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Photos from the "Zarahemla Temple" Excavation

11/19/2016

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-The excavation at the purported site of the "Zarahemla Temple," which I first wrote about here, has apparently already taken place.

As I indicated in my last post on the topic, all indications were that the "temple" property was purchased in January of 2015 (for $300,000) with intent to excavate in the spring of 2015. The (now-defunct) webpage for the project proclaimed that a professional ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey had identified the location of a rectangular wooden "temple structure" with walls extending 5-22' below the ground surface. Dr. John Melancon, ridiculously billed as "one of the few American archaeologists fully certified to conduct digs in Israel because of his training in Hebrew archaeology" was supposed to head up the investigation.

I found a series of photos of the excavation on the Hidden in the Heartland group on Facebook. The photos were posted over a period of several days in May of 2015. They show Wayne May, Melancon (I think), a camera crew, and a gaggle of volunteers excavating in a field. Unsurprisingly, the photos do not show the discovery or excavation of a 20' wooden wall associated with a burned temple. The only "artifacts" pictured are a table full unidentifiable rocks, including a small round one which seems to have been the star of the show (many pictures of that).  Over the course of several days, the strategy apparently moved from hand excavation blocks (n = 2?), to dowsing, to bulldozing, all apparently in effort to locate a wall that's not there. 

If you enjoy looking at photos of a sloppy, sandy excavation that careens from optimism to desperation over the course of just a few days, I encourage you to go and look at the photos yourself (I suspect they won't be there for long). Here are few samples:
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A hand excavation block in progress (first day of excavation?); image posted on May 11, 2015.
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Looking for something in the wall using a metal detector?
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The wooden wall has to be down there somewhere, right? (this image is posted as "end of day 1").
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Wayne May employing the always-worth-a-shot dowsing technology (day 2?).
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Hand excavation takes too long, I guess (day 3?).
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Anybody see a wall yet?
Anyone with any serious archaeological background will immediately recognize this effort for what it is: an undisciplined treasure hunt. Here's my summary on what I think happened (I wasn't there, of course, so this is conjecture). The goal of this effort was to find a buried wall that someone told them was there (based on GPR data that they didn't understand). The effort begins with using actual tape measures, nails, and string to lay out excavation blocks. These blocks were placed in areas where they should have come down on the walls of Zarahemla. After starting relatively carefully, however, impatience quickly sets in when all that materializes is more and more sand. Various additional "technologies" (i.e., metal detectors and dowsing rods) are employed to solve the mystery of where the walls are, and the units are aggressively dug downward because surely those walls are down there somewhere. This effort begins by tunneling down by hand in the excavation blocks, but even eventually impatience wins here also and mechanical excavation equipment is desperately used to blow a big crater into the earth. And still there are no walls. And so the dirt is pushed back in the holes and everyone goes home.

Or perhaps I'm totally wrong and this was a very careful, precise effort that located and responsibly documented all kinds of cultural wonders. There was film crew there, so maybe the "temple excavations" appear in one of the episodes of "Hidden in the Heartland." I hope they do -- then I can see if I'm right.
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Ground-Penetrating Radar and the "Fringe:" Another Example

11/13/2016

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Last weekend I wrote this post about a planned excavation by Heartland Mormons to search for the temple of Zarahemla in Iowa. That excavation was justified by a map produced via a ground-penetrating radar survey. Today, thanks to a comment on a recent blog post by Jason Colavito's blog post, I learned of another example of ground-penetrating radar data being used to propel the excavation of what is almost certainly a fantasy, this time in association with Oak Island.

First, an update on the Zarahemla excavation.

The webpage for the project proclaimed that a professional ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey had identified the location of a rectangular wooden "temple structure" with walls extending 5-22' below the ground surface. I pointed out that that level of specificity was impossible using GPR and questioned (among other things) how those outlines were determined and how they could possible serve as the basis for an actual archaeological excavation. Coincidentally or not, that webpage (dated January 2015) is not currently available, and the entire Book of Mormon Evidence site is currently "under maintenance."
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BookofMormonEvidence.org on 11/13/2016.
I couldn't find any details about the excavation, but I suspect it has already taken place. Blog reader and friend of archaeological reality Mike Morgan located a report of the record of purchase, showing that the 13.8 acre "temple of Zarahemla" parcel was sold to Zarahemla Holdings, LLC, on January 20, 2015. Another of my online friends told me that he recalls seeing images posted on Facebook showing an excavation in progress some time ago, but those images were later removed. That an excavation was planned for the spring of 2015 is also supported by comments on message boards like this one, posted the day before the sale of the parcel closed.

A comparison of aerial photographs of the parcel from June 2014 (before the sale; image from Google Earth) and summer of 2015 (image from the Iowa Geographic Map Server) suggests that excavations were, indeed, undertaken in the area identified as the "temple" in the first half of 2015. The light-colored areas marked with arrows appear to show the areas of backdirt piles and newly-filled excavation areas. Those areas correspond to the location of the eastern wall of the "temple" (unfortunately, since the webpage is gone, I can't reproduce their aerial with the "temple" superimposed [Update: you can see the figure on this website]).
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Comparison of aerial photographs of "temple" area from prior to and after the sale.
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Detail of the "temple' area from summer of 2015 showing the light-colored areas that look like two (?) backfilled trenches.
[Update: I found this image from June 2015 that reportedly shows Wayne May, apparently dowsing, in an excavation at the "temple" site.]
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A machine excavation into the "temple" area would have quickly revealed that there was no buried, 15-foot-tall wooden wall. Without seeing the raw GPR data and details of how it was processed, there's really no telling what kinds of anomalies, if any, the survey actually detected. But I presume that if the Temple of Zarahemla had been found we would have heard something about it by now. So my money is on nothing. I just hope that no real cultural deposits have been damaged so far in this pursuit.
And now for the new example.

This webpage, dated the 28th of October, 2016, makes a bold proclamation:

"OAK ISLAND RELATED UNDERGROUND FACILITY FOUND ON MAINLAND LUNENBURG COUNTY, NOVA SCOTIA!"

Here we go again.

You can read all the Shakespeare stuff and then get down to the brass tacks of the "proof" that (1) there's an underground facility and (2) it's related the mystery of Oak Island.  That "proof," apparently comes down to GPR data. Here's what the site says:

"In March 2015, I conducted GPR scanning around the X marked boulder and have had the files analyzed by very skilled GPR analysis experts. Disturbances in subsurface features can be seen in the data. The experts say such disturbed structures should not be present in normal ground conditions.

In the summer of 2016, a professional GPR firm conducted a second, more extensive scan of the site. The result and report from this scan is still pending. The analysis is complicated due to a number of factors that has to do with GPR settings for best possible data collection. I also have instructions from the Nova Scotia Communities, Culture and Heritage to keep results confidential until a decision has been taken on how the province will react on a report showing interesting results. The 2016 scan was financed by Paul Lappin and Knut Skofteland. I’m very grateful for their contribution to this project."


