuggets from the Lake Superior sources, was used for ear spools, headdresses, masks, bracelets, beads, chest ornaments, celts, and panpies. Pearls were used as beads for anklets and armlets and were sewn on garments.
The potters were only one of the artisan groups. Shellworkers engraved and carved Busycon shell with the columella removed for ornaments and pendants, and used the columella to make knobbed hairpins; tubular disc-shaped, and globular beads; and other ornaments as well. Other skilled craftsmen made bracelets, beads, headdresses, and a few hairpins for the copper produced locally in Tennessee and northern Georgia, and decorated thin sheets of hammered copper with a repousse technique.”
Zapotec pg. 208-209: “As for the rulers themselves, they are often depicted in ceramic sculpture- seated on thrones or crosslegged on royal mats, weighed down with jewelry and immense feather headdresses. Rulers evidently had a variety of masks, so many that one wonders if their faces were ever seen by commoners. Rulers in many cultures have disguised themselves to maintain the myth that they were not mere mortals, and Zapotec kings seem to have had numerous costumes depending on the occasion. Their ties to Lightning were reinforced by jade or wooden masks depicting the powerful face of Cociyo; their roles as warriors were reinforced by wearing a mask made from the facial skin of a flayed captive.
A magnificent example of the latter can be seen in the funerary urn from Tomb 103, a royal burial beneath a palace at Monte Alban. The Zapotec ruler sits on his throne in the guise of a warrior, holding a staff or war club in his right hand. In his left he grasps the hair of an enemy’s severed head, as he peers through the dried skin of a flayed enemy’s face. His headdress, featuring the plumes of birds from distant cloud forests, covers not only his head but also the back of his throne. Jade spools in his earlobes, a massive jade necklace, and a kilt covered with tubular sea shells add to his elegance. Note that, in the tradition of the figurines of 850-700 BC, the sculptor has paid great attention to every detail of the lord’s sandals, right down to the tying of the laces.” [[279]]
[[280]] Prehistory pg. 262, 271-272
“In western California, there was evidentily a much greater concern with the dead. Many were buried in mounds, others in extensive cemeteries. An analysis of the grave goods of these many cemeteries has led some scholars to suggest that there was in California a social complexity quite at variance with the simple and relatively stable technology the archaeology reveals.”
Zapotec pg. 185-188, 209-216; Zapotec pg. 210-216: “One of the most famous Zapotec royal burials is Monte Alban’s Tomb 104, believed to date to the middle of Period III. Its elaborate facade includes a niche with a large funerary sculpture. The latter has a headdress containing two jaguar or puma heads, huge ear ornaments, a large pectoral with marine shells, and a bag of incense in one hand.
Inside the main chamber of the tomb was a single skeleton, fully extended face up. At its feet was the funerary urn, flanked by four accompanists or “companion figures.” The chamber had been equipped with five wall niches, many of which were filled with pottery; dozens of additional vessels were stacked on the floor. The pottery was extremely varied in form and function- in effect, a couple “table setting” for a Zapotec lord or lady. Included were bowls and vases, bridgespout jars, ladles, “sause boats,” and a stone mortar of the type now used for making guacamole or chili sause. There were also figures of humans.
Running the wall of the chamber was a mural. At the left (the south wall of the chamber) we see a male figure holding an incense bag in one hand. Next comes a niche in the wall with an “offering box” and a parrot painted above it. Then come two hieroglyphic compounds, 2 Serpent and 5 Serpent; below them is another “offering box.” On the back wall of the tomb (the west side) are three niches and a complex painting that features a human face (probably and ancestor) below the “Jaws of the Sky.” The date (or day-name) 5 Turquoise appears to the left of the jaws.
At the far right (north wall of the tomb) we see another male figure with an incense bag. Above a niche in this wall we see the “heart as sacrifice” and above that the glyphs for I Lightning, and to the left we see the dates or day-names 5 Owl and 5 Lightning. A feathered speech scroll is associated with 5 Owl. All these names probably refer to important royal ancestors of the individual in the tomb.
Finally, the door of the main chamber was closed by a large stone, carved on both sides. We see the hieroglyphic inscription of the inner surface of the door. The inscription shares several day-names with the mural inside the chamber. On the right side appear the glyphs 6 Turquoise, a glyph designated “Glyph I” by Alfonso Caso, and a human figurine showing the same stiff posture seen in the jade statues beneath an earlier temple at San Jose Mogote. On the left side appears the large glyph 7 Deer, flanked by smaller glyphs for 6 Serpent, 7 “Glyph I,” and four small cartouches accompanied by the number 15. In the center of the stone we have an abbreviated “Jaws of the Sky” and the glyph 5 Turquoise. Below this we find a buccal mask in profile, and the same glyph for I Lightning seen on the north-wall mural of the tomb chamber.
The repetition of the names 5 Turquoise and I Lightning on the mural and door stone suggests that these individuals were very important. Together with the funerary urns, the scores of ceramic offerings, and the elaborate construction of the tomb, these references to ancestors were an integral part of royal burial ritual.” [[280]]
[[281]] 4 Nephi 1:46 [[281]]
[[282]] Zapotec pg. 224-225
“Period IIIa, because of its distinctively decorated pottery, shows up strongly on surface survey. This is fortunate, since it makes it easier to show the significant changes in settlment pattern that took place between Monte Alban II and IIIa. Those changes included substantial increases in population, great shifts in the demographic center of gravity of the Valley of Oaxaca, and increased use of defensible localities.” [[282]]
[[283]] Mexican History pg. 17-18, 36-39;
Zapotec pg. 208-221: “Also set in the walls of the South Platform are six stelae showing prionsers with arms tied behind their backs. While some are dressed in little more than a breech-clout, others wear the kind of full animal costume given to warriors who had distinguished themselves in battle. Each captive stands on a place glyph naming the region from which he came; unforunately, the regions have not as yet been securely identified. If the destiny of Early Period III sites on densible hilltops can be used as a guide, we suspect that regions south and east of the Valley of Oaxaca were the scene of considerable warfare during Early Period III.”
Mexico pg. 129: “Following in the wake of the disturbances and intrusions of alien peoples which brought to a close the civilizations of the Classic during the ninth century AD was a seemingly new mode of organized life. Although there is ample evidence for warfare in such Classic cultures as Teotihuacan and Monte Alban, the Post-Classic saw a greatly heightend emphasis on militarism, in fact, a glorification of war in all its aspects. There was now an upstart class of tough professional warriors, grouped into military orders which took theri names from the animals from which they may have claimed a kind of totemic descent: coyote, jaguar, and eagle. Wars were the rule of the day, those unfrotunate enough to be captured destined for sacrifice to the gods. Human sacrifice can hardly be considered a new element in Mesoamerican life, but for the first time we have widespread evidence for the tzompantli, the skull rack on which heads were skewered for public display. As a result of these marital activities, there was extensive contruction of strongpoints and the fortification of towns.” [[283]]
[[284]] Mexican History pg. 17-18
Zapotec pg. 216-221, 224: “The hidden scenes of Teotihuacan visitors were placed at the four corners of the South Platform. Under three of those, the builders of the platform placed offering boxes with standardized dedicatory caches. These cashes show that the carved stones were part of the Early Monte Alban III platform, sicne the boxes contain offerings of that period. No offering was placed under the south-east corner, apparently because bedrock was deeper there and more construction fill was required.”
Mexico pg. 129: “Throughout Mexico, this was a time which saw a great deal of confusion and movement of peoples, amalgamating to form small, aggressive, conquest states, and splitting up with as much speed as they had risen. Even tribes of distinctly different speech sometimes came together to form a single state- as we know from their annals, for we have entered the realm of history. Naturally, such new conditions are mirrored in Post-Classic art styles, which are thoroughly saturated with the martial psychology of the age. In general they are harder, far more abstract, and less exuberant than those of the Classic period. It is the kind of strong, static art produced by artisans guided by Spartan, not Athenian, ideals.” [[284]]
[[285]] Mormon 1:6–7 [[285]]
[[286]] Teotihuacan pg. 2-3; Morelos pg. 135-150; Prehistory pg. 254-256; Ancient Kingdoms pg. 100-101
Zapotec pg. 224: “The population of the Valley of Oaxaca rose to an estimated 115,000 persons during Monte Alban IIIa. This growth was accompanied by tumultuous changes in the distribution of population throughout the valley. Of the 1075 known communities, 510 (or nearly half) were now in the Tlacolula subvalley.”
Maya pg. 152: “We know from the downfall of past civilizations such as the Roman and Khmer empires that it is fruitless to look for single causes. But most of the Maya archaeologists can now agree that three factors were paramount in the downfall: 1) endemic internecine warefare, 2) overpopulation and accompanying enviromental collapse, and 3) drought. All three probably played a part, but not necessarily all together in the same time and in the same place. Warefare seems to have become a real problem earlier than the two.
On can only conclude that by the end of the eighth century, the Classic Maya population of the southern lowlands had probably increase beyond the carrying capacity of the land, no matter what system of agriculture was in use. There is mounting evidence for massive deforestation and erosion throughout the Central Area, only alleviated in a few favorable zones by dry slope terracing. In short, overpopulation and enviromental degradation had adbanced to a degree only matched by what is happening in many of the poorest tropical countries today. The Maya apocolypse, for such it was, surely had ecological roots.” [[286]]
[[287]] 4 Nephi 1:24–26 [[287]]
[[288]] ; Prehistory pg. 247, 261, 268, 270-272
Zapotec pg. 216-221: “Whatever the reason, the stelae commissioned by 12 Jaguar display two types of royal propaganda: vertical and horizontal. The message on the public faces of his monuments- showing his inaugural scene, his captives, and his heroic predecessor- traveled “vertically” from the ruler down to the commoners. The message of support from Teotihuacan, carved on the hidden edges of the same stelae, traveled “horizontally” from the ruler to his fellow nobles, did not need to be seen by commoners.” [[288]]
[[289]] Mexican History pg. 18; Chiapas Burials pg. 74-75;
Zapotec pg. 216-224: “For many ancient Mesoamerican states, the inauguration of a new ruler was a time for elaborate ritual and royal propaganda. Inauguration rituals sent the ideological message that kingship and the state would continue in a just, orderly, predictable manner under a deserving new ruler.
Mesoamerican groups such as the Aztec, Mixtec, and Maya tried to designate the old ruler’s successor in advance of the former’s death. Between the time of that designation and his or her actual assumption of the throne, the future ruler was expected to engage in a series of important activities. He or she might travel to consult the leaders of other ethnic groups; raid enemy communities to get captives for sacrifice; mark off the boundaries of the polity to reinforce them; and perform some act of piety, like building a new temple or visiting a shrine.
The classic Zapotec were no exception to this pattern. Sometime during Early Period III, a ruler named 12 Jaguar was inaugurated at Monte Alban. Part of his inauguration ritual included the dedication of a massive pyramidal structure, the South Platform of the Main Plaza, for whose construction (or enlargement) he sought to take credit. In preparation for his inauguration, he commissioned a carved stone monument which shows him seated on his throne. He also had taken a number of captives for sacrifice, six of whom are depicted on other stone monuments. He seems to have documented his right to rule by using a monument that refers to a previous Zapotec ruler, perhaps claming him as an ancestor. Finally, he commissioned carved scenes of eight visitors from Teotihuacan, a city in the Basin of Mexico which was a powerful contemporary of Monet Alban. These scenes show Teotihucanos visiting Monte Alban in what may be a demonstration of support for the new ruler. Dedicatory caches were placed beneath three corner stones bearing these scenes.” [[289]]
[[290]] 4 Nephi 1:35–39 [[290]]
[[291]] Mexican History pg. 18, 24-27, 31-43
Prehistory pg. 246-247: “In New York, the Point Peninsula Tradition begins with the Squawkie Hill phase, where cult artifacts are found in mounds. In fact the typical rocker stamping is very extensive in the Northeast, being found well beyond the Hopewellian diagnostics. After about 250 A.D. the Hopewell Traditon traits disappear there. It is about the time that the cultures of the Midwest and East developed stronger regional differences, with many local sequences replacing the more uniform culture characteristic of Hopewell dominance. Even so, as in the widespread dentate pottery decoration, vestiges of Hopewell ancestry can be noted. In New York, for example, the development of late Point Peninsula into Owasco and even historic Iroquois can be tied through a few ceramic traits to Hopewell.”
Zapotec pg. 222-224: “The golden age of Zapotec civilization can be divided into phases, called Monte Alban IIIa and IIIb. While far radiocarbon samples from either phase have been run, the available dates (and traded pottery from other regions) suggest that IIIa falls roughly between A.D. 200 and 500, while IIIb falls roughly between 500 and 700.
Period IIIa, because of its distinctively decorated pottery, shows up strongly on surface survey. This is fortunate, since it makes it easier to show the significant changes in settlement pattern that took place between Monte Alban II and IIIa. Those changes included substantial increases in population, great shifts in the demographic center of gravity of the Valley of Oaxaca, and increased use of defensible localities.
Period IIIb, in contrast, had relatively drab pottery which is difficult to distinguish from that of subsequent phase, Monte Alban IV. When large Period IIIb sites are excavated, they often contain pottery types traded from the Maya region, types whose ages are well established. On surface survey, however, Periods IIIb and IV are difficult to separate unless one has a very large sample of pottery.”
Mexico pg. 113, 115, 119, 120-126, 126-127: “Down the Gulf Coast plain, new civilizations appeared in the Early Classic which in some respects reflect continuity from the Olmec tradition of the lowlands, as well as intrusive elements ultimately derived from Teotihuacan. The site of Cerro de las Mesas lies in the middle of the former Olmec territory, in south-central Veracruz, approximately 15 miles from the Bay of Alvarado, on a broad band of high land above the swamps of the Rio Blanco. The site is the ceter of an area dotted with earthen mounds.”
Maya pg. 84, 88-89, 97, 100: “Shortly after AD 400, the highlands fell under Teotihuacan domination. A intrusive group of central Mexicans from that city apparently seized Kaminaljuyu and built for themselves a miniature version of their captial. An elite class ruling over a captive population of Maya descent, they were swayed by native cultural tastes and traditions and became “Mayanized” to the extent that they imported from the Central Area pottery and other wares with which to stock their tombs. The Esperanza culture which arose at Kaminalijuyu during the Early Classic, then, is a kind of hybrid.”
[[291]]
[[292]] 4 Nephi 1:26–28 [[292]]
[[293]] Mexican History pg. 36-39
Mexico pg. 100-103, 124-125: “In Karl Taube’s view, as we have seen, the presiding deity of the Teotihuacan pantheon was the Spider Woman, the patroness of our own world; she was probably the equivalent of the later Aztec Toci, ‘Our Grandmother.’ Many of the other gods of the complete Mexican pantheon are already clearly recognizable at Teotihuacan. Here were worshipped the Rain God (‘Tlaloc’ to the Aztecs) and the Feathered Serpent (the later ‘Quetzalcoatl’), as well as the Sun God, the Moon Goddess, and Xipe Totec (Nahuatl for ‘Our Lord the Flayed One’), the last-named being the symbol of the annual renewal of vegetation with the onset of the rainy season. Particularly common are incense burners fo the Old Fire God, a creator divinity and the probable consort of the Spider Woman. A colossal statue represents the Water Goddess (in Nahuatl, Chalchiuhtlicue, ‘Her Skirt Is of Jade’), but there is an even larger statue, weighing almost 200 metric tons and now in front of the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City; found in an unfinished state on the slopes of Tlaloc Mountain, it is identified in the popular Mexican consciousness with that deity, but its exact identification is unknown. At any rate, it should be noted that almost all the gods venerated in this great urban captital were intimatley connected with the well-being of maize, with their staff of life.”
People pg. 487: “A hereditary elite seems to have ruled Monte Alban, the leaders of a state that had emerged in the Valley of Oaxaca by AD 200. Their religious power was based on ancestor worship, a pantheon of art least 39 gods, grouped around major themes of ritual life. The rain god and lightning were associated with the jaguar motif; another group of deities was linked with the maize god, Pitao Cozabi. Nearly all these gods were still worshiped at the time of the Spanish contact, although Monte Alban itself was abandoned after AD 700, at approximately the same time as another great ceremonial center, Teotihuacan, in the Valley of Mexico, began to decline.” [[293]]
[[294]] 4 Nephi 1:26–34 [[294]]
[[295]] Gods and Symbols pg. 136-137
Zapotec pg. 208-210: “By A.D. 200 the Zapotec had extended their influence from Quioteopec in the north to Ocelotepec and Chiltepec in the south. Their noble ambassadors had presented gifts to the rulers of Chiapa de Corzo and established a Zapotec enclave at Teotihuacan in the Basin of Mexico. Monte Alban had become the largest city in the southern Mexican highlands and would remain so fa the next 500 years. That half millennium, from A.D. 200-700, has been called the “golden age of Zapotec civilization.”