So, somehow, from these incomplete GPR results, the authors have "proved" that there's an "intact underground facility" or "vault' that contains important things.  Let's get the backhoe!

Anyone who understands GPR is shaking his or her head. As I said in the previous post, GPR data are complicated. The equipment works by pulsing radar waves into the ground and detecting the reflections that occur when the waves encounter a material with different electromagnetic properties. Depth can be estimated based on analyzing the two-way travel times of the reflected waves. That's it. Anomalies in GPR data can be caused by any contrast in the electromagnetic properties of the materials that the waves are passing through: open spaces (such as rooms or caves) can cause anomalies, as can buried rocks, changes in sediment, the water table, and numerous other things. Often in a natural setting (i.e., when you're not looking for something really obvious like buried storage tanks) you can't really tell what's "anomalous" until you get data from a large enough area to understand something about what you're looking at.  

So . . . yeah, like the Zarahemla example, I'll go on record with the position that what you think the GPR is telling you is not what it's actually telling you. 

I think these two examples are part of a trend of the fringe embracing new technologies that they think will provide "out-of-the-box" credibility to their ideas and conclusions. In some cases, the abilities of these technologies are probably being intentionally misrepresented to wishful thinkers. In others, it's apparent that the people using these gee whiz technologies don't really understand them. The screen on a GPR doesn't beep at you and say "alert! buried vault!" The XRF meter doesn't have a "detect Roman brass" setting. And tiny flashlights don't have "old" and "not old" icons to discriminate ancient from modern stone inscriptions.  You might as well be using dowsing rods and flipping coins. 

Try learning something about the tools you're using and then collecting and presenting data in a way that they can be evaluated. Then maybe someone would take you seriously.
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Did You Know that Heartland Mormons are Planning on Excavating a Hopewell Site in Iowa?

11/5/2016

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We have reached the point in semester where those of us involved in the educational parts of academia -- faculty and students alike -- are starting to feel the strain: you can see it in the body language, the class attendance, and in my Facebook feed peppered with complaints from colleagues about plagiarism and requests for extra credit.

For me, the grind of the "fringe" material we're dealing with in Forbidden Archaeology is contributing to the fatigue. I've been immersed in this stuff since August. The silliness, lies, and willful ignorance are wearing on me.

The feeling of fatigue crystallized as I listened to this presentation by Alex Koritz, a so-called "Heartland Mormon" who believes that events described in the Book of Mormon unfolded in eastern North America. I played a short chunk of the video (from about 9:00-20:00) in class as part of our discussion of claims about the "missing copper" of the Great Lakes, and asked the students to try to identify and evaluate Koritz's claims and figure out his orientation on the fly. I listened to the remainder of Koritz's presentation over the course of a few days during my walks to and from campus. Between what Koritz says and the questions from the audience, it's really a depressing brew of so many of the concepts we've dealt with this semester (claims about giant skeletons, re-dating the Sphinx, "Mound Builders," government and academic conspiracies, misrepresentation of Native American oral traditions, misconceptions about what archaeologists think and do, misuse of genetic data, etc.). It is sad.

One of the most distressing things that I heard from Koritz was that the Heartland Mormons apparently plan to excavate an archaeological site in Iowa. During the question/answer session, Koritz mentions that Wayne May, editor of Ancient American Magazine, is "overseeing" an excavation of a Hopewell site (about 1:12:30):

"Even in the Midwest there are still Hopewell digs going on. We were back in Illinois recently . . . um . . . if you know Wayne May, he's actually overseeing one on the Mississippi River."
What?

Fetishizing fake artifacts and making fantastic maps is one thing, but excavating a site?

[Update (11/13/2016): I think that an excavation has already taken place.]

This webpage, dated January 2015, describes the purchase of property and the intent to excavate a Hopewell site that the Heartland Mormons claim may be the sacred city of Zarahemla:

"For the past several  years Ancient American Magazine publisher Wayne May has been exploring the possibilities of what could be one of the most significant archaeological finds in history, the Zarahemla temple site of the Nephites of the Book of Mormon!  Before this can be positively established, archaeological work must be done to verify that this was anciently a Hopewell Mound Builder Civilization site along with having evidence of a temple structure."

The site shows aerial photographs of the property across the river from Nauvoo, Illinois, where May et al. claim there is evidence of a rectangular "temple structure" and provides a figure that purports to show the locations of buried walls as determined using ground-penetrating radar (GPR):
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I can't fully evaluate the GPR work without seeing a formal report, of course, but I can tell you that I'm extremely skeptical of the accuracy of the information in that image. GPR works by pulsing radar waves into the ground and detecting the reflections that occur when the waves encounter a material with different electromagnetic properties. By measuring the strength and travel time of the reflected pulses, it's possible to collect information about subsurface deposits.  But those data are not simple. GPR data do not come in maps such as those shown above: such maps are produced from careful processing and analysis of dense datasets. GPR cannot, by itself, tell you the kinds of materials that are buried or give you precise depths. The resolution of GPR varies with antenna size -- the greater depth penetration required, the lower the frequency of antenna that must be used and the lower resolution that you'll receive. I don't know what kind of hardware, software, and methods were used to produce this illustration of a buried rectangular structure, but I will tell you that GPR did not identify the material as wood and did not provide those direct depth figures.  

Who produced this drawing?  The website address on the image is not functional. I found a single page for a company called H3 Tec here. There is additional information about H3 Tec's claim of a technology for long-range detection of precious metals scattered around the web (e.g., here, here).

Shooting radar waves into the ground and drawing maps are non-invasive activities: you can do that all you want without permanently affecting the archaeology. But apparently this GPR study is just a prelude to an actual excavation. The webpage says the following:

"I would like to invite you to join with other fellow "Heartlanders" to help us raise the funds for the purpose of conducting the archaeological studies and dig.  The dig will be conducted by non-Mormon semi-retired archaeologist, Dr. John Melancon, who is also one of the few American archaeologists fully certified to conduct digs in Israel because of his training in Hebrew archaeology."    
So who is this famous archaeologist who, with your generous support and Wayne May's guidance, is going to uncover the temple at Zarahemla?

Melancon apparently runs a company called Underground Discovery & Exploration. From that website, we learn that: 

"Dr. John Melancon is a world renown archaeologist that maintains a semiprivate museum in HENDERSON TX. Dr. John Melancon is notably the worlds foremost authority on Spanish and Knights of the Golden Circle Society treasure maps, symbols and signs.

As an archaeologist, Dr. John Melancon desires to preserve the integrity of history. Treasure hunters seek out the knowledge Dr. Melancon has amassed over the past 35 years of the secret Civil War society, KGC."
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As you can see from the screenshot, the posts on the Underground Discovery & Exploration website are not about archaeology. The focus is on treasure hunting.