People pg. 490, 496: “By AD 600, Teotihuacan probably was governed by a secular ruler who was looked upon as a divine king of some kind. A class of nobels controlled the kinship groups that organized the bulk of the city’s huge population.
Copan is just on of many sites where archaeologists have documented the complicated political and social history of Maya civilization. The public monuments erected by the Classic Maya emphasize not only the king’s role as shaman, as the intermediary with the Otherworld, but also his position as family patriarch. Genealogical texts on stelae legitimize his decent, his close relationship to his often long-deceased parents. Maya kings used both the awesome regalia of their office and elaborate rituals to stress their close identity with mythical ancestral gods. This was a way in which they asserted their kin relationship and political authority over subordinate leaders and every member of society.
The king believed himself to have a divine covenant with the gods and ancestors, a covenant that was reinforced again and again in elaborate private and public rituals. The king was often depicted as the World Tree, the conduit by which humans communicated with the Otherworld. Trees were the living enviroment of Maya life and a metaphor for human power. So the kings of the Maya were a forest of symbolic human World Trees within a natural, forested landscape.” [[295]]
[[296]] Maya chap 4-6
“Paricularly impressive are its six temple-pyramids, veritable skyscrapers among buildings of their class. From the level of the plaza floor to the top of its roof comb, Temple IV, the mightiest of all, measures 229 ft in height. Teh core of Tik’al must be its great plaza, flanked on west and east by two of these temple-pyramids, and on the north by the acropolis already mentioned in connection with its Late Preclassic and Early Classic tombs, and on the southby the Central Acropolis, a palace complex. Some of the major architecural groups are connected to the Great Plaza and with each other by broad causeways, over which many splendid processions must have passed in the days of Tik’al’s glory. The palaces are so impressive, their plastered rooms often still retaining in their vaults the sapodilla-wood spanner beams which had only a decorative function.”
Zapotec chap 13-15: “Not all temples were of the two-room type; some were left open on all sides. An example is Building II of Monte Alban, described by Ignacio Benal as “a small temple with five pillars in the front and another five in the back… It never had side walls and in fact was open to the four winds.” On the south side of this “open” temple, excavators found the entrance to a tunnel which allowed priests to enter and leave the building unseen, crossing beneath the eastern half of the Main Plaza to a building on the plaza’s central spine.
Structure 36, the oldest temple, dated to early Monte Alban II. It measured 11 x 11 m and was slightly T-shaped, the inner room slightly smaller than the outer. Both columns flanking the inner doorway, and all four columns flanking the outer doorway, were made from the trunks of baldcypress trees. So well does cypress wood preserve that identifiable fragments of it were still present in the column bases.
One model of a temple from the Tlacolula subvalley is particularly interesting, as its doorway is shown as having been closed with a feather curtain. Such curtains were luxurious furnishings made by sewing together thousands upon thousands of feathers from brightly colored birds; they may also have been used to close the doors of palaces.”
Mexico chap 6: “The palace compounds were the residences of the lords of the city, such as those uncovered at the zones called by the modern names Xolalpan, Tetitla, Zacuala, and Atetelco, or the magnificent ‘Quetzal-Butterfly’ Palace near the Pyramid of the Moon. Typical of the palace layout might be Xolalpan, a rectangular complex of about fourty-five rooms and seven forecourts; these bourder four platforms, which are arranged around a cenral court. The court was depressed below the general ground level and was open to the sky, with a small altar in the center. While windows were lacking, several of the rooms had smaller sunken courts very much like the Roman atria, into which light and air wer admitted throuh the roof, supported by surrounding columns. The rainwater in the sunken basins could be drained off when desired. All palaces known were one-storied affairs, with flat roofs built from beams adn small sticks and twigs, overlaign by earth and rubble. Doorways were rectangular and covered by a cloth.” [[296]]
[[297]] People pg. 490, 496: (SAME AS NOTE 295 ABOVE)
Zapotec pg. 208-210: “The Zapotec cocui, or hereditary lord, and his xonaxi, or royal wife, lived in residential palaces fitting the historic description of the yoho quehui, or “royal house.” Many of these were residents 20-25 m on one side, divided into 10-12 rooms arranged around an interior patio. Typical features were L-shaped corner rooms, some with apparent sleeping benches. Privacy was provided by a “curtain wall” just inside the main doorway, which screened the interior of the palace from view. Doors were probably closed with elegant weavings, or even brightly colored feather curtains. In some Zapotec palaces, no two rooms have their floors at exactly the same level. This might have been a way of ensuring that the coqui’s head was higher than anyone else’s, even when he was asleep.
As for the rulers themselves, they are often depicted in ceramic sculpture- seated on thrones or crosslegged on royal mats, weighed down with jewelry and immense feather headdresses. Rulers evidently had a variety of masks, so many that one wonders if their faces were ever seen by commoners. Rulers in many cultures have disguised themselves to maintain the myth that they were not mere mortals, and Zapotec kings seem to have had numerous costumes depending on the occasion. Their ties to Lightning were reinforced by jade or wooden masks depicting the powerful face of Cociyo; their roles as warriors were reinforced by wearing a mask made from the facial skin of a flayed captive.
A magnificent example of the latter can be seen in the funerary urn from Tomb 103, a royal burial beneath a palace at Monte Alban. The Zapotec ruler sits on his throne in the guise of a warrior, holding a staff or war club in his right hand. In his left he grasps the hair of an enemy’s severed head, as he peers through the dried skin of a flayed enemy’s face. His headdress, featuring the plumes of birds from distant cloud forests, covers not only his head but also the back of his throne. Jade spools in his earlobes, a massive jade necklace, and a kilt covered with tubular sea shells add to his elegance that, in the tradition of the figurines of 850-700 BC, the sculptor has paid great attention to every detail of the lord’s sandals, right down to the tying of the laces.
An earlier generation of scholars assumed that these spectacular urns, usually found in royal tombs, depicted “gods.” Today we believe that most of them represent venerated ancestors of the main individuals in the tomb. Some urns bear glyphs with names taken from the 260- day calendar. Supernatural like Lightning, being immortal, were not named for days in Zapotec calendar. It is also the case that the figures on most urns, even when grotesquely masked, are undeniably human behind their disguises.
In cosmology it is always crucial to distinguish between actual supernatural beings- depicted in Mesoamerica by combining parts of different animals, so as to create something obviously “unnatural”- and real humans who had metamorphosed into the heroes and heroines of legend. The latter were humans who had acquired, through death and heredity, some of the attributes of the supernatural. We suspect that Zapotec funerary urns- many of which are one-of-a-kind masterpieces made to accompany rulers in their tombs- provided a venue to which the pee, or animate spirit, of these heroes and royal ancestors could return. This would allow the deceased ruler to continue to consult with his or her important ancestors, much as we think the women of the early village period invoked their ancestors through figurines.” [[297]]
[[298]] Maya pg. 195 (see also pictures of sculptures and murals throughout Chap. 5); (see also pottery from any region, especially Mimbre Culture in Southwest)
“Immediately after birth, Yuateacan mothers washed their infants and then fastened them to a cradle, their little heads compressed between two boards in such a way that after two days a permanent fore-and-aft flattening had taken place which the Maya considered a mark of beauty. As soon as possible, the anxious parents went to consult with a priest so as to learn the destiny of their offspring, and the name which he or she was to bear until baptism.
The Spanish Fathers were quite astounded that the Maya had a baptismal rite, which took place at an auspicious time when there were a number of boys and girls between the ages of three and twelve in the settlement. The ceremony took place in the house of a town elder, in the presence of their parents who had observed various abstinences in honor of the occasion. The children and their fathers remained inside a cord held by four old and venerable men representing the Chaks or Rain Gods, while the priest performed various acts of purifaction and blessed the candidates with incense, tobacco, and holy water. From that time on the elder girls, at least, were marriageable.
In both highlands and lowlands, boys and young men stayed apart from their families in special communal houses where they presumably learned the arts of war, and other things as well, for Landa says that the prostitutes were frequent visitors. Other youthful diversions were gambling and the ball game. The double standard was present among the Maya, for girls were strictly brought up by their mothers and suffered grievious punishments for lapes of chastity. Marriage was arranged by go-betweens and, as among all peoples with exogamous clans or lineages, there were strict rules about those whom alliances could or could not be made- particularly taboo was marriage with those of the same paternal name. Monogamy was the general custom, but important men who could afford it took more wives. Adultry was punished by death, as among the Mexicans.
Ideas of personal comeliness were quite different from ours, although the friars were much impressed with the beauty of the Maya women. Both sexes had their frontal teeth filed in various patterns, and we have many ancient Maya skulls in which the incisors have benn inlaid with small plaques of jade. Until marraige, young men painted themselves black (and so did warriors at all times); tattooing and decorative scarification began after wedlock, both men and women being richly elaborated from the waist up by these means. Slightly crossed eyes were held in great esteem, and parents attempeted to induce the condition by hanging small beads over the noses of their children.”
Prehistory pg. 306-308: “Initial Basketmaker II is now dated at about the time of Christ, persisting until about 500 A.D. Its identifying traits are familiar, being those cited for the Archaic culture and remindful of the material from Tularosa Cave. The sites are most often to be found in caves, alcoves, or overhangs. In such situations, the perishable artifacts are preserved, as are the bodies of the dead. The practice of skull deformation which later proved popular, had not yet appeared.
Other additions to the Pueblo I trait list include cotton cloth, jacal construction, and the practice of cranial deformation- steeply angled flattening of the optical area- resulting probably from the use of a ridged cradleboard. Both the cotton and the cranial flattening appear in earlier Mongollon.”
Zapotec pg. 105-106: “Now let us turn to another attribute that cannot reflect achievement: deliberate cranial deformation. At the time of the Spanish Conquest it was considered a sign of nobility, like the wearing of quetzal plumes and jade earplugs. Cranial deformation must be done early in life, while the skull is still growing and it bones still separated by cartilage. For the ancient Maya, cranial deformation took place shortly after birth. The sixteenth-century Spaniard Diego de Landa says “four of five days after the infant was born, they placed it stretched out upon a little bed, made of sticks of osier and reeds; and there with its face upwards, they put its head between which they compressed it tightly, and here they kept it suffering until at the end of several days, the head remained flat and molded.”
Some sixteenth-century Aztec informants revealed that “When the children are very young, their heads are soft and can be molded in the shape that you see ours to be, by using two pieces of wood hollowed out in the middle. This custom, given to our ancestors by the gods, gives us a noble air.”
Cranial deformation results from actions taken by one’s parents, long before one is old enough to have achieved anything; thus, if cranial deformation reflects high rank, it must be inherited high rank. Two types of deformation were practiced in early Mesoamerican villages. Tabular deformation, the most common, was caused by pressing the skull between a fixed occipital cradleboard and a free board on the forehead. Annular deformation was caused by tying a band around the head. Each type of deformation could be erect or oblique, depending of the angle at which it was applied.
Tabular deformation was the most common type in the San Jose phase, and could occur with either sex; some of the men buried with Lightning vessels were so deformed. One teenage girl from San Jose Mogote, however, showed annular deformation, a practice still rare at this time. It is possible that she was a bride from another ethnic region, where annular deformation was more common. The girl’s burial position- face up, arms folded on her chest- was also atypical for that residential ward.
We believe that certain children inherited the right to have their skulls deformed, and that certain male children inherited the right to be buried with Earth or Sky motifs. Because such burials were not always accompanied by impressive sumptuary goods, one cannot make a simplistic claim of “chiefly burials” for them. We suspect that these were children born into the descent groups from which future leaders were likely to come. However, not everyone born into such a group automatically became a leader. Almost certainly, to receive truly elegant burial gifts, one had to add achievement to one’s high-status pedigree.” [[298]]
[[299]] Mysteries pg. 184-186
Prehistory pg. 247-249, 261, 268-271, 282: “Monks Mound dominated from its north end of a vast plaza of some 200 acres enclosed in a bastioned palisade or stockade of large posts. Along each side of the plaza were twelve or more platform and conical mounds with a single platform at the south end of the plaza. Outside the Monks Mound enclosure to north, south, east, and west were dozens of other mounds dominating other plazas. But there were four other large, but lesser mound groups clustered around smaller plazas. Everywhere over the entire bottom and on the valley bluffs to the east were sources of hamlets and farmsteads, which are believed to have supported the centers with foodstuffs and services.
The distribution of these big sites, their locations on water courses, and their very size lead some scholars to postulate that they were religious and administrative centers, peopled primarily by a powerful upper class that controlled trade and, possibly, population distribution and, of course, possessed absolute political and religious power.
There is no doubt that there was an elite Mississippian social class. This is attested by the rich mortuary offerings and the elaborate ceremonies with which the burials were made. Burials occurred on the tops of the pyramid mounds, a mortuary ritual that can be identified wherever the mound groups are found. The uniformity of occurrence has led to the interpretation that there were elite lineages and that their high status was ascribed by virtue of birth, because even children were sometimes accorded elaborate burial ceremony and grave goods. However, near or in the towns were large cemeteries, where lower-class citizens were buried. Here too, there is an occasional richly accompanied burial, but the objects are of a different nature, such as the tools or creations of a craftsman. Such persons are believed to have achieved a relatively high status through merit rather than birth.” [[299]]
[[300]] 4 Nephi 1:24–46; Mormon 1:13–19 [[300]]
[[301]] Prehistory pg. 294-298, 300, 318
Mexico pg. 117, 119: “Other panels involve the beginning of the game, while in a final scene the losing captain is apparently being sacrificed by the victors, who brandish a flint knife over his heart: the game played in the courts of El Tajin was not lightly won or lost. The central panels on either side of the court concern the sacred drink pulque, and maguey plants from which this intoxicating beverage was made; over one of these, the Tajin version of the Mexican rain god Tlaloc presides, while on its counterpart opposite, this same god replenishes a pool of pulgue with blood taken from his own penis, watched by deity with a fish headdress.”
Maya pg. 104, 106, 110-112: [[301]]
[[302]] 4 Nephi 1:46 [[302]]
[[303]] Prehistory pg. 236-243, 318-320; Tula pg. 46
Zapotec pg. 224: “Period IIIa, because of its distinctively decorated pottery, shows up strongly on surface survey. This is fortunate, since it makes it easier to show the significant changes in settlement pattern that took place between Monte Alban II and IIIa. Those changes included substantial increases in population, great shifts in the demographic center of gravity of the Valley of Oaxaca, and increased use of defensible localities.
Period IIIb, in contrast, had relatively drab pottery which is difficult to distinguish from that of the subsequent phase, Monte Alban IV (roughly A.D. 700-1000). When large Period IIIb sites are excavated, they often contain pottery types traded from the Maya region, types whose ages are well established. On surface survey, however, Periods IIIb and IV are difficult to separate unless one has a very large sample of pottery.”
Mexico pg. 91, 103-105, 144-147: “On the basis of a technology that was essentially Neolithic- for metals were unknown until after AD 900- the Mexicans raised fantastic numbers of buildings, decorated them with beatiful poychrome murals, produced pottery and figurines in unbelievable quantity, and covered everything with sculptures. Even mass production was introduced, with the invention (or importation from South America) of the clay mold for making figurines and incense burners.
Yet it may be fruitless to look at the Valley of Teotihuacan alone for the secret of the capital’s remarkable success, for the city that we have described held sway over most of the central highlands of Mexico during the Early Classic, and perhaps over much of Mesoamerica. Like the later Aztec state, it may have depended as much on long-distance trade and tribute as upon local agricultural production. Teotihuacan influence and probably control in some instances were strong even in regions remote from the capital, such as the Gulf Coast, Oaxaca, and the Maya area. Elegant vases of pure Teotihuacan manufacture are found in the buirals of nobels all over Mexico at this time, and the art of the Teoihuacnaos dominated the germinating styles of the other high civilizations of Mesoamerica. Six hundred and fifty miles to the southeast, in the highlands of Guatemala on the outskirts of the modern capital of that republic, a little ‘city’ has been found that is in all respects a minature copy of Teotihuacan.
Those hardy pioneers who during Toltec times pushed up northwest along the eastern flanks of the Sierra Madre into Chichimec country, sowing their crops in what had once been barren ground, necessarily were forced to live a frontier life. As a matter of fact, this entension of cultivation into the barbarian zone had begun as far back as the Early Classic period, but it is not until the Post-Classic taht one can see any major results, when a series of strongpoints was constructed.
The deep interest of the central Mexicans in the Chichmec zone lying between them and the American Southwest went far beyond the mere search for new lands, however. The site of Alta Vista, near the town of Chalchihuites, Zacatecas, lies astride the Tropic of Cancer, about 390 miles northwest of Tula. It was taken over by Teotihuacan (or Teotihuacan-controlled) people about AD 350, and was exploited all through the Classic for the richness of its local mines, probably, as Professor Dihel thinks, through slave labor. Over 750 mines are known in the area, from which came such rare minerals as malachite, cinnabar, hematite, and rock crystal, which were exported to Teotihuacan for processing into elite artifacts. Alta Vista itself is little more than ceremonial center with a colonnaded hall on a defensible hill, but it is possible that this architectural trait, along with the tzompantli or skull rack, may have provided a Classic prototype for these features at Tula.
At some time in the Classic, turquoise deposits were discovered and exploited in New Mexico, in all likelihood by the Pueblo farming cultures that had old roots there. From there turquoise was taken to Alta Vista and worked into mosaics and similar objects, for export into central Mexico. Trace element analysis, carried out through neutron activation by Dr. Garman Harbottle at the Brookhave National Laboratory, has resulted in very precise data on the turquoise trade between Mesoamerica and the American Southwest, which greatly expanded with the onset of the Early Post-Classic, by which time the major source at Cerrillos, New Mexico, was under the control of the people responsible for the great apartment houses of Chaco Canyon.
In this trade, Alta Vista was an early intermediary. About AD 900, just as the Toltecs were coming to power, it and its hinterland were abandoned. Its successor as turquoise middleman may have been La Quemada, a very large hilltop fortress in the state of Zacatecas, 106 miles to the southwest of Alta Vista. To guard against Chichimec raids, a great stone wall girdles the summit, within which the bulk of the populace (perhaps a Toltec-dominated local tribe) lived, farming the surrounding countryside. Outside the wall, on the lower slopes of the hill, is the ceremonial center of La Quemada: a very odd 33 ft high pyramid built up of stone slabs, not truncated and lacking a stairway, along with a colonnaded hall recalling Alta Vista and Tula. On the summit are serveral platform-pyramids and a complex of walled courts surrounded by rooms.
The two-way nature of the Toltec contact with the Pueblo peoples can be seen at the site of Casas Gandes, Chihuahua, not far south of the border with New Mexico. The florescence of Casas Grandes was coeval with the late Tollan phase at Tula, and with early Aztec. While the population lived in Southwestern-style apartment houses, the Mesoamerican component can be seen in the presence of platform temple mounds, and I-shaped ball courts, and the cult of the Feathered Serpent. Warehouses filled with rare Southwestern minerals, such as turquoise, were found by Charles DiPeso, the excavator of Casas Grandes. What was traveling north? The Pueblo Indians have a deep ritual need for feathers from tropical birds like parrots and macawas, since these symoblize fertility and the heat of the summer sun. Special pens were discovered at the site in which scarlet macaws were kept, apparently brought there by the Toltecs to exchange for the wonderful blue-green turquoise, or perhaps to pay the natives of New Mexico for working the turquoise mines.
It is fairly clear that all these sites were invloved in the trasmission of Toltec traits into the American Southwest, in particular the conlonaded masonary building and the platform pyramid; the ball court and the game played in it; copper bells; perhaps the idea of masked dancers; and the worship of the Feathered Serpent, which still plays a role in the rituals of people like the Hopi and Zuni. It is also clear that these triats ran along a trading route, a ‘Turquoise Road,’ so to speak, analogous to the famous Silk Road of the Old World the bound civilized and ‘barbarian’ alike into a single cultural whole.
A similar movement of Toltec traits took place in the southeastern United States at the same time, probably via the people living on the other side of the cental plateau, but little is known of the archaeology of that region. In Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Illinois, sites with huge temple mounds and ceremoninal plazas, and their associated pottery and other artifacts, show Toltec influence. Suffice it is to say here that most of the more spectacular aspects of the late farming cultures of the United State blend native elements with cultrual traits from Early Post-Classic Mexico.
The ‘Turquoise Road’ continued to flourish throughout the Post-Classic period, right until the coming of the Spainards, who found the mineral of little monteray value. Dr. Harbottle and the archaeologist Phil Weigand have demonstrated that eventually there were many mines in operation in the Southwest and over the border into Mexico, and that the Pueblo peoples were exporting this substance as highly polished tesserae down into central Mexico on routes which ran on both sides on the western Sierra Madre. The ultimate outpost of this vast mercantile exchange was Chichen Itza, where a complete tezcacuitlapilli mirror was discovered resting on a red-painted jaguar throne inside the city’s famous Castillo pyramid; on its reverse side was a turquoise mosaic featuring four encircling Fire Serpents, exactly as depicted on Tula’s warrior atlantids.”
Maya pg. 83-101: Few of the pottery vessels from the Esperanza tombs are represented in the rubbish strewn around Kaminalijuyu, from which it is clear that they were intended for the use of the invading class alone. Some of these were actually imported from Teotihuacan itself, probably carried laboriously over the intervening 800 or 900 miles on back racks such as those still used by native traders in the Maya highlands.” [[303]]
[[304]] Prehistory pg. 258-260
“The discussion of maize as a staple food requires review in the context of the much larger concept of food production. It is interesting to note that worldwide, coincident with an increasing dependence on any cereal, the overall health and quality of life of a population deteriorates in many ways. Many diseases and nutritional deficiencies or stresses leave evidence of their occurrence in the bones of the body. This it is possible for a paleopathologist to detect in the skeleton many of the unhealthful conditions individuals have experienced during their lives. Thanks to research with archaeological populations recovered from locations in the Americas, Europe, and Near East, it has been possible for scholars to arrive at some general observations that are contrary to one’s expectations. Most of the paleopathologies observed in both historic and prehistoric skeletal populations are related to nutritional stress. Foods lacking in minerals, basic fats, proteins, and amino acids and, more commonly, insufficient food over varyingly long periods of ten leave their marks.
Diseases that cause bone lesions, as well as others that leave no skeletal evidence, are more likely to attack during periods of nutritional stress. Even more conducive to infectious diseases are the unsanitary conditions attending sedentism, a living pattern that usually accompanies the practice of horticulture. When prehistoric people lived together in permanent or semi permanent housing in clustered situations, the incidence of tuberculosis increased markedly, in some Midwest farming populations, for example, over the Woodland incidence of the disease.” [[304]]
[[305]] Maya Chap 4-6 (pictures); Mexico Chap 6 (pictures); Zapotec Chap 15 (pictures) [[305]]
[[306]] Prehistory pg. 249, 300
“Warfare seems to have been common at that time, as the villages are palisaded and located on hills or steep stream banks where defense was easier. The communal longhouse exiseted by then, albeit smaller that the later Iroquois structure. Thus the essential elements of the Iroquois pattern- corn agriculture, villages palisaded in defensible positions on streams, an artistic treatment of tobacco pipes, bone-bundle burials, dogs sometimes used as food, and ceramics clearly ancestral to historic Iroquois pottery- were present by 1300 A.D.” [[306]]
[[307]] Mexican History pg. 25-27; Prehistory pg. 294-297, 299, 318; Gods and Symbols pg. 42-44
Zapotec pg. 180, 188-191, 226: “It was apparently during Monte Alban II that “state ballcourts” in the shape of a Roman numeral I first appeared. It is difficult to put these courts in historic perspective, since we have little information on the ballgame itself.
As early as 1000 BC, some small figurines made at Mesoamerican villages seem to be wearing gloves, knee guards, and other equipment associated with a prehispanic ball game. This game was played with heavy balls made of latex from the indigenous rubber tree. Three such balls were preserved by waterlogging at El Manati in southern Veracruz, a site dating to 1000-700 BC.
This later type of court was called lachi by the Zapotec, and the game was called queye or quiye. While we do not know the rules by which it was played, it probably resebled the Aztec game called olamaliztli or ulama, in which the ball could not be touched with the hands; it was struck instead with the hips, elbows, and head as in modern soccer.
Why would the Zapotec state invest in the construction and standardization of I-shaped ballcourts, in effect promoting an “official” game? No one is sure, but some scholars believe that the ballgame played a role in conflict resolution between communities. It has been suggested that when two opposing towns competed in a state-supervised athletic contest, held on a standardized court at their regional administrative center, the outcome of the game might be taken as a sign of supernatural support for the victorious community. This, in turn, might lessen the likelihood that the two towns would actually go to war.”
Mexico pg. 112, 115-119, 121, 123, 136, 142, 146-147: “Above all, the inhabitants of El Tajin were obsessed with the ball game, human sacrifice, and death, three concepts closely interwoven in the Mesoamerican mind. The courts, which are up to 197 ft long, are formed by two facing walls, with stone surface either vertical or battered. Magnificent bas reliefs in some of them are witness of the drama of the game, with scenes showing mythology associated with it, and ceremonies in which the particapants are the players themselves, all wearing the appropriate paraphernalia.”
Maya pg. 99, 108-109, 114, , 116, 118, 163-164: “Ball courts seem to be present at many sites in the Central Area, but they are more frequent and better made in the southeast, at sites like Copan. These courts are of stucco-faced masonry, and have sloping playing sufaces. At Copan, three stone markers were placed on each side, and three set into the floor of the court, but the exact method of scoring in the game is obscure. Toward the western part of teh Central Area, in centers along the Usumacinta River, sweat baths are known, possibly adopted from Mexio where such structures can still be found in many highland towns.
Reliefs of skulls and manikin figures of skeletons are not uncommon. Their second obession was the rubber ball game. Secure evidence for the game comes from certain stone objects that are frequent in the Cotzumalhuapn zone and in fact over much of the Pacific Coast down to El Salvador. Of these, most typical are the U-shaped stone “yokes” which represented the heavy protective belts of wood and leather worn by the contestants; and thin heads or hachas with human faces, grotesque carnivores, macaws, and turkeys, generally thought to be markers for the zones of the court, but worn on the yoke during post game ceremonies. Both are sure signs of a close affiliation to the Classic cultures of the Mexican Gulf Coast, where such ballgame paraphernalia undoubtedly originated.” [[307]]
[[308]] Gods and Symbols pg. 42-44 [[308]]
[[309]] Mexican History pg. 25-27; Gods and Symbols pg. 42-44
Mexico pg. 115-119: (SAME AS NOTE 307 ABOVE)
“Other panels involve the beginning of the game, while in a final scene the losing captain is apparently being sacrificed by the victors, who brandish a flint knife over his heart: the game played in the courts of El Tajin was not lightly won or lost.” [[309]]
[[310]] Mexican History pg. 25-27; Gods and Symbols pg. 42-44
Mexico pg. 115-119, 142: “In line with the claim that human sacrifce was introduced in the last phase of Tula by the Tezcatlipoca faction, there are several depictions of teh cuauhxicalli, the sacred ‘eagle vessel’ designed to recieve human hearts, as well as a tzompantli, the altar decorated with skulls and crossbones on which the heads of captives were displayed. In fact, the base of an actual tzompantli has been found just to the east of Ball Court 2, the largest at the site; fragments of human skulls littered its surface. In accordance with Mesoamerican custom, these were probably trophies from losers in a game that was ‘played for keeps’!” [[310]]
[[311]] Mexican History pg. 25-27
Mexico pg. 115-119: “The Building of the Columns is the largest ‘palace’ complex at the site. The drums of the columns are carved with narrative scenes from the ceremonial life of the city. The most interesting of these depicts a procession of victorious warriors bringing stripped captives to the to the enthroned ruler, a personage with the calendrical name 13 Rabbit; before him lies the corpse of a disembowled victim. Similar names taken from the 260-day count are found here and elsewhere at El Tajin, but it is doubtful whether a writing system as advanced as those of the Zapotecs or Maya existed here.” [[311]]
[[312]] Mexican History pg. 25-27; Prehistory pg. 306; Gods and Symbols pg. 42-44 [[312]]
[[313]] Mexican History pg. 48-50; Prehistory pg. 319-320 [[313]]
[[314]] Prehistory pg. 238, 247, 249, 261-263, 268, 270-278, 294-297, 299, 308, 319-320; Chiapas Artifacts pg. 199
Zapotec pg. 208-209, 216-221: “In the second half of Monte Alban III, referred as Period IIIb, Reyes Etla was an important Tier 2 or 3 center in the Etla region. One tomb there had its doorway flanked by two remarkable carved stone jambs. Each shows a Zapotec lord in jaguar or puma warrior costume, holding a lance in his hand. Their names are given as 5 Flower and 8 Flower. Each stands below the “Jaws of the Sky” and has a “hill sign” beneath his feet. These jamb figures may represent relatives or ancestors who guarded the tomb, suggesting that even the nobles of Tier 2-3 centers were persons of great importance.” [[314]]
[[315]] Mormon 2:8; Moroni 8:27–29; 9:18-23 [[315]]
[[316]] Mormon 2-6 (approximately 60 years from Zarahemla to Cumorah; about 25 years from Desolation to Cumorah) [[316]]
[[317]] This section will show evidences that the destructions began in Yucatan, passed across the Mexican Highland, up through West Mexico, across the Northwest Mexico and the American Southwest and Midwest and up into the Northeast to Cumorah covering almost the entire continent of North America. [[317]]
[[318]] Mormon 5:8–11; 6:1, 5-22; 8:7 [[318]]
[[319]] Mexico pg. 107-112
“Both murals suggest some sort of opposition or juxtaposition between Eagles and Jaguars, perhaps symbolic of the knightly orders which we know from Post-Classic Mexico. Such an opposition is vividly depicted on the talud of Building B, on which is realistically painted a great battle in progress between jaguar-clad and feathered warriors, any one of whom might be at home on the reliefs of Seibal. There is little doubt that the artist had seen such a conflict, for he depicts such grisly details as a dazed victim, seated on the ground holding his entrails in his hands. The art historian Mary Miller believes that such a battle had actually taken place, perhaps on the swampy plains of southwestern Campeche, but that it had been recast in supernatural terms, in that some of the contestents are improbably given feet of eagles and jaguars.”
Maya 154-155: “It is now evident that the ninth century was a time of turmoil over much of Mesoamerica, with the power of Teotihuacan long since gone, and the old order in the Maya lowlands breaking down. In this power vacuum, the Putan, seasoned businessmen with strong contacts raging from central Mexico to the Caribbean coast of Honduras, must have played a very agressive role in a time of troubles, and their presence in the Mexican highlands may have played a formative role in what was to become the Toltec state.” [[319]]
[[320]] Maya 154-155
(SAME AS NOTE 319 ABOVE)
Mexico pg. 107-112, 126-127: “Stange things began happening in central Mexico during and after the disintegration of Teotihuacan’s empire in the seventh century AD. One of these was the appearance of foreigners, almost certainly from the Gulf Coast lowlands and the Yucatan Peninsula, towards the end of the Classic period. The interrelationship of the highland Mexicans and the Maya has been established by archaeology, but this was usually the domination by the former of the latter, such as the takeover of Kaminalijuyu by Teotihuacanos. During the Early Classic, there must have been at least one enclave of Maya traders at Teotihuacan, and a fine Maya jade plaque in the British Museum is supposed to have been found at that stie. The Maya, with their advanced knowladge of astronomy and sophisticated writing system, probably exerted considerable intellecual and religious influence over the rest of Mesoamerica, and there is some evidence that the dreaded Tezcatlipoca, the great god of war and the royal house in Post-Classic Mexico, was of Maya origin.” [[320]]
[[321]] Mexico pg. 107-112; Maya 24 (color picture), 154-155
(SAME AS NOTE 319 ABOVE) [[321]]
[[322]] Mormon 1:10–12 [[322]]
[[323]] Ancient Kingdoms pg. 112 [[323]]
[[324]] Mormon 2:1–3 [[324]]
[[325]] Teotihuacan pg. 3-4; Ancient Kingdoms pg. 107-108
Mexico pg. 105-106: “The city met its enc around AD 700 through deliberate destruction and burning by the hand of unknown invaders. It was mainly the heart of the city that suffered the torch, especially the palaces and temples on each side of the Avenue of the Dead, from the Pyramid of the Moon to the Ciudadela. Some internal crisis or long-term political and economic malaise, perhaps the distruption of its trade and tribute routes by a new polity such as the rising Xochiclaco state, may have resulted in the downfall, and it may be significant that by AD 600, at the close of the Early Classic, almost all Teotihuacan influence over the rest of Mesoamerica ceases. No more do the nobility of other states stock their tombs with the refined products of the great city.”