I was unable to find much about actual archaeology that Melancon has done. I found several announcements for presentations he has given to church groups (e.g., this one, this one, and this one). He has a listing on "Worldwide Who's Who," an "international branding and networking organization" that charges membership fees. I did find several others things of interest, however, including this 2013 newspaper story about a treasure-hunting controversy in New Mexico involving Melancon.  He apparently started and ended this blog with a single post in 2014. His LinkedIn page states that he has been Senior Vice President of a Bible museum in Branson, Missouri, since 2015, with responsibilities that include:

"Curating and displaying artifacts, procurement of artifacts, archaeology overseas and in America. Translation of some inscriptions and oversight of the archaeological portion of the museum. Assisting in operation of the balance of the the museum."

[Update (3/14/2017): Dr. Bobby Sparks, President of the Bible History Museum in Branson, Missouri, informed me via a comment below that Melancron "was associated with the project early on, but due to circumstances, he is no longer identified with the project"].

This page from 2011 crows about the treasure hunting expedition that Melancon will be leading to Black Mesa (perhaps the same one later described in the newspaper article above?). The language will sound hauntingly familiar to those of you who have followed this blog closely: 

"As one well known treasure hunter said, “How did you get permission on one of the biggest treasure sights in the world?” Simple. We are Expedition Resources: an unbeatable team, experience, technology, and a solid track record. What are you waiting for? Call us today to be a part of the greatest team, greatest treasure hunt, and greatest expedition! MAKE HISTORY!!!"

That's a bold statement. Can Melancon claim an A-Team van and a costume to compete with those fielded by the TreasureForce? 

Whatever kind of van he might have, it's not at all clear to me that Melancon has the expertise to excavate a Middle Woodland site in the Eastern Woodlands. I cannot comment of the actual archaeological excavation he's done before (I would love to see an example), but I will tell you that doing "Hebrew archaeology" in the Middle East is different from doing Hopewell archaeology in the Midwest. The techniques are different, the deposits are different, the cultural materials are different, and the research questions are different.  And once shovels go in the ground, you can't put things back.

So what's the plan here? What's the goal? What's going to happen if human remains are encountered? How are the deposits that are exposed going to be documented? What's going to happen to the cultural materials after they come out of the ground?  Can my archaeological friends in Iowa tell me anything about what's going on?

I'm all for public interest in archaeology, but I'm not for the sacrifice of a legitimate archaeological site for the purposes of fantasy.
18 Comments

Comedic Tension over the Fraudulent Hebrew "Mound Builder" Artifacts of the Late 1800's

10/29/2016

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I've spent the last several hours doing my prep for Monday's Forbidden Archaeology class. Following an introduction to the topic of pre-Columbian transoceanic contact last week (mostly an overview of the historic, political, social, and scientific debate about the "mound builders"), we'll be jumping in by discussing two classic cases of inscribed stones: the Newark Holy Stones (1860) and the Bat Creek Stone (1889).

It's been fun reviewing these two cases. In my opinion, neither is strong evidence for anything "real" other than late 1800's hoaxery. Their historic contexts are interesting, as are the differences in the motivations of the hoaxers. Both the Newark Holy Stones and the Bat Creek Stone still have their share of fans, but apparently there's some tension over what exactly the stones mean. ​
PictureThe Keystone (image source: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs116/1103480314797/archive/1110560269463.html).
Brad Lepper and Jeff Gill have written extensively about the Newark Holy Stones, a pair of stone artifacts inscribed with Hebrew lettering purportedly "discovered" in southern Ohio earthen mounds. Lepper argues that the stones were created in attempt to show that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were related to Old World peoples as known in the Bible, thereby undermining the polygenist framework that was being used to justify slavery. After the first stone (the Keystone) "found" by David Wyrick didn't pass the sniff test of those who examined it, he miraculously found another soon after (the Decalogue Stone).Thousands of person-hours of careful excavation on Ohio Mound by people other than Wyrick has failed to produce any more ancient Hebrew artifacts. Brad Lepper, however, did succeed in finding an illustration that may have been the source of design that Wyrick used for the Decalogue Stone. 

To me, the most interesting thing about the Newark case is that the hoaxer (presumably Wyrick) was apparently attempted to "humanize" Native American populations by bringing them into a Biblical framework, rather than de-legitimize them by providing evidence that others built the mounds.​

PictureThe Bat Creek Stone.
The tale of the Bat Creek Stone is, in some ways, even stranger. The Tennessee stone, described as engraved with "letters of the Cherokee alphabet) appeared in the famed Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1894). Cyrus Thomas argued that the Cherokee were responsible for building the mounds of Tennessee and North Carolina, and Robert Mainfort and Mary Kwas argue in this 2004 paper that the man who "found" the stone was probably trying to make his boss happy. Mainfort and Kwas suggest that Thomas realized the stone was a fake after it had been published, explaining why no-one really talked about it for the next 70 years. The Bat Creek Stone was resurrected from obscurity when Henriette Mertz realized the engraving looked like a Semetic alphabet if you turned it over. In the early 1970's, Cyrus Gordon confirmed that the engraving was Paleo-Hebrew, and the Bat Creek Stone was back. Mainfort and Kwas found an 1870 illustration that likely served as a source for the inscription, but, of course, that hasn't convinced everyone. 
 
The original contexts of these two cases appear to be quite different. In one, the artifacts were apparently planted to produce evidence that Native Americans were tied to the history of the Old World. In the other, the artifact was apparently produced to attempt to tie the construction of mounds to a specific Native American group.

Both cases were discussed in the (2010) documentary Lost Civilizations of North America (you can watch the tralier here and read a 2011 critique by Brad Lepper et al. here). Conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, and Mormon Glenn Beck took up the cause of the Newark Holy Stones and the Bat Creek Stone in this 2010 rant. The stones were taken up on America Unearthed in 2013 and 2014 and, not surprisingly, accepted as authentic with no reservations. That garnered some high fives in 2012 from various Mormon organizations searching for evidence of ancient Israelite migrations to the New World. Apparently, however, America Unearthed left the Mormons hanging by not embracing the authority of The Book of Mormon or even acknowledging it exists. This 2015 "America Revealed" spoof video is worth watching for several reasons.

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Follow-Up on a "Holocene Mastodon" from Devil's Den, Florida

2/6/2016

6 Comments

 
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I'm still catching up on a backlog of blog-related emails and comments that accumulated during those heady weeks of #Swordgate. I've never been great at promptly returning emails, and going to the mattresses for Swordgate made the problem worse. I apologize if I haven't gotten back to you yet. I hope to answer everything eventually.

Almost a year ago, I wrote this post about some purportedly late radiocarbon dates for mastodons and mammoths that are being used as "evidence" for the accuracy of the Book of Mormon (BOM). The BOM (Ether:16-19) describes elephants in the New World at what would have been about 2500 BC.  The current scientific consensus, however, is that mastodons and mammoths did not survive in the Eastern Woodlands past about 9500 BC. While Mormon scholars continue to cling to a small suite of Holocene radiocarbon dates to argue for much later survivals, it's pretty clear that those anomalously young dates are probably attributable to either contamination, context/association problems, or both. I provided a table of five radiocarbon dates that seem to be embraced by Mormons not because they are good science, but because they remain the "best fit" to the Jaredite time period.  No-one else takes those dates seriously.  They're probably mistakes. 