People pg. 491: “William Sanders has argued that Teotihuacan, and all had been powerful states at the time of the former’s collapse.
Whatever the cause of Teotihuacan’s collapse, its heyday marks the moment when one can begin to think of the Mesoamerican world in more than purely local and even regional, terms.” [[325]]
[[326]] Mormon 2:3–5 [[326]]
[[327]] Zacatecas pg. 1-2; La Quemada pg. 85-109; this region is called West Mexico in most papers, finding material on this area is difficult because so little research has been done until more recent times; more research is needed in this region.
Mexico pg. 145: “The deep interest of the central Mexicans in the Chichimec zone lying between them and the American Southwest went far beyond the mere search for new lands, however. The site of Alta Vista, near the town of Chalchihuites, Zacatecas, lies astride the Tropic of Cancer, about 390 miles northwest of Tula.” [[327]]
[[328]] Mormon 2:5–16 [[328]]
[[329]] Aztatlan pg. 1-5; more research is needed in this region. [[329]]
[[330]] Mormon 2:8 [[330]]
[[331]] Aztatlan pg. 4; more research is needed in this region. [[331]]
[[332]] Mormon 2:16–20 [[332]]
[[333]] Mormon 2:20–26 [[333]]
[[334]] Warfare pg. 154-186; Chaco Canyon is a well-known site in NW Mexico, there are many books and internet sites dedicated to it exclusively.
Prehistory pg. 310-319: “Aside from the widest distribution ever achieved by Pueblo people, the Pueblo II era is notable for the occurrence of some distinctive local social systems that were apparently quite complex. These have been called “systems of regional integration.” The best known and by far the best studied of these distinctive regional subcultures is called the Chaco Phenomenon. It developed in the San Juan basin in northwestern New Mexico and impinged to some extent into extreme southwestern Colorado. The Phenomenon, centered in Chaco Canyon was short-lived, lasting about 200 years, from 900 A.D., or a little later, until just after 1100 A.D.
There are other details and ramifications comprising the Chaco Phenomenon as currently hypothesized. The reasons for origins of the phenomenon and its suggestion of control remain obscure but not for lack of proposed explanations. An older school of thought tends to view the exotic Mexican artifacts as having arrived en bloc. Such traits as copper bells, macaws, inlaid shell, core veneer architecture, the great kivas and tower kivas, and cylindrical jars, are interpreted as imports. These traits, along with the evidence of central authority such as the building of huge towns to a standard plan, are not seen elsewhere. The influence of small bands of priests or traders who brought attractive new objects and ideas from the more complex and sophisticated Mexican cultures is often cited. Whether persuasion, force, or religious awe of the glamorous strangers provided the leverage toward acceptance is never clear. The idea of extensive trade, especially in turquoise, with the south has also been invoked, and there is good evidence for it. Turquoise occurs in Toltec sites in quantity. The few copper bells or macaws also suggest a systematic northward trade traffic in those commodities, but not a very extensive one. Whatever the explanation, the complex of roads, architecture, and exotic objects still appears anomalous in the Pueblo setting. It has been proposed that the roads facilitated the transporting of the thousands of huge logs used as roof beams in the houses and kivas.
A second, later school sees the entire Chaco development as the complex end product of indigenous factors and influences to be analyzed and understood as a regional event and system. One popular theory is that by 700 A.D., cultigens were becoming a more significant part of the diet and the settlement of Chaco Canyon were arable land was plentiful increased to the point that by 900 A.D. all the prime horticultural lands in the wash or the valley were in use. But further population expansion, either through local increase or continued immigration, led to the exploitation of marginal lands away from the rich valley. The notoriously fickle southwestern summer rainfall and the violent, localized thunderstorms that fall capriciously over the San Juan Basin jeopardize farming somewhat. The crops in one district might prosper while nearby ones failed for lack of moisture.” [[334]]
[[335]] Mormon 3:1–3 [[335]]
[[336]] Prehistory pg. 310-314; almost every Anasazi site from this period has numerous kivas (e.g. Lowry ruins; Aztec ruins; Mesa Verde ruins; Chaco Canyon’s Pueblo Bonito, Casa Rinconada, Chettro Kettle, Pueblo del Arroyo, and Kin Kletso)
“The great kivas, as much as 50 feet deep in diameter, were sometimes 10 feet deep and roofed with a horizontal domed cribbing of logs. There was a raised square fireplace flanked by two large masonry vaults, that is, pits lined with masonry. The walls and the encircling bench were also of thick stone masonry. Four huge posts or stone pillars for central support of the high, cribbed roof were arranged in a square a few feet in from the peripheral bench. On the wall above the bench were usually empty when found. A few had cashes of special artifacts inside, however, and were plastered over. The great kivas were entered by a stairway. The crib roofs of the kivas required more than an estimated 300 heavy logs. Usually these logs were pine, fir, or spruce that came from many miles away in the mountains to the northeast and west. In a desert setting such as Chaco Canyon, the ritual or symbolic value of the large kivas must have been high for the excavation and masonry lining the of the kiva pit.” [[336]]
[[337]] Moroni 7:1–5 [[337]]
[[338]] Mormon 3:1–3; Moroni 8:1–9 [[338]]
[[339]] Mormon 2:28–3:4 [[339]]
[[340]] Tula pg. 42-43, 48-50; Mexican History pg. 38-39; Atlas pg. 105
Mexico pg. 131-144: “Like many other Post-Classic states, Toltec society seems to have been composed of disparate tribal elements which had come together for obscure reasons. One of these, which would appear to have been dominant, was called the Tolteca-Chichimeca. The other group went under the name Nonoalca, and according to some scholars was made up of sculptors and artisans from the old civilized regions of Puebla and the Gulf Coast, brought in to construct the monuments of Tula. The Toltca-Chichimeca, for their part, were probably the original Nahua-speakers who founded the Toltec state. As their name implies, they were once barbarians, perhaps semi-civilized Chichimeca originating on the fringes of Mesoamerica among the Uto-Aztecans of western Mexico, for although it was said that ‘they came from the interior of the plains, among the rocks,’ their level of culture was substantially higher that that of the ‘real’ Chichimeca.” [[340]]
[[341]] Tula pg. 45; Gods and Symbols pg. 164-165 [[341]]
[[342]] Tula pg. 45 [[342]]
[[343]] Tula pg. 48-50 [[343]]
[[344]] Mexico pg. 107-112
“Strange things began happening in central Mexico during and after the disintergration of Teotihuacan’s empire in the seventh century AD. One of these was the appearance of foreigners, almost certainly from the Gulf Coast lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula, towards the end of the Classic period.
Xicallanco was an important trading town in southern Campeche controlled by the Putun, Maya-speaking seafaring merchants whose commercial interests ranged from teh Olmeca country, along teh coast of the entire Yucatan Peninsula, as far as the Carrabbean shore of Honduras.”
Maya pg. 151-164: “But what happened to the bulk of the population who once occupied the Central Area, apparently in the millions? This is one of the great mysteries of Maya archaeology, since we have little or no evidence allowing us to come up with a solution. The early Colonial chronicles in Yucatec Maya speak of a “Great Descent” and “Lesser Descent,” implying two mighty streams of refuges heading north from the abandoned cities inot Yucatan, and Linda Schele and Peter Mathews, like Sylvanus Morley before them, believe that this account relfects historical fact. Some may have migrated in a southerly direction, particularly into the Chiapas highlands. So far, however, this puative diaspora seems to have left no real traces in the archaeolgical record.” [[344]]
[[345]] Mexico pg. 138-140
“The rear room had four square pillars, carved on all sides with Toltec warriors adorned with the sybols of the knightly orders. There, in the sactuary, once stood a stone altar supported by little atlantean figures. Also in the temple and in other parts of the ceremonial precinct wer peculiar scuptures called ‘chacmools,’ reclining personages bearing round dishes or receptacles for human hearts on their bellies; these were probably avartars of the Rain God.
Around the four sides of Pyramid B were bas reliefs sybolizing the warrior orders on which the strength of the empire depended: prowling jaguars and coyotes, and eagles eating hearts, interspered with strange composite beasts thought to represent Quetzalcoatl.
On the north side of the pyramid and parallel to it is the 131 ft long ‘Serpent Wall’, embellished with painted friezes, the basic motif of which is a serpent eating a human; the head has been reduced to a skull, and the flesh has been partially stripped from the long bones.”
Maya pg. 151-164: “The great city of Seibal on the Rio Pasion apparently recovered from its defeat at the hands of the far smaller Dos Pilas, but during the Terminal Classic it seems to have come under the sway of warriors (or warrior-traders) from a further afield. The evidence is to be found in the part of the site known as Group A; in its south plaza sits an unusual four-sided structure with four stairways. In front of each stariway is a stela, and a fith stands inside the temple.” [[345]]
[[346]] Tula pg. 48-50
Mexico pg. 144-147: “Alta Vista itself is little more than a ceremonial center with a colonnaded hall on a defensible hill, but it is possible that this architectural trait, along with the tzompntli or skull rack, may have provided a Classic protype for these features at Tula.
In this trade, Alta Vista was an early intermediary. About AD 900, just as the Toltecs were coming to power, it and its hinterland were abandoned. Its successor as turquoise middleman may have been La Quemada, a very large hilltop fortress in the state of Zacatecas, 106 miles to the southwest of Alta Vista. To guard against Chichimec raids, a great stone wall girdles the summit, within which the bulk of the populace (perhaps a Toltec-dominated local tribe) lived, farming the surrounding countryside. Outside the wall, on the lower slopes of the hill, is the ceremonial center of La Quemada: a very odd 33 ft high pyramid built up of stone slabs, not truncated and lacking a stairway, along with a colonnaded hall recalling Alta Vista and Tula. On the summit are serveral platform-pyramids and a complex of walled courts surrounded by rooms.” [[346]]
[[347]] Mormon 3:1 [[347]]
[[348]] Warfare pg. 153-196 [[348]]
[[349]] Mexico pg. 144-147
“The two-way nature of the Toltec contact with the Pueblo peoples can be seen at the site of Casas Gandes, Chihuahua, not far south of the border with New Mexico. The florescence of Casas Grandes was coeval with the late Tollan phase at Tula, and with early Aztec. While the population lived in Southwestern-style apartment houses, the Mesoamerican component can be seen in the presence of platform temple mounds, and I-shaped ball courts, and the cult of the Feathered Serpent. Warehouses filled with rare Southwestern minerals, such as turquoise, were found by Charles DiPeso, the excavator of Casas Grandes. What was traveling north? The Pueblo Indians have a deep ritual need for feathers from tropical birds like parrots and macawas, since these symoblize fertility and the heat of the summer sun. Special pens were discovered at the site in which scarlet macaws were kept, apparently brought there by the Toltecs to exchange for the wonderful blue-green turquoise, or perhaps to pay the natives of New Mexico for working the turquoise mines.
It is fairly clear that all these sites were invloved in the trasmission of Toltec traits into the American Southwest, in particular the conlonaded masonary building and the platform pyramid; the ball court and the game played in it; copper bells; perhaps the idea of masked dancers; and the worship of the Feathered Serpent, which still plays a role in the rituals of people like the Hopi and Zuni. It is also clear that these triats ran along a trading route, a ‘Turquoise Road,’ so to speak, analogous to the famous Silk Road of the Old World the bound civilized and ‘barbarian’ alike into a single cultural whole.” [[349]]
[[350]] Casas Grandes pg. 290-301, 309, 482-501
Prehistory pg. 289-327: “Such a situation, it is theorized, led to the creation of a network of exchange in which towns or districts with good crops shared with their less-fortunate neighbors. The theory calls for central storage and redistribution centers and some specialized control to make the system work. The big towns are given the role of central storage and distribution.” [[350]]
[[351]] Prehistory pg. 317
Mexico pg. 146 (144-147): “The two-way nature of the Toltec contact with the Pueblo peoples can be seen at the site of Casas Gandes, Chihuahua, not far south of the border with New Mexico. The florescence of Casas Grandes was coeval with the late Tollan phase at Tula, and with early Aztec. While the population lived in Southwestern-style apartment houses, the Mesoamerican component can be seen in the presence of platform temple mounds, and I-shaped ball courts, and the cult of the Feathered Serpent. Warehouses filled with rare Southwestern minerals, such as turquoise, were found by Charles DiPeso, the excavator of Casas Grandes. What was traveling north? The Pueblo Indians have a deep ritual need for feathers from tropical birds like parrots and macawas, since these symoblize fertility and the heat of the summer sun. Special pens were discovered at the site in which scarlet macaws were kept, apparently brought there by the Toltecs to exchange for the wonderful blue-green turquoise, or perhaps to pay the natives of New Mexico for working the turquoise mines.”
People pg. 326-327: “The dig showed that its inhabitants exchanged turquoise and painted pottery from the Southwest for marine shells and exotic bird feathers from Mexico. Local traditions connect Casas Grande with a settelement named Paqime, which was more of a Mexican town than an Indian pueblo.” [[351]]
[[352]] Casas Grandes pg. 290-309, 482-501
Prehistory pg. 289-327: “Monks Mound dominated from its north end of a vast plaza of some 200 acres enclosed in a bastioned palisade or stockade of large posts. Along each side of the plaza were twelve or more platform and conical mounds with a single platform at the south end of the plaza. Outside the Monks Mound enclosure to north, south, east, and west were dozens of other mounds dominating other plazas. But there were four other large, but lesser mound groups clustered around smaller plazas. Everywhere over the entire bottom and on the valley bluffs to the east were sources of hamlets and farmsteads, which are believed to have supported the centers with foodstuffs and services.
The distribution of these big sites, their locations on water courses, and their very size lead some scholars to postulate that they were religious and administrative centers, peopled primarily by a powerful upper class that controlled trade and, possibly, population distribution and, of course, possessed absolute political and religious power.