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Radiocarbon dates put forward as evidence of late survival of mammoths and mastodons in eastern North America.
When I wrote the original post, I was unable to track down the primary sources for the Devil's Den mastodon. Dr. Eric Butler, a biologist at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, kindly found a copy of Martin and Webb's (1974) report and took a look at it. He provided a synopsis in a recent email.  I'll summarize two main points:

Mastodon Remains.  In a long list of fauna from Devil's Den, there is a single entry for Proboscideans: "2 vertebrae, a last cervical vertebrae and an anterior thoracic" from juvenile mastodons.

​Dating and Associations. The age estimate of 7000-8000 BP pertains to an entire fossil assemblage, not just the mastodon remains. While it is not exactly clear how this age estimate was produced (this description sources an unpublished research paper by H. K. Brooks that purportedly references radiocarbon dates, but no specifics are provided), it seems that the young age is not generally accepted by paleontologists in Florida and elsewhere. An age of 7000-8000 BP for the entire Devil's Den assemblage would mean that horses (Equus), saber-toothed cats (Smilodon), giant ground sloths (Megalonyx), Florida spectacled bears (Tremarctos floridanus), and dire wolves (Canis dirus) were running around in Florida at about 6700-5700 BC. There is no other evidence, at archaeological sites or elsewhere, for those species surviving into the Middle Archaic period in Florida or anywhere else.

The long and short of it is that it appears there's good reason to view the late dates of Devil's Den fossil assemblage with significant skepticism.  If it's good evidence for a late survival of mastodon, it's good evidence for a late survival of an entire "Pleistocene" fauna that has no precedent elsewhere.  A simpler explanation is that the age estimate for the assemblage is not accurate. As Butler suggested in his email to me, this assemblage would seem to be a prime candidate for re-dating using modern AMS methods. I wrote the following in my original post:
"Continuing to uncritically employ a handful of young radiocarbon dates from the early decades of radiocarbon dating as support for the claim of elephants at 2500 BC is intellectually dishonest.  Last time I checked, AMS dates were about $600 each (I also seem to recall that the price has recently dropped).  If Mormons want to continue to use radiocarbon dating to evaluate the historical accuracy of the Book of Ether, I suggest that they have those “late surviving” mastodons re-dated.  If they agree to pay for it, I would be happy to help attempt to locate the remains wherever they are curated and try to secure permission to have samples dated.  It would be a nice way to resolve the ambiguity.  We can publish the results.  If there really were mastodons tromping around in the woodlands of Archaic eastern North America, I would like to know about it and so would a lot of other people.  It's a win-win."
That offer still stands. If you're serious about resolving the issue of late-surviving Proboscideans, let's make it happen and re-date this material using modern methods and standards.

One final note to show you how these things fit together: Dr. John Sorenson, an advocate of late mammoth/mastodon survivals and one of the primary defenders of the historicity of the BOM, is a prominent advocate for pre-Columbian transoceanic contact in the Ancient Artifact Preservation Society, the hyperdiffusionist organization backing the "100 percent confirmed Roman sword from Nova Scotia" that turned out to be a piece of modern brass tourist kitsch.  Maybe we should do a blood residue analysis on the sword and see if it was used to kill mastodons. Finally . . . it all makes sense! 

Martin, R. A., and S. D. Webb. 1974.  Late Pleistocene Mammals from the Devil's Den Fauna, Levy County.  In Webb, S.D. (editor): Pleistocene Mammals of Florida, pp. 114-145.  Gainesville: University Presses of Florida.
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Happy Thanksgiving, Critical Thinkers: "The Argumentative Archaeologist"

11/21/2015

7 Comments

 
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I'm about to get on airplane for some holiday travel. I'm hoping to spend much of the coming week not doing much work, but I've been working hard over the last few weeks to finish a "beta" (i.e., mostly complete) version of The Argumentative Archaeologist website. It's done!  Go have a look!  Please spread the word.

I don't have time to write much about it now, so I'm just going to paste in the content from the About page:

The Argumentative Archaeologist is a website that organizes and compiles links to fact-based information and analysis related to fantastic claims about the human past.  While not all "fringe" (i.e., non-mainstream) claims have been shown to be untrue, many have (some of them over, and over, and over again . . .).  The goal of this site is to provide road maps to information that will help you both identify what's BS and understand the history and context of some of the many claims about the past that can be shown to be false.  They can't all be true, right?.

Who Are the Intended Audiences?

This site was conceived and designed with three main audiences in mind:

  • The Public. Almost by definition, most "fringe" ideas come from outside the professional archaeological community.  The marketing and selling of those ideas, not surprisingly, are largely targeted to audiences that are also outside of the professional archaeological community ("bypassing the mainstream" is a common part of the pitch). The "fringe" community has done a good job of exploiting traditional print and television media as well as utilizing the internet to uncritically spread sensational claims about the past.  While many of those "fringe" claims can easily be shown to be false, the voices of the few individuals and organizations that have made a concerted effort to address the factual basis of those claims are often drowned out the megaphones that the "fringe" community has built for itself.  This site is an attempt to assemble links to openly available, critical analysis of "fringe" claims into one central location to make it easier for interested members of the public to get the other side of the story. It wasn't aliens - see for yourself!

  • Educators. College courses that engage with the history, context, and evidence associated with "fringe" claims about the past are becoming increasingly common. I know several people that teach them, and I myself am planning on teaching one in the Fall Semester of 2016. While traditional textbooks are available that cover many facets of pseudo-archaeology, I feel that much of the real work that is being to address and understand "fringe" claims as they emerge and develop is being done online in formats such as blogs.  Blogs can and have been used to address many different aspects of "fringe" claims with a timeliness and forthrightness that would be impossible in the context of a traditional textbook. I hope that people teaching courses on pseudo-archaeology find this site useful in terms of both the kinds of information it presents and the organization of that information.

  • Researchers (Both Kinds). I hope the links compiled on this site will help those of you out there interested in performing research on many different facets of pseudo-archaeology: where do these claims come from? why are they popular? what do we know about artifact x or site y? I know that I have learned several things I did not know just through the process of initial construction of the site (and that is without actually reading in detail the large majority of the content to which this site links). While many claims have been addressed repeatedly and are fairly well understood, many have not and are not. I think it would also be of great benefit to "fringe" researchers to make an effort to understand the arguments against their claims.  I know that may be difficult when you really, really, really want something to be true . . . but if you want your ideas to be taken seriously you will have to someday address an evidence-based critique.  I'm not optimistic that will happen (evaluating the willingness to actually test an idea is one of the key ways to discriminate between archaeology and pseudo-archaeology), but it would be nice. Maybe try not just repeating the same dumb, incorrect thing that someone else already said? Just an idea.​​

How Do You Choose the Content?

The content in this site was not chosen to give "equal time" to skeptical and "fringe" voices.  As mentioned above, the "fringe" side of the equation has developed a powerful set of tools to communicate its various messages: it does not require any assistance.  This site is intended to serve as a counterpoint to "fringe" claims, providing links to critical analyses of components of those claims, links to critical reviews of "fringe" media, and a structure that lets the user explore and understand how various components of "fringe" claims are inter-connected.

During the initial construction of this site (October-November 2015), I mined the blogs of several of the major skeptical online voices of which I am aware: Jason Colavito, ArchyFantasies, Bad Archaeology, Glen Kuban, Skeptoid, Le Site d'Irna, Michael Heiser, Ancient Aliens Debunked, Hot Cup of Joe, and my own website (Andy White Anthropology). This site does not link to all posts on those websites, of course, but it links to many that are related to the topics of interest here. My plan is to monitor those sites and add links to new posts (and new topics) as they become available. I would love to hear about articles, posts, and other skeptical sites of which I am unaware (please use the Suggestion Box).​

Why Do You Present the Content the Way You Do?

The work of critically evaluating "fringe" claims about the human past is being done by very few individuals.  I hope that this site brings attention (and web traffic) to their efforts.  My guess is that most of us who take the time to investigate and write something about the nonsense that's being sold as knowledge aren't making any money by doing so (in stark contrast to the "fringe" side, which has a large commercial component). Credit should go where credit is due: write an email and thank your favorite skeptic for his or her hard work.

I have used block quotes to introduce many of the topics, artifacts, and sites for which I have created entries. Many of those quotes are from Wikipedia.  I chose to do this not because it is the best source of information, but because it probably reflects a reasonable consensus view.  And it's designed to be "open."  I've attributed the textual quotes that I use, and I've attributed the sources of images that I use by linking to my sources.  I have added internal links (i.e., links pointing to other pages within this website) and indicated those changes with the designation [links added]. I do not believe that I am violating any copyrights or other prohibitions by presenting the material the way I do. If you disagree, please let me know via email (aawhite@mailbox.sc.edu).​

What Do I Do Now?

Begin your search for information by Topic, by Person, by Geographical Area, by Title of a book, film, or television program, by Meme or Image, or Alphabetically. ​Please use the Suggestion Box to offer topics or links to information, and please sign the Guestbook.

​Enjoy! 

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The Elephants of Ether: Mormons and the Mastodon Problem

2/27/2015

10 Comments

 
One of the interesting things about doing “research by blog” is that you can get almost instant, unanticipated contributions of information from anyone who reads what you’ve posted.  As a result of this post exploring two examples of the idea that “Mound Builders” and mastodons co-existed, I became aware of the interest that Mormons have taken in mastodons.  As soon as I wrote the post, Jason Colavito and Brad Lepper each made me aware of the 1839 story Behemoth: A Legend of the Mound Builders by Cornelius Matthews.  Behemoth told the tale of the quest of a pre-Native American race (the "Mound-Builders") to slay a giant mastodon. From there I was led to mentions of elephants in the Book of Mormon (BOM) through this site.

The BOM mentions elephants in the following passages from Ether (9:16-19), referring to the experience of the Jaredites entering the New World around 2500 BC:

“And the Lord began again to take the curse from off the land, and the house of Emer did prosper exceedingly under the reign of Emer; and in the space of sixty and two years they had become exceedingly strong, insomuch that they became exceedingly rich—Having all manner of fruit, and of grain, and of silks, and of fine linen, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious things; And also 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 cureloms and cumoms.”

The clear statement about the existence of elephants in the New World at 2500 BC is one of many details in the BOM that critics have questioned and Mormons have defended.  As data and scholarly opinions have changed, the Mormon argument has also changed. In the mid 1800s, the idea that mastodons had co-existed with the “Mound Builders” in eastern North America was not uncommon.  Currently, however, you would be hard-pressed to find a single non-Mormon scholar who thinks that mastodons survived until anywhere near 2500 BC (a more reasonable estimate would be about 9500 BC).  As an archaeologist who works in the Eastern Woodlands, I can tell you that I am not aware of any serious, recent scholarly work that tries to understand the role of mastodons in middle or late Holocene (i.e., post-8000 BC) Native American cultures.  Why?  Because there is no good evidence that they existed that late into prehistory.

That change in scientific opinion about the timing of mastodon extinction was the result of accumulated paleontological and archaeological knowledge and the development of radiometric dating techniques that allow chronology to be understood in absolute terms (i.e., in terms of real calendar dates).  The current Mormon argument for elephants at 2500 BC hinges on just a handful of anomalously late mastodon radiocarbon dates that were obtained in the early decades of radiocarbon dating, before the effects of sample contamination were understood and before procedures were developed to mitigate those effects.  By continuing to rely on those dates, Mormon apologists and scholars are clinging to 60-year-old "facts" that they must know are probably in error.

I will discuss the radiocarbon dates further below.  But first let’s put the story of mastodons, Mormons, and “Mound Builders” in America in some historical context.  Why?  Because it’s interesting!
PictureIllustration of the Peale mastodon.
The first and perhaps the most famous early encounter between science, religion, and mastodons in America was Cotton Mather’s (early 1700s) interpretation of mastodon bones unearthed in New York as the remains of an Antediluvian giant. African slaves in South Carolina, familiar with the anatomy of elephants, correctly identified mammoth teeth unearthed in 1725 as those of an elephant rather than a human giant (see this post by Adrienne Mayor). As more and more fossils were discovered, naturalists refined their understanding of mastodons, mammoths, and their relationships to living elephants.  The American mastodon (Mammut americanum) was formally named and described as a taxon in the 1790s.  The Peale mastodon, a relatively complete skeleton from New York, was excavated, illustrated, and displayed in 1801.  As encapsulated in this article, the large mastodons, with all their implications of power and size, became a part of the emerging identity of the young United States. 

The idea that species could go extinct was still relatively new in the late 1700s. (The absence of the idea of extinction was an important component of why the bones of extinct animals had so often been interpreted as the remains of ancient giants - what else could they be?).  The idea of extinction was apparently not one that Thomas Jefferson subscribed to.  Consequently, he was convinced that mammoths and mastodons should still be alive in the western part of the continent.  In Notes of the State of Virginia (1785:55), Jefferson wrote:

“The bones of the mammoth, which have been found in America, are as large as those found in the old world. It may be asked, why I insert the mammoth, as if it still existed?  I ask in return why I should omit it, as if it did not exist?  Such is the economy of Nature, that no instance can be produced of her having permitted any one race of her animals to become extinct; of her having formed any link in her great work so weak as to be broken. To add to this, the traditionary testimony of the Indians, that this animal still exists in the Northern and Western parts of America, would be adding the light of a taper to that of the meridian sun.  Those parts still remain in their aboriginal state, unexplored and undisturbed by us, or by others for us.  He may as well exist there now, as he did formerly, where we find his bones.”