There is no doubt that there was an elite Mississippian social class. This is attested by the rich mortuary offerings and the elaborate ceremonies with which the burials were made. Burials occurred on the tops of the pyramid mounds, a mortuary ritual that can be identified wherever the mound groups are found. The uniformity of occurrence has led to the interpretation that there were elite lineages and that their high status was ascribed by virtue of birth, because even children were sometimes accorded elaborate burial ceremony and grave goods. However, near or in the towns were large cemeteries, where lower-class citizens were buried. Here too, there is an occasional richly accompanied burial, but the objects are of a different nature, such as the tools or creations of a craftsman. Such persons are believed to have achieved a relatively high status through merit rather than birth.” [[352]]
[[353]] Mormon 3:4–5 [[353]]
[[354]] Mormon 3:4–6 [[354]]
[[355]] Mexico pg. 146; it has been very difficult to find research on the sites of northern Durango and southern Chihuahua and Sonora; the site Zape or Sape depending on the literature is in about the right place geographically but the only book on the region I could find was very old and entailed only a surface reconnaissance of the site. A search of Journal Articles may prove fruitful. [[355]]
[[356]] Mormon 3:4–4:19 [[356]]
[[357]] Mormon 4:19–22 [[357]]
[[358]] Mortuary Practices pg. 5-7, 75-76; Casas Grandes pg. 290-301, 484-485; Sierra Madre pg. 132 [[358]]
[[359]] Ibid. [[359]]
[[360]] Warfare pg. 197-276; Prehistory pg. 320-321 [[360]]
[[361]] Mormon 4:19–5:2 [[361]]
[[362]] Warfare pg. 197-276; Prehistory pg. 320-321 [[362]]
[[363]] Mormon 2:7–8, 20–21; 3:5; 4:1-5, 11, 20-23; 5:3-8 [[363]]
[[364]] Warfare pg. 197-276
People pg. 326-329: “At the same time that people concentrated in larger sites, there was depopulation of many areas of the northern Southwest. The reasons for these changes are imperfectly understood. It may be that the changes genterated by the developments in Chaco and elsewhere caused people to congregate more closely. Alternatively, it has been argued that some climatic and enviromental changes, as yet little understood, may have caused major shifts in the settlement pattern. More likely, a combination of enviromental, societal, and adaptive changes set in motion a period of turbulence and culture change.” [[364]]
[[365]] Moroni 9:7–10 [[365]]
[[366]] Mortuary Practices pg. 7; Warfare pg. 169-176 [[366]]
[[367]] Mortuary Practices pg. 71-72; Warfare pg. 169-176 [[367]]
[[368]] Mortuary Practices pg. 1, 71 [[368]]
[[369]] Moroni 9:7–8 [[369]]
[[370]] Warfare pg. 233 (80-81, 83, 161, 324) [[370]]
[[371]] Mormon 5:3–4 [[371]]
[[372]] Warfare pg. 200-225 [[372]]
[[373]] Mormon 4:16–5:8; Mormon 8:1–9; Moroni 1:1–4 [[373]]
[[374]] Sierra Madre pg. 132; SW Indians pg. 72 [[374]]
[[375]] Mormon 5:3–4 [[375]]
[[376]] Prehistory pg. 254-278, 289
“Most Mississippian sites and mounds are small, so the sheer size if the few well-known Mississippian sites is overwhelming. These sites are characterized by clusters of mounds, some of which are truncated pyramids, arranged around a plaza. There may be conical mounds adjacent, but they are arranged in on apparent pattern. Even today after centuries of erosion many sites reveal an encircling embankment; outside the palisade of posts atop the earthen embankment the borrow pit stood open as a moat. Villages were not always nearby or inside the palisade. Normally they were scattered though the farmlands in the valleys. These huge sites can be thought of as religious, administrative, or even economic centers such as are presaged in the Hopewellian sites and are common in Mexico and Central America.” [[376]]
[[377]] Prehistory pg. 233-246 (The Mississippian grew out of the Hopewell)
“What can inferred from the above description? Whatever the reason, the central theme, the power of the interaction sphere lay in the mortuary ritual and the trappings that accompanied it. To call the force religious is to claim more than can be proved, but religion is a force that can flow across cultural and linguistic boundaries as an overlay or veneer upon the local cultures. To stretch the point, world history offers such obvious examples as the spread of Islam and Christianity. At any rate, a religious motivation for the Hopewellian cult is not totally unreasonable. Usually, religion implies a superordinate priesthood, that is, a class of specialists with superior status. Priest-chieftains combining both sacred and secular powers can be postulated. The presence of a priesthood suggests a stratified society, an idea supported by the rich grave offerings for a few of the dead. The huge earthen monuments and a probable artisan class suggest a measure of secular control over the community, perhaps resembling a corvee or labor tax. During Hopewell times, there was probably some intensification of the cultivation of native plants.” [[377]]
[[378]] Prehistory pg. 254-278
“On festival or ritual days the plaza would be the scene of fiercely fought ball games akin to lacrosse or complicated dances done to the rhythm of drums and rattles and the music of many singers. Like the priests, the dancers would be colorfully dressed in rich costumes and ornaments. The Creek Busk or Green Corn festival of thanksgiving, held on the dance ground even into the twentieth century, probably preserves a faded vestige of the Mississippian splendor. Some of the rituals would have involved purification and long-drawn-out ceremonies of human sacrifice to one or another god, while the people from all supporting villages crowded the plaza to watch the dancers and the priests go in procession up the steep stairways to the summit of the mound, where the sacrificial climax was reached.
At other times, the scene at the plaza would involve the death and burial of a priest-ruler. These rituals also involved many days of prescribed processions, feasts, and sacrifice. As already noted, DuPratz saw and reported a Natchez chieftain’s burial ceremony in 1725. That mourning ceremony for Tattooed Serpent, Brother of the Sun, lasted for several days and involved all the Natchez villages. As part of the burial ceremony, the dead man’s two wives and his “speaker,” doctor, head servant, pipe bearer, and sister were ritually strangled. Several old women who, for one reason or another, had offered their lives were also strangled. The two wives were buried with the Tattooed Serpent in the temple, his speaker and one of the women were buried in front of the temple, and the others carried to their respective village temples for burial. His sister, also buried with him, was reported by DuPratz to have been reluctant to participate in the ceremony. As was customary, Tattooed Serpent’s house was burned. The burial of personages within and near houses and the subsequent destruction of those houses by fire are well attested archaeologically.” [[378]]
[[379]] Prehistory pg. 263-266, 271-278
“At about 1200 A.D., when the Mississippian cultures were approaching the height of their strength, a complex of exotic artifacts appeared. The distribution of these objects in pan-Mississippian.
The objects are an exquisite expression of artistry combined with skilled craftsmanship. The artifacts were created in every medium: wood, shell, clay, stone, and hammered copper. The art is concerned with depicting animals, humans, mythical creatures, tools, and of motifs. The artifacts are not utilitarian but ornamental and are undoubtedly rich in conventional and symbolic meaning. As a subject for study they have attracted attention for a century. Much speculation has attended that study; the complex of artifacts is said to have been a death cult because of the skull, hand-eye, and other motifs. But the function of the artifacts served is not yet completely known.” [[379]]
[[380]] Prehistory pg. 271-278
“The representations of human sacrifice in pipe sculpture, the daggers in the hands of some of the bird-man warriors or priests, severed heads, and many of the other symbols strongly suggest warfare or rituals of human sacrifice. Some of these artifacts and motifs are not new. Some seen to be a legacy from the Hopewell and even the Adena. On the other hand, the depiction of human sacrifice is interpreted by some as evidence of strong Mexican cultism, even perhaps of an increment of high-ranking individuals into the South. Others defend it as a climax phenomenon, developed autonomously in situ from the ceremonialism already evident throughout the East for some 2000 years. Some specialists in Southeast prehistory even deny cult or any coherent cluster of behavior surrounding the special objects. Instead they assert that the value of the cult artifacts is intrinsic. They hold that the wide dispersal of the objects, well beyond the Mississippian sphere of influence indicates that the rare exotics were created exclusively for trade.” [[380]]
[[381]] Mormon 2:15 [[381]]
[[382]] 2 Nephi 4:33–35; 28:30-32 [[382]]
[[383]] Atlas pg. 56, 60; Mysteries pg. 180-183, 186-187; because carbon dating gives such late dates for the large Mississippian complexes some authors do not distinguish between those building the huge ceremonial centers and the wandering groups that followed. If these theories are correct then there were over 1400 years for the Indian population to rebound and the collapse of such a large society into groups of wandering tribes is a definite evidence of the Book of Mormon. [[383]]
[[384]] Atlas pg. 56, 60; Mysteries pg. 180-183, 186-187 [[384]]
[[385]] Mysteries pg. 187 [[385]]
[[386]] Evidences pg. 7-8 quoting: Squire, E.G.; Antiquities of New York; 1851. [[386]]
[[387]] Mormon 6:1–22 [[387]]
[[388]] People pg. 120-149
“There can be little doubt that increased efficiency as a carnivore played an important role in the emergence of both archaic Homo sapiens and anatomically modern Homo sapiens sapiens. We explored current thinking about the emergence of H. sapiens sapiens in tropical Africa and hypothesized that anatomically modern humans spread from the tropics into North Africa and the Near East in about 90,000 BC. From there, H. sapiens may have intered Europe at the time of low sea level, crossing the land bridge that connected the Balkans with Turkey across the Bosphorus.”
Israel pg. 25: “Of the oldest known permanent settlements, far the most interesting to students of the Bible is that found in the lower levels of the mound of Jericho. As we have said, Jericho was first settled at least as far back as 8000 BC. But for many centuries little stood there save flimsy huts, which may represent no more than a long series of seasonal encampments. There were ultimately succeeded, however, by a permanent town which continued through many levels fo building in two distinct phases with a gap between, representing two successive Neolithic cultures before the invention of pottery. From the extreme depth of the remains (up to forty-five feet), it is evident that these cultures endured for centuries, beginning before the end of the eighth millennium BC and lasting at least till the end of the seventh. Nor can they be called primative. Through much of its history the town protected by massive fortification of stone. Houses were built of mud bricks of two distinct types, corresponding of the two phases of occupation mentioned above. In the later of these phases, house floors and walls were plastered and polished, and frequently painted; traces of reed mats which covered the floors have been found. Small clay figures of women and also domestic animals suggest the practice of the fertillity cult. Unique statues of clay on reed frames, discovered some years ago, hint that high gods may have been worshipped in Neolithic Jericho; in groups of three, these possibly represent that ancient triad, the divine family: father, mother, and son. Equally interesting are groups of human skulls (the bodies were buried elsewhere, as a rule under house floors) with the features modeled in clay and with shells for eyes.” [[388]]
[[389]] Abraham 1:23–24 [[389]]
[[390]] Israel pg. 27
“Meanwhile, sedentary life had also begun in Egypt. Traces of the presence of man in Egypt go back to the Early Paleolithic Age, when the Nile Delta lay under the sea and its valley was a swampy jungle inhabited by wild animals. We may assume that men had lived on the fringes of the valley ever since and had made their way into it to fish and to hunt, and subsequently to settle down. By the Neolithic Age, when the geography of Egypt had assumed roughly its present shape, we may suppose that villages, first temorary, then permanent, had begun to be established. But the transition to sedentary life cannot be documented in Egypt as it can in western Asia. The earlist permanent villages presumably lie under deep layers of Nile mud. The earliest village culture known to us is that of Fayum, followed by the slightly later one discovered at Merimde in the western Delta. These are Neolithic cultures after the invention of pottery- thus somewhat parallel to the pottery Neolithic of western Asia. Radiocarbon tests seem to place a Fayum in the latter half of the fifth millennium. At this time, although agriculture had begun to be developed, swamp with villages few and far between. Nevertheless, it is clear that in Egypt as elsewhere civilization had made its start- and some twenty-five hundred years before Abraham.” [[390]]
[[391]] Israel pg. 24-27
“The earliest permanent villages known to us made their appearance toward toward the end of the Stone Age, as far as back as the seventh, and even the eigth, millennium BC. Before that, men for the most part lived in caves.
The presence of obsidian tools (probably from Anatolia), turquoise (from Sinai). and cowrie shells (from the seacoast) points to trade relationships, whether direct or indirect, extending over considerable distances. Neolithic Jericho is truly amazing. Its people- whoever they may have been- were in the very vanguard of the march toward civilization (dare on believe it?) some five thousand years before Abraham!
Village life continued to develop through the sixth millennium and into hte fifth, by which time villages and towns had been established almost everywhere.”
People pg. 151-155: “These and other Holocene climatic changes had profound effects in hunter-gatherer societies throughout the world, especially on the intensity of the food quest and complexity of their societies. Why had such changes not occurred earlier in pre-history? There had been climatic changes of similar, in not even greater, magnitude in early millennia, say during the early part of the last interglacial, some 128,000 years ago. The reason may be population density. Then, human populations were much smaller and a great deal of the world was uninhabited. It was possible for human populations living in large territories to move around freely, to adapt to new circumstances by shifting their home land, even over large distances. This ability enabled them to develop highly flexable survival strategies that took account of the constant fluctuations in food availability. If, for example, an African band had experienced two dry years in a row, it could move away of fall back on less nutritious edible foods, perhaps species that required more energy to harvest.” [[391]]
[[392]] People pg. 248
“Deep-sea cores and pollen studies tell us that the Near Eastern climate was cool and dry from about 18,000 to 13,000 BC, during the late Weichsel. Sea levels dropped more than 300 feet; much of the interior was covered by dry steppe, with forest restricted to the Levant and Turkish coasts. Between 13,000 and 8000 BC, climatic conditions warmed up considerably, reaching a maximum about 3000 BC. Forests expanded rapidly at the end of the Ice Age, for the climate was still cooler than today and considerably wetter. Many areas of the Near East were richer in animal and plant species that they are now, making them highly favorable for human occupation.”
Israel pg. 27: “It was a period of amazing cultural flowering. Agriculture, vastly improved and expanded, made possible both better nourishment and the support of an increasing density o f population. Most of the cities were founded that were to play a part in Mesopotamian history for millenniums to come.” [[392]]
[[393]] Joshua 2:1–6:27 [[393]]
[[394]] Neolithic pg. 33-47; Grolier, Jericho
Israel pg. 25-26: (SAME AS NOTE 388 ABOVE) [[394]]
[[395]] Neolithic pg. 33-47; Grolier, Jericho
Israel pg. 25-26: “These may have served some cultic purpose (possibly some form of ancestor worship), and certainly attest a marked artistic ability. Bones of dogs, goats, pigs, sheep, an oxen indicate that animals were domesticated, while sickels, querns, and grinders attest to the cultivation of ceral crops. From the size of the town and the paucity of naturally arable land around it, it has been inferred that a system of irrigation had developed.” [[395]]
[[396]] Joshua 6:1–27 [[396]]
[[397]] Neolithic pg. 33-47; Grolier, Jericho
Israel pg. 25-26: “On the Mediterranean coast, radiocarbon tests likewise indiate that the earliest settlement at Ras Shamra (again without pottery) reaches back into the seventh millennium. In Palestine, too, prepottery Neolithic settlements have been discoverd at various places, at least one of which (Bedia in Transjordan) is placed by radiocarbon tests in the early seventh millenium.” [[397]]
[[398]] Neolithic pg. 33-47; Grolier, Jericho
Israel pg. 25-26: (SAME AS NOTE 388 ABOVE) [[398]]
[[399]] Neolithic pg. 42-47
Israel pg. 25-26, 31-32: “The pottery, while not to be compared with the painted wares of Mesopotamia from an artistic point of view, shows technical excellence. Houses were built of sun dried, handmade bricks, often on stone foundations.
But it was in the Neolithic period that the transition from cave-dwelling to sedentary life, from a food-gathering to a food-producing economy, was completed and the building of permanent villages began to go foward. With this, since there could have been no civilization without it, one can say that the march of civilization had begun.
Bones of dogs, goats, pigs, sheep, and oxen indicate that animals were domesticated, while sickles, querns, and grinders attest to the cultivation of ceral crops.” [[399]]
[[400]] Chiapas Burials; Mediterranean pg. 65; Neolithic pg. 42-44
Zapotec pg. 71-75: “At Tlapacoya, on the shores of Lake Chalco in the southern Basin of Mexico, Christine Niederberger excavated their remains of an Archaic group who she believes had already established “prolonged or permanent residency in the same site.” Her argument is that unusually rich environment of the Chalco lakeshore might have provided year-around food. No permanent houses were found at the site, however. And while plants and animals from the rainy season and the dry season were present in the refuse, the same was true at Guila Naquitz. All that is necessary to collect them is for a group to arrive in August (late rainy season) and stay until January (mid-dry season).”
Mexico pg. 41-58: “Houses were rectangular and about 20 ft (6 m) long, with slightly sunken floors of clay covered with river sand. The sides of vertical canes between wooden posts, and were daubed with mud, and white-washed; roofs were thatched.”