Notice also Jefferson's plea for recognition of the vigor and size of the North American fauna, of which the mammoth and mastodon were a part.  He fully expected that living examples could be found and add to the argument for the grandeur of a young nation.  As President of the United States, Jefferson instructed Lewis and Clark to look for mastodons and mammoths during their Corps of Discovery Expedition (1804-1806).  After they found none, he ordered excavations at the productive fossil site of Big Bone Lick in Kentucky in 1807 (see A Discourse on the Character and Services of Thomas Jefferson by Samuel Latham Mitchill, 1826, pages 29-30), retrieving mastodon fossils to send to Europe.

More than just a scientific curiosity, mastodons and mammoths were participants in American culture in the early 1800s.  The earliest use of the term “mastodon” that I located in a newspaper dates to 1810. 
Several mastodons were unearthed in New York in the 1810s and 1820s, and those finds were reported in newspapers.  The data below show a rapid increase in the appearance of "mastodon" in books (many of them scientific/technical) in the 1820s.  Newspapers from this time period also contain numerous advertisements for living elephants exhibited by traveling circuses.  My point is that knowledge of both living elephants and their extinct relatives was being widely disseminated when the BOM was published in 1830.  Extinct elephants were becoming part of an emerging American identity.

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Google Ngram results for "mastodon."
PictureIllustration of the Wisconsin "Elephant Mound" from MacLean's "Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man" (1880).
As the possibility that the animals could still be alive somewhere on the continent evaporated with continued Euroamerican exploration of the American west and more widespread acceptance of the idea of extinction, the debate in the mid-1800s shifted to whether humans and extinct elephants had ever co-existed.  Were mastodons and mammoths Antediluvian beasts that had perished in the Flood, or did prehistoric peoples in North America interact with them? As described by John Patterson MacLean in his book Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man (1880, pages 74-82), evidence that humans and mastodons had overlapped in time included mastodon bones associated with projectile points, mastodon bones that had been burned, mastodon bones associated with pottery, engravings of elephants on Mayan stonework, the presence of mastodon remains stratigraphically above sediments containing basketry, the “Elephant Mound” in Wisconsin, and Native American oral traditions that described elephant-like creatures.  

In the same year as MacLean’s book, Frederick Larkin’s Ancient Man in America was published, describing his theory that the “Mound Builders” had domesticated the mastodon as a beast of burden and for warfare.  Larkin also used the elephant-shaped effigy mound in Wisconsin as evidence.  A few years later (1885), Charles Putnam published his volume on the elephant pipes of Iowa, widely thought to be fraudulent.

Mormons embraced the array of evidence in the late 1800s that seemed to support the contemporaneity of humans and mastodons in the New World.  The 1908 Book of Mormon Talks, written by Hyrum O. Smith, addresses the 1857 critique of Mormonism offered by John Hyde’s Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs:

“Papa.--We certainly can not blamed for considering this as conclusive evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon account, and rejecting the dogmatic statement of Mr. Hyde that “the elephant is not a native of America and never was its inhabitant.” We have not only found that the elephant was here, but that other large animals of the elephant or mastodon species were here, and that they were here at the same time that man was.  These larger animals that are called “cureloms and cumoms” in the Book of Mormon were evidently of the mastodon or elephant type for which there were not names in English, hence their names were transferred to the book just as the Jaredites called them.  There is one more point which we wish to establish before we leave this subject.  You will notice that the last part of the quotation which Harry has read from Ether says, “And there were elephants, and cureloms, and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants, and cureloms and cumoms.”  This certainly signifies that they used these large animals for beasts of burden, and strange to say, we have something to sustain this statement also.  Ethel, you may read from page 75 of the Archaeological Committee’s report the opinion of Mr. Frederick Larkin, M.D.:” (pages 141-142)

In the book, Ethel goes on to read Larkin’s self-proclaimed “visionary” statement about the domestication of the mastodon by the “Mound Builders.”  Papa gladly accepts Larkin’s conclusion, but chides him for claiming something as “new” which of course had been revealed in an inspired way decades earlier in the BOM.

In the early 1900s, then, the defense of the elephants of Ether was based on a constellation of data points (Central American engravings, apparent associations of mastodons with human tools, fraudulent pipes, an amorphous earthen mound that looks like an elephant if you squint) that suggested the contemporaneity between elephants and the complex societies of the Americas.  Larkin’s statement about the domestication of the mastodon was welcomed because the language of the BOM “certainly signifies that they used these large animals for beasts of burden.”

Investigations at the Folsom site in the 1920s cemented the case for all interested parties that humans and extinct Pleistocene animals had co-existed in North America.  Excavations at Blackwater Draw in the early 1930s conclusively demonstrated an association between mammoth bones and distinctive Clovis projectile points. The debate about the co-existence of humans and extinct proboscideans was over.

The advent of radiocarbon dating in the early 1950s changed the game of understanding time in prehistoric North America, allowing the ages of organic remains to be estimated in absolute terms (i.e., in calendar years).  Almost immediately, the archaeological chronology of North America lengthened significantly as archaeologists were able, for the first time, to understand how much time was really represented by the remains they could observe. Paleontology benefited also, as many fossil remains could be directly dated.

Radiocarbon dates initially seemed to provide support for the idea that mastodons had survived late into prehistory, consistent with the statement in the Book of Ether.  As Mormon publications and websites are fond of pointing out, radiocarbon age estimates from mastodons include several mid-Holocene dates that suggest mastodons and the Jaredites could have overlapped.  A 2012 paper by John Sorenson in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture (volume 1, page 99) reads:

“Mastodon remains have been dated by radiocarbon to around 5000 BC in Florida, around the Great Lakes to 4000 BC, in the Mississippi Valley to near 3300 BC, perhaps to near 100 BC near St. Petersburg, Florida (“low terminal [C-14] dates for the mastodon indicate . . . lingering survival in isolated areas”), and at sites in Alaska and Utah dating around 5000 BC.  In the Book of Mormon, mention of elephants occurs in a single verse, in the Jaredite account (“There were elephants,” Ether 9:19), dated in the third millennium BC, after which the record is silent (indicating spot extinction?).”

The website "Step by Step Through the Book of Mormon" repeats some of those dates, as does this website.

As someone who works on Paleoindian period archaeology in eastern North America, I was surprised to see the suggestion that radiocarbon dates indicated the survival of the mastodon into the mid-Holocene.  The youngest radiocarbon dates for mastodon of which I was aware are around 10,000-9500 BC (see Woodman and Athfeld 2009).  And I've never heard of a single mastodon bone being recovered from a context that suggested any interaction with Archaic peoples.  

Fortunately, Sorenson’s paper provides some references so we can have a look at these purportedly late dates. Here are the radiocarbon dates I could find that apparently form the basis of the Mormon claim of a late survival of mastodons in eastern North America:

Picture
I was unable to find the 1975 Wenner-Grenn report that Sorensen references for the claim of mastodons in the Great Lakes at 4000 BC (related to the work of Warren Wittry), but I wonder if that date isn’t related to M-347 above (a 4000 BC mastodon date from Lapeer County, Michigan, reported by Crane and Griffin in 1959).

I was also unable to find a specific date associated with the mastodon from Devil’s Den, Florida, and couldn't find a copy of Martin and Webb (1974) online.  Kurten and Anderson (1980:365) reference “unpublished C-14 data” from Martin and Webb (1974) and give an age range of 8000-7000 BP (i.e., about 5000 BC, uncalibrated).

For the other dates, a few things are worth noting. The M-138 date (the “Richmond Mastodon” from Noble County, Indiana) is from charcoal, not the mastodon itself.  The association between the charcoal and the mastodon is highly suspect, as the excavation that produced both the mastodon and the charcoal was actually performed in the 1930s (see Williams 1957:365, 368).  The excavators thought that the charcoal and some corner-notched projectile points were associated with the mastodon, but it seems more likely they they are actually from a later Late Archaic component that was not directly associated with the mastodon remains.  Williams (1957: 368) states that there was a second radiocarbon date from the site that was about twice as old.

The M-67 and M-347 dates, obtained in the 1950s from tusk material, could easily have been contaminated by more recent organic matter (see below).  They are most likely far too young.

The L-211 date, like the M-138 date, was apparently obtained from charcoal recovered from an excavation decades earlier.  Further, the deposits were unconsolidated and may have contained a jumble of redeposited material (in other words, the charcoal may have had nothing to do with the mastodon bones) (Hester 1960:65).

The alert reader will notice that four out of the five dates in the table above are in the very early years of radiocabon dating (the 1950s), and the fifth is from the 1970s.  Why does that matter?  Because, as in all science, there have been developments in the methods, practice, and theory of radiocarbon dating since it was first operationalized in 1947.  Radiocarbon dating is incredibly important tool for understanding the past, and considerable effort has gone into improving it.  One aspect of improving the reliability and accuracy of radiocarbon dating was dealing with problems of sample contamination.  Early on, it was realized that radiocarbon dates on bone were often far too young because the samples were often contaminated with more recent carbon.

Here is a summary of the history of advancements in radiocarbon dating bone.  Here is another.

The evolution of thought in the scholarly literature about the extinction of mastodons is connected to developments in radiocarbon dating and the refinement of techniques for removing contamination.  The 1957 paper by Williams referenced above, often cited by Mormons, argues for the presence of mastodons in eastern North America after 8000 BC, with extinction around 5000 BC.  Because of a lack of archaeological associations between mastodon remains and the Archaic peoples with whom they would have been contemporary, however, Williams discussed the possibility of a problem with dating techniques.  In other words, the late dates appeared somewhat anomalous even in 1957 because there was no good direct evidence of interactions between mastodons and the Archaic peoples that would have shared the continent with them between 8000 and 5000 BC.  All of the radiocarbon dates on bone that Williams utilized would have been subject to contamination by younger carbon, resulting in age estimates that skewed too young.

A 1968 paper by A.
Dreimanis summarized 28 available radiocarbon dates for mastodons, throwing out many of the early dates and suggesting that extinction was underway by 10,000 years ago. Dreimanis did not throw out the dates arbitrarily, but because of issues of contamination that were becoming better understood and unclear relationships between what was dated (e.g., plant material) and the target of the date (the mastodon).  The paper by Hester (1960) also discusses some of the same problematic dates.  By the 1960s, it was recognized that contamination by recent humic acids may make dates on bone collagen too young.  Bone samples were especially susceptible to contamination by more recent organic materials, complete removal of which was difficult for the sample sizes that were required.

The advent of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating in the 1980s allowed smaller samples to be used to produce age estimates, permitting improved pretreatment procedures to remove contaminants from bone prior to dating (see this 1992 paper). This improved both the accuracy and precision of radiocarbon dates on bone, which are now typically performed only on collagen (protein) extracted from the bone, rather than the mineral component (hydroxyapatite).  Here is an explanation on the Beta Analytic website.  

In the present (the early 21st century) all scientists that I’m aware of support the idea that mastodon extinction was associated with the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. The young (e.g., 8000-1000 BC) dates obtained from mastodons in the first decades of radiocarbon dating have not been duplicated (with the possible exception of very recent date from another Michigan mastodon) since procedures for removing contaminants were refined. Now a “young” date on a mastodon is one that post-dates 10,500 RCYBP (as above). There are good reasons why scientists don’t use those anomalous dates from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s: they are not discarded simply because they don’t fit our expectations, but because there are logical, well-understood reasons to strongly suspect they don’t reflect the actual age of the bones. And those dates exist in a vacuum of other compelling evidence to suggest that populations of mastodons really survived that long into the Holocene.

So while radiocarbon dating and science have continued to move forward and refine our understanding of the demise of the mastodons, the Mormons seem to prefer to stop time during the early days of radiocarbon dating, when anomalously young dates on bone were not uncommon.  Based on what we know now, those anomalously young dates are probably attributable to either contamination, context/association problems, or both.  They are embraced by Mormons not because they are good science, but because they remain the "best fit" to the Jaredite time period.  No-one else takes those dates seriously, and it isn't because they're trying to undermine the BOM.  It's because there isn't any reason to take them seriously:  they are probably mistakes.  

As the scientific evidence against a 2500 BC population of mastodons in eastern North America mounted, the Mormon interpretation of the elephants of Ether also changed.  Gone now is any argument that humans had domesticated mastodons, as so confidently asserted by Hyrum O. Smith in 1908. Again from the website "Step by Step Through the Book of Mormon:"

“Moroni then lists the animals that were "useful unto man," including horses, asses, and the elephants, cureloms, and cumoms. But it is very interesting that there is a difference in the way they are listed. They "had horses and asses," implying possession of domesticated animals, but "there were elephants, cureloms, and cumoms" (Ether 9:19). This hints that these last mentioned animals existed in the land and were useful to them, but were not domesticated.”

Many Mormon websites also cite as support for the late survival of mastodons evidence of the co-existence of humans and mastodons.  Co-existence and late (i.e., 2500 BC) co-existence are not the same thing.  The fact that humans and mastodons co-existed has zero bearing on the argument of when they coexisted.  There is abundant evidence that humans and mastodons did interact in North America during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and that fact is not in dispute. What is in dispute in the late survival of those creatures claimed by Mormons.  Of that there is no good evidence.  Once radiocarbon data allowed prehistoric time in eastern North America to be unfurled, it became clear that there was a large time gap between the heyday of the mastodons the purported arrival of the Jaredites.  That time gap grew as radiocarbon dating procedures improved to deal with the systematic error produced by contamination problems.

Continuing to uncritically employ a handful of young radiocarbon dates from the early decades of radiocarbon dating as support for the claim of elephants at 2500 BC is intellectually dishonest.  Last time I checked, AMS dates were about $600 each (I also seem to recall that the price has recently dropped).  If Mormons want to continue to use radiocarbon dating to evaluate the historical accuracy of the Book of Ether, I suggest that they have those “late surviving” mastodons re-dated.  If they agree to pay for it, I would be happy to help attempt to locate the remains wherever they are curated and try to secure permission to have samples dated.  It would be a nice way to resolve the ambiguity.  We can publish the results.  If there really were mastodons tromping around in the woodlands of Archaic eastern North America, I would like to know about it and so would a lot of other people.  It's a win-win.
___________

References for unlinked literature:

Crane, H. R. 1956.  University of Michigan Radiocarbon Dates I. Science 124(3224): 664-672.