[[400]]
[[401]] Israel pg. 25-26, 31-32, 40-41
“Though Palestine never developed a material culture remotely comparable to the cultures of the Euphrates and the Nile, the third millennium witnessed remarkable progress in that land too. Since this was broadly conincident with the heyday of Ebla, a connection is in every way likely. It was a time of great urban development, when population increased, cites were built and, presumably, city-states established. Many of the cites that later appear in the Bible are known from excavations to have been in existence: Jericho (rebuilt after a long abandonment), Megiddo, Beth-shan, Ai, Gezer, etc.” [[401]]
[[402]] Israel pg. 31-32
“Although the fourth millennium in Palestine remains obscure at a number of points, it is clear that it witnessed the development of village life in various parts of the land, with many places apparently being settled for the first time. In this period Palestine seems to have fallen into two cultural provinces, one in the northern and centarl areas, the other in the south.” [[402]]
[[403]] 1 Kings 11:41–12:20; 2 Chronicles 9:29–11:4 [[403]]
[[404]] Israel pg. 31-32
(SAME AS NOTE 402 ABOVE) [[404]]
[[405]] 2 Kings 15-17 [[405]]
[[406]] Early Bronze pg. 85-90; Israel pg. 27-36; Mediterranean pg. 58-72 [[406]]
[[407]] Early Bronze pg. 88-90
Israel pg. 40-41: “In Palestine the bulk of the third millennium falls into the period known by archaeologists as the Early Bronze. This period- or a transitional phase leading into it- began late in the fourth millennium, as the Prooliterate culture flourished in Mesopotamia and the Gerzean in Egypt, and continued till the closing centuries of the third. Though palestine never developed a material culture remotely comparable to the cultures of the Euphrates and the Nile, the third millennium witnessed remarkable progress in that land too. Since this was boradly coincident with the heyday of Ebla, a connection is every way likely. It was a time of great urban development, when population increased, cites were built and, presumably, city-states established.” [[407]]
[[408]] 2 Kings 24; 2 Chronicles 36 [[408]]
[[409]] Israel pg. 44
“In the latter part of the third millennium (roughly between the twenty-third and twentieth centuries), as we pass through the final phase of the Early Bronze Age into the first phase of the Middle Bronze- or perhaps enter a traditional period between the two- we encounter abundant evidence that life in Palestine suffered a major distruption at the hands of nomadic invaders who were pressing the land. City after city was destroyed (as far as is known every major city was), some with incredible violence, and the Early Bronze civilization was brought to an end. Similar disruption seems to have taken place in Syria. These newcomers did not rebuild and occupy the cities they had destroyed. Rather they (or the survivors of the Early Bronze culture) seem to have pursued a nomadic life on the fringes for a time; only gradually did they begin to build villages and settle down. By the end of the third millennium such villages are known to have existed especially in Transjordan in the Jordan valley, and southward in the Negeb; but they were small, poorly constructed, and without material pretensions. It was not until approximately the ninteenth century, when a fresh and vigorous cultral influence spread across the lands, that urban life can be said to have resumed.” [[409]]
[[410]] 2 Kings 24-25; 2 Chronicles 36 [[410]]
[[411]] Early Bronze pg. 88-90
Israel pg. 36-38: “In the twenty-fourth century, a dynasty of Semitic rulers seized power and created the first true empire in world history. The founder was Sargon, a figure whose origins are cloaked in myth. Rising to power in Kish, he overthrew Lugalzaggisi of Erech and subdued all Sumer as far as the Persian Gulf. Then, transferring his residence to Akkad (of unknown location, but near the later Babylon), he emabrked on a series of conquests which became legendary.” [[411]]
[[412]] 2 Chronicles 36:20–21 (1-21); 2 Kings 25 [[412]]
[[413]] Israel pg. 44
(SAME AS NOTE 409 ABOVE) [[413]]
[[414]] Israel pg. 41-43, 48-49
“We have seen that in the twenty-fourth century power passed from the Sumerian city-states to the Semitic kings of Akkad, who created a great empire. After the conquests of Naramisn, however, the power of Akkad rapidly waned and soon after 2200 was brought to an end by the onslaught of a barbarian people called the Guti.” [[414]]
[[415]] 2 Chronicles 36:22–23; Ezra 1-3 [[415]]
[[416]] Israel pg. 54-55
“Beginning by the nineteenth century, however, western Palestine experienced a remarkable recovery under the impulse of a fresh and vigorous cultral influence that was spreading over the whole of Palestine and Syria; strong cites began once more to be built, and urban life to flourish, perhaps as new groups of immigrants arrived, and as increasing numbers of seminomads setteled down.” [[416]]
[[417]] Israel pg. 41-64
“Many of the cites that later appear in the Bible are known from excavations to have been in existence: Jericho (rebuilt after a long abandonment), Megiddo, Beth-shan, Ai, Gezer, etc. (the Ebla texts are said to mention yet others, including Jerusalem). These cities, though scarcely magnificent, were suprisingly well built and strongly fortified, as the excavations show.” [[417]]
[[418]] Israel pg. 64-66
“By this time, too, the partriarchal simplicity of Amorite seminomadic life had all but vanished. Cities were numerous, well constructed and, as we have seen, strongly fortified. There was a general increase in population, together with a marked advance in material culture. The city-state system characteristic of Palestine until the Isralite conquest seems to have been developed, with the land divided into various petty kingdoms, or provinces, each with its own ruler- who was no doubt subject to higher control from without. Society was feudal in structure, with wealth most unevenly divided; alongside the fine houses of partricians one finds the hovels of half-free serfs. Nevertheless the cities of the day give evidnce of a prosperity such as Palestine seldom knew in ancient times.” [[418]]
[[419]] Israel pg. 107-120, 130-133
“In the Late Bronze Age, Egypt entered her period of Empire, during which she was unquestionably the dominat nation in the world. Architects of the Empire were the Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, a house that was founded as the Hyksos were expelled from Egypt and that retained power for some two hundred and fifty years, bringing to Egypt a strength and a prestige unequaled in all her long history.” [[419]]
[[420]] Israel pg. 114-115
“When Ramesses II died after a long and glorious reign, his successor was his thirteenth son, Marniptah, who was already past middle life. Marniptah was not allowed to live out his brief reign in peace. A time of of confusion was beginning which was to see all western Asia plunged into turmoil, and which the Ninteenth Dynasty did not survive.
Though Marniptah mastered the situation, he did not long survive his triumph. Then, after several rulers of no importance, the dynasty ended in a period of confusion about which little is known. We can scarcely doubt that during these disturbed years Egyptian control of Palestine virtually left off- a circumstance that surely aided Isreal in consolidating her position in that land.” [[420]]
[[421]] Israel pg. 115-117
” ‘Amorite,’ on the other hand, was, as we have seen, an Akkadian word meaning ‘Westerner,’ various Northwest-Semitic peoples of Upper Mesopotamia and Syria, from among whom Israel’s own ancestors had come. These nomadic elements which had infiltrated Palestine at the end of the Early Bronze Age and had roamed and settled especially in the mountainous interior were established in Transjordan. But though there are passages where the Bible seems to perserve a distinction between the two peoples (e.g., Num, 13:29; Deut. 1:7, where the Amorites are placed in the mountians, the Canaanites by the sea), for the most part it uses the terms loosely if not synonymously. There is a justification for this in that, by the time of the conquest, the “Amorites,” having been in the land for centuries, had so thoroughly assimilated the language, social organization, and culture of Cannaan that little remained to distinguish one group from the other. The dominant pre-Israelite population was thus in race and language not different from Israel herself.” [[421]]
[[422]] Israel pg. 137-143
“During the period of the Empire, as we have seen, Palestine was divided into a number of relatively small city-states, each of which was ruled by a king who, as the Pharaoh’s vassal, exercised control over the outlying towns and villages of his modest domain. Society was feudal in structure, consisting of a hereditary patrician class, a pesantry that was only half free, and numerous slaves, but apparently with very little of a middle class. Under such a system the lot of the poor was hard, and it scarcely improved as centuries of Egyptian taxation and misrule drained the land of its wealth. Moreover, the endless quarrels between city lords, which Egypt often chose to ignore, must have been disastrous for poor villagers, who were often unable to work their fields and were taxed and concripted to boot. The Amarna letters let us see the situation clearly. They also show us ‘Apiru making trouble from one end of the land to the other. As we have said, these ‘Apiru were not newcomers pressing in from the desert. Rather, they were rootless people without place in established society, who had either been alienated from it or never integrated within it, and who eked out an existence in remoter areas on its fringes; they readily turned into freebooters and bandits. Slaves, abused peasants, and ill-paid mercenaries would be tempted to run away and join them- i.e., to “become Hebrews.” Sometimes whole areas went over to them. We have seen how they succeeded in gaining control of a considerable domain centerd upon Schechem. The city lords feared these people, implored the Pharaoh for protection against them, and accused on another of consorting with them. Their fears were well grounded: the system of which they were a part was threatened.” [[422]]
[[423]] Israel pg. 129-133 (107-143)
“The problem arises in part of the Bible itself, for the Bible does not present us with one single, coherent account of the conquest. According to the main account (Josh., chs, 1 to 12), the conquest represented a concerted effort by all Isreal, and was sudden, bloody, and complete.
Still we must reckon with the possibility that in certain cases there has been a telescoping of events in the Biblical tradition. The Israelite “conquest” of Palestine was actually a long drawn-out affair; it began with the partiarchal migrations far back in the Bronze Age, and it was not finally completed until the time of David. The Isreal that emerged drew together within its structure groups of traditions of conquests made by their ancestors as they came into the land, and it is conceivable that, as the normative conquest tradition took shape, events that took place at widely separated times may have been combined within it- under the rubric of “conquest”, one might say.” [[423]]
[[424]] Israel pg. 129-133
“It has long been the fashion to credit the latter picture at the expense of the former. The narative of Joshua is part of a great history of Israel from Moses to the exile, comprising the books Dueteronomy-Kings and first composed probably late in the seventh century. Many think that the picture of an unified invasion of Palestine is the author’s idealization. They regard the narratives as a row of separate traditions, chiefly of an etiological character (i.e., developed to explain the origin of some custom or landmark) and of minimal historical value, originally unconnected with one another or, for the most part, with Joshua- who was an Ephraimite tribal hero who was secondarily made into the leader of a united Isreal. They hold that there was no violent conquest at all, but that the Israelite tribes occupied Palestine by a gradual, and for the most part peaceful, process of infiltration. But this understanding of the matter would seem to be as one-sided as the conventional one, which viewed the conquest as a single, massive, organized military operation. Both views doubtless contain elements of truth. But the actual events that established Israel on the soil of Palestine were assuredly vastly more complex than a simplistic presentation of either view would suggest.” [[424]]
[[425]] Compare Israel pg. 114-117, 137-143 to Israel pg. 414-427; I would also recommend using a good encyclopedia and comparing cultures such as the Ptolemies to Egypt’s New Kingdom and the Seleucids to the Hittites. [[425]]
[[426]] Israel pg. 114-115, 174-176 (this book becomes increasingly difficult to use as a reference after the Late Bronze because the author begins to intertwine the Bible with the archaeology and does not clearly state the sources for his interpretations); Grolier, Sea Peoples [[426]]
[[427]] Israel pg. 114-115; Grolier, Sea Peoples
“Among the Peoples of the Sea, Marniptah lists Shardina, ‘Aqiwasha, Turusha, Ruka (Luka), and Shakarusha. These people, some of whom (Luka, Shardina) we have met as mercenaries at the battle of Kadesh, were of Aegean origin, as their names indicate: e.g., Luka are Lycians, ‘Aqiwasha(also the Ahhiyawa of western Asia Minor), are probably Acaeans; Shardina would subsequently give their name to Sardinina,…”↵ - olor: #808080;”>Note: The views of this article are not entirely shared by the site author.
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INTRODUCTION
It may be helpful to read Introduction to scriptural archeology for an introduction to this article covering important background information on why archeological dating methods give screwed results and on the geographical alteration of the narrow neck of land.
(To clarify dates, throughout the rest of the text scriptural/historical dates are preceded by S/H; while archaeological dates, including carbon dates, are preceded by A/C. In printed versions, footnotes which reference scriptures are in red; footnotes which reference archaeological sources are in black).
THE SCATTERING AT BABEL AND THE EARLY JAREDITE CULTURE. Archaeologists place the first modern humans in the Near East’s fertile crescent around 100,00 years ago [72], which, according to our calibrated timeline, is immediately after the Flood. From there man was “scattered . . . abroad . . . upon the face of all the earth . . .” (Genesis 11:8) [73]; scientists following the path of homo sapiens identify a major scattering between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago when modern man spread from the Near East to Europe, the Far East, Australia, and the Americas [74]. In America, studies of hereditary traits on the first group of PaleoIndians to reach America have concluded that they consisted of no more than a handful of families (S/H: around 2100 BC; A/C: around 40,000 years ago) [75]/ [76]. The two earliest major PaleoIndian cultures that developed from this handful of families, the Clovis Culture and the Folsom Culture , spread widely but sparsely from the Southwestern United States to cover most of the continental United States [77]/ [78].
OMER AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. As this early period in American Prehistory was coming to a close, a small group of families left the core area and settled “by the seashore” directly east of the hill Cumorah (Ether 9:1–13) [79]. The group of sites, in and around northeastern Massachusetts, are called the Bull Brook Complex by archaeologists [80]. Clovis points found at several of the sites tie it to the Southwest [81]. Building on excavations by D.S. Byers in the mid-50’s [82], archaeological societies in the Northeast have pieced together the history of the Bull Brook Complex [83]. Their findings and subsequent analysis have shown the interactions of a system of organized, interdependent groups with specialized work force networks [84]. It is recognized as containing the highest level of social structure in America at that time [85], which would be expected in a “refugee camp” of the royal household [86].
PRE-DEARTH JAREDITE CULTURE. . As Moroni attests, the next archaeological period saw the rise of a richer and more diversified culture [87]/ [88]. The Plano and Early Eastern Archaic Cultures fanned across the continent (S/H: around 1600-1200 BC; A/C: around 8500-6000 BC) [89]. Scientists have found the full spectrum of plants and animals corresponding to the days of Emer. According to Moroni, during the early Pre-Dearth Jaredite time period they had “all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man.” [90]Archaeologists have found many species of American bison from this time period, which ruminants are classified by zoologists as wild cattle, oxen and cows (family Bovidae, genus Bos) [91]. Similarly, there are food remains of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep and Rocky Mountain goats at many sites from this period [92]. Peccaries are animals from this period which are classified as swine and are in the same group as domestic pigs and hogs (sub-order Suina) [93]. The “many other kinds of animals” of Moroni’s list would include deer, elk, moose, caribou, and pronghorn [94]. Thanks to new site-investigation methods, scientists have found that fruits, grains and vegetables were part of the PaleoIndian diet [95]; the Darwinian view that the PaleoIndians were merely carnivorous stockers of megafauna is being abandoned. More careful analysis of early sites and artifacts is yielding increasing evidence of fine textiles [96], which means the people didn’t just wear rough animal hides. Moroni also mentions that horses, elephants, cureloms and cumoms were useful to man, and that elephants and cureloms and cumoms were “more especially” useful to man (Ether 9:19). Potential beasts of burden which have been found in association with PaleoIndians include horses, tapirs, mammoths, mastodons, giant bison, giant ground sloths, and camels [97]. Coincidentally, the horse and the tapir would not have been very useful as beasts of burden because the Ice Age variety existent at this time were only about the size of a dog [98]; hence, it was the elephants and cureloms and cumoms which were “more especially” useful to man.
THE GREAT DEARTH. Then the PaleoIndian culture was rocked. In the scriptures, we read of secret combinations infesting society, and then a chastening, in the form of a great dearth (Ether 9:30–35). Archaeologists attest that it was probably the worst famine in North American history. Mass extinction spread across America as the Ice Age came to a rapid and catastrophic close [99]. Excess hunting by starving people and severe environmental changes drove the megafauna to extinction [100]. Scientists have found that serpents were abundant at that time in the American Southwest (as they are today) and the closing of the Ice Age caused many varied migrations in snake species across North America [101]. The serpents and the drought divided the people in the north from the fauna, which escaped to the south [102]. When the climate finally recovered, the people instigated a revolution in agriculture [103]/ [104], since they had now lost their domesticated animals.
POST-DEARTH JAREDITE CULTURE. Moroni’s next exposition on culture comes in the days of Lib (Ether 10:18–28). My corresponding period is labeled by archaeologists as the Middle and Late Archaic. Often indistinguishable from one another, these two cultural periods represent a major advancement over the preceding culture [105]. Again the culture spread across North America from coast to coast [106]. There were villages, agriculture, and widespread trade networks [107]. South of the narrow neck, in the Mexican highland and beyond, the only inhabitants we find are organized hunting parties, which “coincidentally” brought spear points of North American manufacture and style [108]/ [109]. Scientists recognize metallurgy from this time period, and copper is the most common metal found [110]/ [111]. Many fine textiles have also survived from this period [112]/ [113]. Moroni says they made “all manner of tools to till the earth, both to plow and to sow, to reap and to hoe, and also to thrash” [114]. He also says they had, “all manner of tools with which they did work their beasts” (Ether 10:26–27). Most of the tools on this list have been found by archaeologists at sites dating to the Middle and Late Archaic [115]. New weapons were also invented and manufactured, although archaeologists currently view them only as hunting weapons [116]/ [117]. Another major industry of the Jaredites was wood exploitation [118]. A huge assortment of woodworking tools has been found at Archaic period sites across the Nation [119]. Truly this was a highly-developed culture—a time of great prosperity. How tragic that they lost it all because of secret combinations! [120]
THE DESOLATION OF THE JAREDITES. The desolation of the Jaredites began in the Southwest and climaxed in New York State [121]. It is witnessed archaeologically by a widespread “cremation” burial culture [122]. Continent-wide scientists find a change in burial customs from proper burials to cremation burials and “ceremonial” burning of homes and entire villages (Shiz and his army) [123]/ [124]. Archaeologists have also found evidence of large-scale “bundle burials,” which is the practice of bundling the disarticulated, defleshed bones of dead people in bags or cordages, and then either burying them or dumping them in the trash [125]. Surely it was a gruesome scene that the first Nephites to re-inhabit the desolate land northward were required to witness and clean up [126].
THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEPHITES AND MULEKITES. The Jaredites were the sole inhabitants of America until two small groups of sea-going travelers crossed the Pacific (S/H: 600 BC; A/C: 3000 BC). As early as 1916 scholars had identified the general location of the two landing sites. G. Elliot Smith published an article with Science titled “The Origin of the Pre-Columbian Civilization of America” in which he detailed ethnological evidence of the landings and further showed how scholars of that day had attempted to cover up the findings because they lent support to the Bible and against Darwinism [127]. In his book, Articles of Faith, James E. Talmage describes the author’s findings: “Dr. Smith presents an impressive array of evidence pointing to the Old World and specifically to Egypt, as the source of many of the customs by which the American aborigines are distinguished. The article is accompanied by a map showing . . . two landing places on the west coast, one in Mexico and another near the boundary common to Peru and Chile, from which place the immigrants spread.” [128]Archaeological evidence has further refined these findings. Most archaeologists now agree to a South American landing, putting it a little further north, specifically in modern Ecuador [129](which “coincidentally” lies “a little south of the Isthmus of Darien” [130]). The location of the second landing spot is unknown; characteristic artifacts also point to the west coast of Mexico [131]— legend puts it at a place called “seven caverns” [132]. Both the Valdivia culture of Ecuador (the Lehites), and the Otomangue-speaking people of the Mexican highland (the Mulekites), brought the first true pottery to the Americas; in both cultures the pottery was already well-developed even at the earliest sites [133]. Both cultures are distinguished as being the first harvesters of cultigens (plants incapable of growing without human help), the most important cultigen being corn [134]. The architecture and burial customs of these two groups can easily be tied to the Old World. Square waddle and daub homes with storage pits in the floor dotted their lands [135]. Their temples and public buildings are extremely similar to those of Egypt and Israel. Subfloor burials and burial positions also match those of the Middle East [136].
EARLY MULEKITE CULTURE. The newly arrived Otomangue-speaking culture (Mulekites) began to spread across the Mexican highland (Zarahemla). Although they covered a large area, they lived in small scattered villages, and archaeologists recognize very little social structure among them [137] [138].
EARLY LEHITE CULTURE. The Valdivia culture also fanned out over a large area, stylistic pottery has been traced from Ecuador up through Columbia and Panama into Coastal areas of Guatemala and Southern Chiapas [139]. When Nephi fled from his brothers {{140}}, it seems that he led his followers to the central depression of Chiapas and settled in the Grijalva river valley. The first cultural layers there are of a unique, tight-knit group (Zoque/early Nephite), centered around Chiapa de Corzo (the land of Nephi), which remained separate from the surrounding cultures that were developing (Maya/Lamanite) {{141}}/ {{142}}. The Nephite culture began the seeds of civilization which later influenced all of Mesoamerica, and eventually all of North America {{143}}. Some of the Lamanites appear to have followed Nephi’s party; a group associated with the early Maya (Lamanites) settled further up in the Grijalva river valley {{144}}. Other groups remained in South America which over time developed very independent cultures {{145}}; apparently not associated with the history outlined in the Book of Mormon.
EARLY LAMANITE CULTURE. The Lamanites (early Maya) digressed and became a very primitive people {{146}}/ {{147}}. Archaeologists label them as “hunters and gatherers,” because they stocked the forests for game, lived in tents and temporary shelters, and practiced limited agriculture {{148}}/ {{149}}. They did some fishing, and they had very limited agriculture (primarily limited to picking wild fruits and edible roots) {{150}}. Archaeologists think it was because they did not have the technology, the scriptures teach that it was because they were lazy.
Warfare is evident as archaeologists find a large assortment of weapons, far exceeding the needs of mere hunters {{151}}. The early Maya (Lamanites) set up chiefdoms in each local community; at this early date they do not appear to have been a cohesive unit, but rather groups of village communities, competing and perhaps fighting with each other for resources {{152}} — apparently united only in their hatred toward the Nephites {{153}}. Laman and Lemuel seem to have taught their children the pagan practices they had learned in Jerusalem. Archaeologists find cultic artifacts associated with the worship of a fertility goddess; they also worshipped Chac, who is the Maya equivalent of Baal from the Old World {{154}}. In this early period we also see the beginnings of the Jaguar cult. The Maya made costumes from the coats of beasts of prey and used these costumes in religious rituals {{155}}/ {{156}}. Early Mayan vices match those Enos and Jarom attributed to the Lamanites: pornography in the form of nude ceramic figurines, idleness, and drunkenness (typically chicha, an alcohol made from corn) {{157}}/ {{158}}.
INTRODUCTION TO THE FORMATIVE. At the dawn of the formative period there were several major demographic shifts which set the stage for the developing cultures. First, King Mosiah I and his people left the Land of Nephi (Chiapa de Corzo) and traveled to Zarahemla (central Mexico) to join the Mulekites (S/H: around 200 BC; A/C: around 1400 BC) {{159}}. This is seen archaeologically as an influx of Mixe-zoquean culture brings new advances to central Mexico, and public buildings begin to appear in the larger villages {{160}}.
THE PEOPLE OF ZENIFF. Back in Chiapa de Corzo (the land of Nephi), the surrounding culture (Maya/Lamanites) destroyed all traces of the departing group (Nephites) {{161}}/ {{162}}. Shortly, however, high culture returned to the valley {{163}}as Zeniff and his people arrive and begin to build anew many public buildings and restore the land {{164}}/ {{165}}. The new inhabitants of Chiapa de Corzo (people of Zeniff) were an ethnically distinct group which did not mix with the surrounding Maya (Lamanites) {{166}}/ {{167}}. Initially their culture was very similar to that of central Mexico (from which they had come), but the similarities decreased as time went on and they (the people of Zeniff, now led by King Noah) became extravagant in their prosperity. Lavishness dominates the architecture and material culture of this period {{168}}/ {{169}}. Just before Chiapa de Corzo returned to Mayan Culture (Lamanites), the people of the Grijalva depression gave birth to one of the richest and most influential Mesoamerican cultures of the pre-Christian era—the Olmecs (Amulonites) {{170}}/ {{171}}.
THE AMULONITES AND THEIR INFLUENCE OVER THE LAMANITES. The Amulonite (Olmec) culture seems to have developed in the lowlands of Veracruz, Mexico. The simple farming village of San Lorenzo (probably Helam) {{172}}/ {{173}}suddenly began a massive public works effort using slave labor (probably the followers of Alma) {{174}}/ {{175}}. Soon a handful of great cities commenced, and Olmec influence spread to other lands {{176}}/ {{177}}. Olmec art and religious themes support an Amulonite correlation: powerful, dominating priests, were-jaguar babies, female dancers, and a plethora of demi-gods and idols {{178}}/ {{179}}. Throughout the Mayan lands, Olmec teachers began to train the Maya (Lamanites) in the language and learning of the Mexican highland people (the Nephites) {{180}}/ {{181}}. With this new education the Maya began to prosper and make many technological advances {{182}}/ {{183}}. New trade networks spread across southern Mexico, the Yucatan and Guatemala, and all roads passed through Olmec lands, which made them vastly rich and extremely influential {{184}}. Some archaeologists call the Olmecs the “mother culture” of Mesoamerica {{185}}.
THE FALL OF THE AMULONITES. As prophesied by Abinadi, the Amulonites (Olmecs) were soon devastated {{186}}/ {{187}}. Using a cesium magnetometer to detect buried basalt, Michael Coe, a professor of Anthropology at Yale University, and his group found mounds of monuments purposefully defaced, smashed and buried at San Lorenzo {{188}}. Other Olmec sites excavated in the area told the same story: seemingly the Maya (Lamanites) living among the Olmecs (Amulonites) in their gulf-coast empire revolted, defacing and smashing monuments, destroying buildings {{189}}/ {{190}}, and as the Book of Mormon teaches us, massacring the ruling class (the descendants of the priests of Noah) {{191}}. The great Olmecs suddenly disappeared, but their influence over the Maya was seen forever afterward. The sparsely-populated Mayan lands were soon covered with huge temples and city-centers with art and architecture reminiscent of the Olmec style {{192}}.
THE NEPHITES- ALMA THE ELDER AND KING MOSIAH II. Meanwhile, in central Mexico, Alma and his followers escaped to Zarahemla and established the church throughout the Mexican highland {{193}}, witnessed archaeologically by new temples and synagogues built throughout the land {{194}}. Then, several decades later, Mosiah II founded a new democratic government {{195}}, and each land began to build government buildings alongside the new temples (S/H: 91 BC; A/C: around 850 BC) {{196}}. Under the leadership of these inspired founders, the diverse societies of central Mexico integrated to become a very prosperous people {{197}}/ {{198}}. Unfortunately, in many communities this prosperity led to pride, social classes, and perversions, which are all quite visible in the material culture they left behind {{199}}/ {{200}}.
THE NEPHITES- CAPTAIN MORONI. These two great nations, the Nephites on the Mexican Plateau and the Lamanites (Maya) in Southern Mexico, Guatemala and Yucatan, began to experience greater conflicts {{201}}/ {{202}}. Foreseeing the coming challenges, Captain Moroni prepared his people and their lands {{203}}. First, the weak lands were fortified and the southern frontier was strengthened {{204}}/ {{205}}. Hilltop fortifications began to dot southern Mexico in Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Guerrero {{206}}/ {{207}}. Great urban fortresses were created {{208}}/ {{209}}. For example, at Monte Alban (Manti), researchers from the University of Michigan found that some leader (Moroni) inspired the people of the valley of Oaxaca to move to the top of a nearby hill in the former “no man’s land” between two warring nations, and there build a fortress with up to 10,000 inhabitants {{210}}. The site has natural cliffs surrounding the city, its temples and its public buildings on three sides; on the fourth side, excavators found a two-mile long wall of earth and stone which still stands almost 30 feet tall and 50-60 feet thick {{211}}/ {{212}}. No wonder Mormon venerated the leadership, courage and vision of Captain Moroni and the manner in which he prepared his people for war.
After Amalickiah’s first attack, a second phase of construction was begun in which fortified cities and hilltop fortresses were built throughout the land of Zarahemla {{213}}which appears to have stretched from Oaxaca to Jalisco and from southwestern Michoacan to northern Veracruz {{214}}. Also, the Book of Mormon records Moroni pushing the Lamanites out of the east wilderness and on the west, then building new cities in these areas in order to create a more defensible border {{215}}. Excavations in southern and western Oaxaca and Guerrero, as well as central Veracruz are now showing such movements of peoples and the construction of new large defensive cities and fortresses {{216}}.
During the time that fortifications were being built in the Mexican highland, a massive weapons production industry commenced throughout Mesoamerica, both in the Mexican Highland (Zarahemla) and in Maya (Lamanite) lands {{217}}/ {{218}}. To accommodate these war preparations, the peoples of the Mexican Highland (Nephites) made major breakthroughs in agriculture and built massive irrigation systems {{219}}. From that time forward, urbanization and trade specialization, with accompanying prosperity, enveloped the Nephite lands {{220}}/ {{221}}.
The great war of Moroni’s time, and the wars that followed, are seen archaeologically in demographic and cultural movements of this time period {{222}}, and in numerous monuments depicting warriors and captives in both Highland Mexico and Maya lands {{223}}. The Lamanites displaced and jumbled the Nephites numerous times {{224}}. There was also a great cultural mixing when groups of Lamanites converted to the Nephite religion and went to live among the Nephites {{225}}, and also when groups became captives {{226}}. Cities experienced occasional upheavals, but most of them changed hands without noticeable ruin {{227}}/ {{228}}.
THE NEPHITES- 57 BC TO AD 33. Time brought greater prosperity {{229}}, which led to ornamentation and extravagant housewares {{230}}. Robbers also infested the land during this period {{231}}—archaeologist have found that many of the graves of nobles and of wealthy people were broken into and the riches were stolen {{232}}. The Book of Mormon teaches that as wars continued numerous groups sought refuge and peace by migrating to far-away lands {{233}}. Archaeologists date the Adena people’s arrival in the Ohio River Valley at this time {{234}}. The Adena cleared the land of the carnage and waste the land’s former inhabitants (the Jaredites) had left {{235}}/ {{236}}, and they brought a new culture with the advancements and technologies of their Mexican homeland {{237}}. Others moved to the Southwestern United States, becoming the earliest Mogollon peoples {{238}}. Those who arrived in North America found a land covered with lakes and rivers—a much more lush environment than the one they had left {{239}}. The Southwest Cultures are famous for their dwellings of stone and cement; cultures of the East for tents; both cultures also built simple homes of scrawny wood poles and thatched walls and roof {{240}}. In a short time the continent was covered with hamlets and villages {{241}}/ {{242}}. The people soon turned to pagan and perverted practices, which spoiled their previously wholesome culture {{243}}/ {{244}}. There is evidence that the first Polynesians reached the Pacific Islands around this same time period {{245}}/ {{246}}.
THE NEPHITES- ZION. . The destruction at the time of Christ was discussed earlier. As the ash settled {{247}}/ {{248}}, a new culture spread across the land {{249}}/ {{250}}. In some ways, this new culture was more monolithic; in other ways it was more diverse. Throughout the Americas a new two-room temple replaced varying former styles {{251}}. A utopia of peace and prosperity is spoken of in legends {{252}}/ {{253}}. There is no evidence of weapons being used at this time {{254}}, and the murals, figurines, and architecture show designs of nature, lines of symmetry and harmony, and displays of pleasant animals and domestic life {{255}}. Gone are all signs of a military elite, governmental force, and coercion {{256}}. The Hopewell, the Anasazi, the Mogollon, Teotihuacan, the Maya—continent-wide, the traits are the same {{257}}. The great peace resulting “because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people” (4 Nephi 1:15).
The people were united in righteousness {{258}}, yet at the same time, the culture became more diverse, as the focus turned from making a profit to making quality products and upholding the ideals of family and community {{259}}. Local artisans replaced the mass-production and expansive trade networks of the preceding period {{260}}. Thus there was no need to travel extensively “on business,” so people could spend more time with their families. Family gardens replaced mass-produced food {{261}}. People ate a greater variety of food, but their food was of more local origin {{262}}. Analysis of skeletons shows that the people were healthier and enjoyed longer life spans than during the preceding period {{263}}. The arts flowered during this period {{264}}. The number and variety of musical instruments greatly increased {{265}}. Pottery and other goods became more useful and more beautiful, and less ornamental and extravagant {{266}}. A much greater variety of artifacts is found, but in much smaller quantities than before, and with much less waste {{267}}. The prosperity was great throughout all of the Americas and in all areas of human development, “because of their prosperity in Christ” (4 Nephi 1:23).
In the early classic period the church became very wealthy {{268}}. The people donated their time and skills to the creation and maintenance of beautiful temples and public centers {{269}}. The population exploded {{270}}, but at the same time, the cities became less dense as the communities were reorganized and the people spread out across the land {{271}}. Even the biggest “cities” were only lightly populated, yet they contained ceremonial centers and public buildings large enough to accommodate all the people of the surrounding villages {{272}}. Social classes disappeared, yet the standard of living increased everywhere {{273}}; And “they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God” (4 Nephi 1:17) {{274}}.
It was beautiful. Everything Mormon said was true. Then they lost it all. The line is not clear, but little by little it all slipped away. The late pre-classic ugliness returned, and this time it was even more vile.THE NEPHITES- PRIDE. As the people became proud, they began to flaunt the wealth they had accumulated over many years of righteousness and prosperity {{275}}. In the archaeological record, we begin to find much larger houses than existed in the preceding period {{276}}, more decorated pottery {{277}}, personal ornamentation (including pearls and elaborate clothing) {{278}}/ {{279}}, extravagant burials of the dead {{280}}, and new long-distance trade networks {{281}}/ {{282}}. They painted murals showing images of power, with soldiers, weapons, kings, priests, slaves, and eventually human sacrifice {{283}}. They built new cities with defense in mind {{284}}, and the existing cities became more dense, decreasing in total area despite the fact that the population was still growing {{285}}/ {{286}}. We see evidence of the rise of social classes, with a new elite class and a definite peasant class {{287}}/ {{288}}. The social classes are most apparent in the big cities.
Political players began to build up monuments to themselves, often showing off their accomplishments {{289}}. We see a cultural split, as the people broke up into different groups {{290}}/ {{291}}. As displays of wealth and power emerged in society and later in government, the church was divided, as the people in every land sought to raise up their own version of Quetzalcoatl (Christ), and to join him with a new pantheon of gods and demigods {{292}}/ {{293}}. In the major ceremonial centers, a priestly class began to exercise power and influence {{294}}/ {{295}}. Temples and temple complexes became colossal and extravagant {{296}}, and often the priests raised themselves to the position of gods or claimed descent from the gods {{297}}. Priests and government leaders began to deform the skulls of their children, and to give themselves and their children tattoos and body paint, all in an effort to separate themselves and their children from the “commoners” {{298}}. Gated communities were developed to protect the elite from the lower class {{299}}.