Crane, H. R., and J. B. Griffin. 1959.  University of Michigan Radiocarbon Dates IV. American Journal of Science Radiocarbon Supplement 1: 173-198.

Hester, Jim J.  1960.  Late Pleistocene Extinction and Radiocarbon Dating.  American Antiquity 26(1):58-77.

Kurten, B., and E. Anderson. 1980.  Pleistocene Mammals of North America.  New York: Columbia University Press.

Martin, R. A., and S. D. Webb. 1974.  Late Pleistocene Mammals from the Devil's Den Fauna, Levy County.  In Webb, S.D. (editor): Pleistocene Mammals of Florida, pp. 114-145.  Gainesville: University Presses of Florida.

Williams, Stephen. 1957. The Island 35 Mastodon: Its Bearing on the Age of Archaic Cultures in the East.  American Antiquity 22:359-372.


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Why Are There So Few Giants in the Book of Mormon?

2/17/2015

13 Comments

 
My last post about “Mound Builders” and mastodons made me curious what Mormons had to say about giants (more on the connection with mastodons later).   The events described in the Book of Mormon (BOM) are generally thought to have taken place in North or Central America, after all, and the BOM was published in 1830 as the debate about the origin, identity, and fate of the “Mound Builders” was ongoing.  Given the prominence of the Nephilim in the worldview of some at the edges of the Christian fundamentalist community, I wondered how giants and/or the Nephilim were portrayed in the BOM and how Mormons today interpret the relevance of those portrayals. How important were they?

As it turns out, not very important at all.  Apparently the BOM does not contain a single mention of “giants” or use of the term “Nephilim” (please correct me if I'm wrong).  The Book of Moses (see below) contains only two references to “giants” and no references to Nephilim.
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As described by Mormons, the Book of Moses presents an “inspired translation” of Genesis that removes the ambiguities, contradictions, and confusion that had accumulated in the Old Testament through repeated mistranslations. “Giants” barely made the cut in the Book of Moses, appearing only twice, and the Nephilim don’t appear at all (remember that the term “Nephilim” was translated at “giants” in the King James Version).  The following is a quote (taken from here) from Joseph Fielding Smith, one-time president of the LDS church and grandson of founder Joseph Smith's brother (emphasis added):

“There is a prevailing doctrine in the Christian world that these sons of God were heavenly beings who came down and married the daughters of men and thus came a superior race on the earth, the result bringing the displeasure of the Lord. This foolish notion is the result of lack of proper information, and because the correct information is not found in the Book of Genesis Christian peoples have been led astray. The correct information regarding these unions is revealed in the inspired interpretation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith in the Book of Moses. Without doubt when this scripture was first written, it was perfectly clear, but scribes and translators in the course of time, not having divine inspiration, changed the meaning to conform to their incorrect understanding. These verses in the Prophet's revision give us a correct meaning, and from them we learn why the Lord was angry with the people and decreed to shorten the span of life and to bring upon the world the flood of purification.”

In other words: Nephilim are nonsense.  Here are the passages from Moses 8:13-18 that are the re-interpretation of Genesis 6:4:

    “13 And Noah and his sons hearkened unto the Lord, and gave heed, and they were called the sons of God.

     14 And when these men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, the sons of men saw that those daughters were fair, and they took them wives, even as they chose.

     15 And the Lord said unto Noah: The daughters of thy sons have sold themselves; for behold mine anger is kindled against the sons of men, for they will not hearken to my voice.

     16 And it came to pass that Noah prophesied, and taught the things of God, even as it was in the beginning.

    17 And the Lord said unto Noah: My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for he shall know that all flesh shall die; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years; and if men do not repent, I will send in the floods upon them.

     18 And in those days there were giants on the earth, and they sought Noah to take away his life; but the Lord was with Noah, and the power of the Lord was upon him.”


Giants are only mentioned in the Book of Moses in one other place that showed up in my search:

 “And the giants of the land, also, stood afar off; and there went forth a curse upon all people that fought against God;” (Moses 7:15)

That appears to be it for the giants.

The apparent unimportance of giants in the Book of Moses and the BOM contrasts starkly with the Nephilim-centric view of the world espoused by the Christian fringe, where matings between fallen angels and humans brought on the Flood, provided a rationale for genocide in Canaan, threatened the birth of the Messiah, and continue to endanger humanity today.   It is difficult to see how both of these accounts – one in which there is no such thing as a human-angel hybrid (BOM) and another in which there’s a Nephilim lurking behind every rock – could be reconciled.  As you might guess, this discrepancy is not lost on the Nephilim enthusiasts.

As far as I can tell, the Nephilim enthusiasts have developed two explanations remedying the absence of the Nephilim in the BOM and the Book of Moses.  These may not be mutually exclusive:

  • The Nephites (one of the groups of settlers of ancient America) of the BOM actually are the Nephilim.  This claim (here is one example) seems to rest on the similarity between the words “Nephite” and “Nephilim.”  Here is Fritz Zimmerman’s take on it.  This idea seems favorable to those who want to attribute a biblical origin to the existence of "giant" skeletons in the New World.

  • The angel that appeared to Joseph Smith to reveal the plates containing the text of the BOM was actually a Nephilim.  In other words, the BOM was indeed inspired, but it was inspired by a fallen angel rather than an angel of the Lord.  This position is articulated in this video by someone named Penny:

“There is a direct connection between the Nephilim, the fallen angels, and Joseph Smith.  I believe that it was a fallen angel that appeared as an angel of light to Joseph Smith and this whole Mormonism thing and the beliefs that they have . . . Mormonism basically suggests that you can be a god, which is the lie, I mean that’s the lie that the serpent told Eve in the Garden of Eden. . . . So, um, if you’re Mormon and you’re watching this, please do not be offended, um, but please wake up and recognize what’s really going on here – that all of your beliefs are based on a lie.”

Here is an account that seems to blend the two.
PictureTally of number of "giant" reports by decade in my database as it currently stands (n = 449). Some of the counts will decrease when I add a provision for not counting multiple stories associated with the same primary account.
Both of these ideas about the real role of the Nephilim in Mormonism appear to attribute some supernatural origin or historical validity to the BOM, rather than arguing it is simply a recent fabrication.  In other words, Christian Nephilim enthusiasts do not dismiss the BOM but rather try to fit it into their construction of the world.  That deftly serves the dual purpose of getting more Nephilim into the world and demonizing (literally) another religion.

Finally, it is interesting to note that the BOM publication date of 1830 falls just before the 100-year time period when discoveries of “giant” skeletons were most frequently reported from eastern North America (~1840-1940).  If you believe that those BOM texts are inspired, time period perhaps makes no difference.  If you believe they are not inspired, however, the cultural context of their production becomes relevant.

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