On the eve of society’s collapse, the pride turned absolutely disgusting {{300}}. Most of the pottery and art became warped, lewd and pornographic {{301}}. Mass production fed trade networks which branched across the continent and resources were exploited on a massive scale {{302}}/ {{303}}. Food production became intense, and the general health of the people correspondingly deteriorated; the incidence of disease increased significantly and life expectancies dropped drastically {{304}}. Body piercing became the norm {{305}}, tobacco and drugs were used widely; smoking was done in smoke houses and in private homes, with cigarettes and with pipes {{306}}. Huge ball courts covered the land {{307}}, in some places ball players rose to the state of gods {{308}}. The ball games became very bloody {{309}}, and in many places they were accompanied with mass killing and human sacrificing of the winners or losers depending on the local religion {{310}}; in other areas the losers become the slaves of the winners’ rulers {{311}}. Many people wasted their income on various forms of gambling—they rooted on their favorite teams, or played games of chance with dice and bones {{312}}. In many areas the workmanship of the structures built during this period was poor, but it was covered with decorative plaster, and was elaborately finished {{313}}. Cultic symbols and status symbols are found everywhere {{314}}.
THE NEPHITES- DESTRUCTION. Truly this society was ripe for destruction {{315}}. The Book of Mormon tells us that the destruction took place quickly {{316}}. Archaeology tells us that it occurred on a massive scale {{317}}, larger than most probably ever imagined— although Mormon tried to help us understand {{318}}.
The great war appears to have been started in central Yucatan by a group which archaeologists call the Putun Maya {{319}}. As they gained power they continued west and north, and eventually attacked the Mexican highland {{320}}. Great murals tell the story of their advances; they were the eagle warriors of the jaguar cult (the Lamanites), and they sought to exterminate the cult of the feathered serpent named Quetzalcoatl (the Nephites) {{321}}. Eventually the great city of Zarahemla (Teotihuacan) was attacked, but the invaders were pushed back {{322}}/ {{323}}. Then, as Mormon relates, Zarahemla (Teotihuacan) was laid waste {{324}}. Archaeologists have uncovered the entire story: the great Teotihuacan was burned and looted, monuments were defaced, columns were toppled, temples were desecrated, and the luxurious palaces were left in ruin {{325}}.
The Lamanites’ pursuit of the Nephites can be followed from Teotihuacan to Western Mexico, to sites such as Alta Vista and Chalchihuites (perhaps Angola or the Land of David?) {{326}}/ {{327}}and then to the seashore, to Amapa and other sites in Nayarit and southern Sinaloa (probably the land of Joshua) {{328}}/ {{329}}, a land archaeologists have found was filled with robbers and Maya during this period {{330}}/ {{331}}. From there the Nephites continued their flight into the “land northward” {{332}}. It appears that the massacre stopped when the Nephites reached Chaco Canyon (Shem), in New Mexico and were able to fortify it {{333}}/ {{334}}. There the Nephites held back their pursuers and the bloodshed stopped for a season while God sent forth missionaries and prophets to give the people one last chance {{335}}. Archaeologists have found circular religious structures, called kivas, appearing throughout Anasazi lands during this period {{336}}, which perhaps shows that Mormon knew some success {{337}}, though his own testimony indicates that any success was short lived as the wickedness persisted {{338}}.
For ten years a peace treaty was in effect {{339}}; archaeology shows that the Maya (Lamanites) of Yucatan and Maya Chichimec of West Mexico came together and began building the great Toltec kingdom {{340}}. Toltec legend speaks of the war between Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, and Tezcatlipoca, the principal god of the Jaguar Cult {{341}}. The Toltecs boast Quetzalcoatl’s defeat and subsequent flight {{342}}. As the population of Tula was exploding {{343}}, archaeologists find an abandonment of Yucatan by that area’s elite {{344}}. Recruits by the thousands flooded out of Yucatan to their new blood-thirsty, warrior kingdom centered in the Mexican Highland {{345}}. Many were also moved to the battle line in Western Mexico, as archaeologists find a large influx of Toltec peoples with strong Maya ties building up fortresses and making war preparations {{346}}.
The kingdom of the Nephites centered in the Southwestern United States, and although they focused on defending the land for a short time {{347}}/ {{348}}, they soon turned their focus to the “god” of money {{349}}. Trade networks covered the Southwestern United States {{350}}, and turquoise, which was lusted after by the Toltecs, was mined on a huge scale to be traded for exotic Mesoamerican goods {{351}}. Ball courts, gated communities, lewd pottery and art, body painting, body piercing, gigantic cities, social classes—the signs of pride and wickedness—have been found by archaeologists throughout the Southwest United States and Northwest Mexico (the Nephite lands) {{352}}.
Then, at the end of this fragile moment of peace, destruction continued {{353}}. The blood-thirsty Lamanites (Toltecs) based in a city just south of our narrow neck of land (probably La Quemada) came up against the Nephite armies which were based in Desolation (Zape in northern Durango?) {{354}}/ {{355}}. The Lamanites were repulsed and counterattacked, but they soon swept Desolation and later Teancum (most likely Guasave on the Pacific Coast) {{356}}. From there the fleeing Nephites followed the turquoise trail to Boaz {{357}}, now known as Paquime or Casas Grandes in Chihuahua. Charles C. Di Peso, the first archaeologists to conduct large-scale excavations at the site, found signs of a great slaughter at Paquime {{358}}. Unburied dead bodies were strewn across the site, some had been shoved into the ducts of the water system, others sacrificed to pagan gods, but the majority were just left to rot and be preyed upon by wolves and vultures {{359}}. Mormon painfully records these same events, as he stood back, watching: “And (the Nephites) fled again from before (the Lamanites), and they came to the city Boaz; and there . . . the Nephites were driven and slaughtered with an exceedingly great slaughter; {{and}}their women and their children were again sacrificed unto idols” (Mormon 4:20–21).
The slaughter spread across the entire Southwestern United States {{360}}. Thousands of sites from this period have been found in which the site was either abandoned or burned or the people were slaughtered {{361}}/ {{362}}. In many places the people abandoned their scattered farms and gathered together to build great fortified cities to defend themselves, only to be massacred {{363}}/ {{364}}. But this was not a peaceful, righteous people being victimized. There is evidence of cannibalism among the Anasazi and other Southwestern Cultures (the Nephites) {{365}}/ {{366}}.
Archaeologists have found human bones in cooking vessels, necklaces made of human skin or bones, and mobiles made of human bones and skulls which seem to have been used as trophies—signs of status and prestige {{367}}. They have found apparent ceremonial assemblages of skulls which were presented to false gods {{368}}. At Salmon Ruin, New Mexico (possibly the tower of Sherrizah) {{369}} women and children were abandoned by their covenant protectors, and the children were burned alive, caught in the top of the tower {{370}}. There are countless archaeological and scriptural evidences of the deplorable state of the Anasazi/Nephites; their brutal mutilation and total annihilation are painful to read about.
The destruction in the Southwest climaxed at a line of sites from Mesa Verde, Colorado (probably Jordan {{371}}) to Albuquerque, New Mexico {{372}}. The entire Southwestern United States and Northwest Mexico was left desolate, except for a few small scattered groups of refugees who hid in caves {{373}}/ {{374}}. But the destruction continued.
The line of sites mentioned above was actually a line of defense built to protect the great expanse of the American Midwest {{375}}. The Nephites who covered the Midwest are called Mississippians by archaeologists. Highly influenced by Mesoamerica and the Southwest {{376}}, their culture had also passed through the cycle of simple and peaceful {{377}}to ugly and proud {{378}}. Their artwork from this period glorifies death and perversion {{379}}. There are carvings of goules, war dances, and the murdering of captives, and these are found alongside symbols of Christ (hands with marks appearing to symbolize the crucifixion) and symbols of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, displaying decapitated heads as a symbol of his power {{380}}. These were not ignorant people suffering for the sins of their parents; they were in open rebellion against God {{381}}. They refused to repent and trust in God, but rather put their trust in the arm of flesh thinking that could protect their lives. It would not be and never has been {{382}}.
Soon after the cultures of the American Southwest were slaughtered, the Mississippian culture disappeared {{383}}. Huge ceremonial centers, like Cahokia in southern Illinois, built in the styles of the Mexican Highland, were suddenly depopulated without evidence of struggle or warfare—sites are not burned as in the Southwest, nor are the dead strewn across the landscape {{384}}. Because of the late carbon dates obtained from these sites some archaeologist have attempted to show that the people just redistributed themselves around the local area {{385}}. However, the Book of Mormon as well as the immense collections of arrowheads dating all the way back to the archaic found canvassing parts of New York State and the entire New England area speaks of a great desolation (The Book of Mormon states the final battles occurred in the “land of Comorah”, which likely encompasses a large portion of New England; not just around the current Hill Comorah as many have supposed) {{386}}/ {{387}}.
Truly God is unveiling his truth in the eyes of all the world. It remains for us to read with faith, work with strength, and repent of our pride. We must go forward in a definite way and bring to pass the covenants of the Father and build up the kingdom of God upon the earth; both in small and simple ways and by making preparations for works of greatness.
OLD WORLD (BIBLICAL) ARCHEOLOGY
After I had found many evidences of events in the Book of Mormon, and had developed a revised timeline for archaeology, I became curious as to whether my timeline would also work if I used it on Old World archaeology. I found many interesting “coincidences”. Following is a very brief account of a few of my findings. An entire paper on the subject will be forthcoming.Evidence of pre-flood cultures appear to be entirely missing from the archaeological record. It is as if Earth’s baptism literally washed her clean. She contained no trace of the former sins of her inhabitants. Most of the early homo sapiens cultures that I would label Post-Flood are in the fertile crescent, and usually at a depth of between 30 and 50 feet below the surface {{388}}.
Early Egypt was below water as Abraham attests {{389}}/ {{390}}, and the earth was sparsely populated {{391}}. The climate during this period soon after the Flood was much milder and cooler than it is today, and the plants and animals from this period match those described in the Bible {{392}}. The desert climate would not come for many generations (after many droughts and curses). When we consider the depth at which these early cities are found, we realize that the only reason these sites have been found is that either the sites were continually inhabited until modern times, or the archaeologists were extremely lucky. Many early cities exist which have not yet been found as attested as by new sites which are continually popping up.
History really starts to take place after the Exodus. Let us consider Jericho. Using the “corrected” timeline we established by studying the Book of Mormon, and extrapolating our dates backward, we find that the Jericho of the Bible must be dated at around 7000-8000 BC. During this time period there was a Neolithic city at Jericho, surrounded with a great wall, and with a massive tower built right into the wall (possibly the house of Rahab/Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) {{393}}/ {{394}}. There is evidence that the people of the city were pagans, and that they were rich and proud {{395}}. The early city’s culture ends with the walls falling down and a new culture replacing Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, they are labeled Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (Sci- 6500 B.C.; Scr- 1450 B.C.) {{396}}/ {{397}}. Interestingly, the tower that was built into the wall survived to its full height into the next period (Rahab and her family were protected) {{398}}.
This new nation had simple beginnings; archaeologists call it a retrogression because of the decrease in riches and more simplified art. However, there were many advances: they had a united nation seen in the form of a new wide-spread monolithic culture, they began inhabiting many new lands and developing the land, they respected their dead ancestors, they had domesticated animals, and they built nice square plaster-floored homes {{399}}, which, “coincidentally,” were similar to the homes of the early Lehites and Mulekites {{400}}. After many years the nation became very wealthy (Pottery Neolithic A&B) {{401}}, and then, as we can tell by studying cultural artifacts, the nation was divided {{402}}. One group inhabited the north, and the other group lived in the south (Chalcolithic Period) {{403}}/ {{404}}.The nation of Israel prospered during the entire period from the time it entered the Land of Canaan until the end of the Chalcolithic Period. Then suddenly the Kingdom of Israel in the north (the Ghassulian culture) was displaced, and new people from Syria and Southern Mesopotamia, labeled Proto-Urban A, were ushered into the region (Early Bronze Age) {{405}}/ {{406}}.
The Kingdom of Judah in the south continued to prosper {{407}}. However, she did not learn from watching Israel fall (she did not repent), and little over a century later, she was also destroyed {{408}}. At the end of the Early Bronze Age every major city in the south was destroyed and depopulated—some incredibly violently {{409}}. The Bible clearly teaches that this was done by the hand of God—his tool being a new empire he had risen up in southern Mesopotamia—the Kingdom of Babylon {{410}}. Archaeologists also find this new kingdom in Mesopotamia but they have called it the kingdom of Akkad {{411}}. Judah was left desolate. Only small scattered villages and groups of wandering nomads remained (Intermediate Bronze Age) {{412}}/ {{413}}.
When the Kingdom of Akkad (Babylon) fell {{414}}, Judah was repopulated by a vigorous new group of people which began to rebuild the land (Middle Bronze Age) {{415}}/ {{416}}. The people prospered and the entire region flowered {{417}}. The succeeding period also saw a continued prosperity, but under Indo-Aryan influence (Alexander the Great) {{418}}, followed by strong Egyptian (Ptolemaic) control (Late Bronze Age) {{419}}.
As the period continued, Egyptian power weakened {{420}}and a group of “adventurers” are noted as coming down from Syria and establishing an Amorite kingdom (Seleucids) {{421}}. Archaeologists then find evidence of an internal revolt that occurs, led by the ‘Apiru (Hasidim under Maccabeans), in which a war commences by a guerrilla-type group of warriors that rally the principally Hebrew (Jewish) community to rise up against the Amorites (Seleucids) {{422}}. Many wars follow with great destructions but the nation that remains in the end is obviously Israel. The carbon dates for these events (about 1300-1200 B.C.) lead scholars to believe this may be the time of the exodus and subsequent conquest of Palestine. Little or no archaeological evidence of Joshua or the exodus exists at this time, however, and the carbon dates assigned to the various cities’ destructions do not match the Bible which declares the conquest to have occurred around 1400 B.C. {{423}}These discrepancies have led many biblical scholars to abandon the literal interpretation of the Bible and create many diluted theories that minimalize the book {{424}}. Interpreting the archaeology as evidence of the Maccabean revolt on the other hand, as we are proposing, matches almost exactly {{425}}.
Next, archaeology shows the arrival of a new group of people called the “Sea People”. They ruled every land that touched the Mediterranean Sea {{426}}, and though their origin continues to evade scholars they know it was somewhere in the area of Sicily, Italy, or Greece (Rome) {{427}}. The people conquer lands matching Rome’s accomplishment in Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Palestine {{428}}.
Conclusions & Significance
Archaeologists and biblical scholars have long been at odds. As archaeology began to mount a horrendous amount of research, all placed by carbon dating, many biblical scholars began doubting the Bible. Scientific dates were given supremacy and new biblical scholars decided that the Bible was not completely accurate. They began trying to fit whatever they could into the archaeologists’ framework and discarded the rest as fable. The result was a great archaeological mess and a complete abandonment of the scriptures as the “Word of God” and absolute truth. Following the history of science and seeing societies turning away from God is very sad to read.Now, our research seems to have discovered that the archaeologists are actually proving the Bible to be true and they don’t even know it because of the dating problem. So now, with the correlated time line created studying the Book of Mormon, we see the Book of Mormon proving the Bible to be true, which we are taught is one of its purposes (Mormon 7:8–9; 1 Nephi 13:38–41).
A future paper on Bible lands will show most all the fabulous stories of the Bible laid out in the dirt, just as the prophets said they happened, and just where the prophets said they happened. We will see that these wonderful stories which are disbelieved by most archaeologists, have actually been found by archaeologists!
These findings are of great importance. Our society has abandoned the scriptures. We have replaced the eighth article of faith with a new one that says: “We believe the scriptures to be the Word of God as far as they correspond with science; we believe science to be supreme truth on all subjects it chooses to address.” This cannot be. Geology, biology and archaeology cannot be allowed to replace the sure testimony we have of the creation. Psychology cannot be allowed to replace the reality of Christ as our healer. Any doctrine or teaching which denies Christ is not of God. Omitting God is denying God because God has clearly stated that he is the creator and he is the truth, the way, and the light so leaving him out is going against his word.
We need to see the scriptures for what they are—they are not exaggerated stories, and they are notjust stories told by old men who meant well but who were off on the details because they were limited to the scope of the learning of their own cultures. The scriptures are the word of God, told in truth by men who literally talked with him! They were written to warn the nations of the world