Rcrocket's Libel

[_beastie]

I already debunked Mercer on my website - and quoted it to you recently on MAD.

[_Yahoo Bot]

I already debunked Mercer on my website - and quoted it to you recently on MAD.

Do you have a page to Mercer on your website or do I have to dig around for it? As I recall your cite to Mercer was indirect, through "Cave."

[_beastie]

Yes, Ice Age Cave Faunas dealt directly with Mercer.

Henry C. Mercer (1896), who explored the cave and dug 2 pits in Chamber 3 in 1895, found similar ceramic and nonceramic layers. His attempt to locate preceramic artifacts with extinct fauna in association with Loltun or other nearby caves was unsuccessful. Some skeletal remains dubiously identified as Ursus (bear) were found in Loltun in a ceramic layer. Mercer reported the presence of Equus (horse) teeth and bones on the surface of three different caves. Although similar to the extinct horse Equus Occidentalis, the remains were identified as modern horse. Cope (1896) studied the remains of other animals collected by Mercer in Loltun, including species of opossums, bats, rabbit, mice, peccary, and deer if two sizes (page 263)

DCP tried to refute this claim in his article "Ein Heldenleben? On Thomas Stuart Ferguson as an Elias for Cultural Mormons":

Subsequent digging has expanded the evidence for an association of humans with horses. But the full story actually goes back to 1895, when American paleontologist Henry C. Mercer went to Yucatan hoping to find remains of Ice Age man. He visited 29 caves in the hill area—the Puuc—of the peninsula and tried stratigraphic excavation in 10 of them. But the results were confused, and he came away disillusioned. He did find horse bones in three caves (Actun Sayab, Actun Lara, and Chektalen). In terms of their visible characteristics, those bones should have been classified as from the Pleistocene American horse species, then called Equus occidentalis L. However, Mercer decided that since the remains were near the surface, they must actually be from the modern horse, Equus equus, that the Spaniards had brought with them to the New World, and so he reported them as such.3 In 1947 Robert T. Hatt repeated Mercer's activities. He found within Actun Lara and one other cave more remains of the American horse (in his day it was called Equus conversidens), along with bones of other extinct animals. Hatt recommended that any future work concentrate on Loltun Cave, where abundant animal and cultural remains could be seen.

It took until 1977 before that recommendation bore fruit. Two Mexican archaeologists carried out a project that included a complete survey of the complex system of subterranean cavities (made by underground water that had dissolved the subsurface limestone). They also did stratigraphic excavation in areas in the Loltun complex not previously visited. The pits they excavated revealed a sequence of 16 layers, which they numbered from the surface downward. Bones of extinct animals (including mammoth) appear in the lowest layers.

Pottery and other cultural materials were found in levels VII and above. But in some of those artifact-bearing strata there were horse bones, even in level II. A radiocarbon date for the beginning of VII turned out to be around 1800 BC. The pottery fragments above that would place some portions in the range of at least 900–400 BC and possibly later. The report on this work concludes with the observation that "something went on here that is still difficult to explain." Some archaeologists have suggested that the horse bones were stirred upward from lower to higher levels by the action of tunneling rodents, but they admit that this explanation is not easy to accept. The statement has also been made that paleontologists will not be pleased at the idea that horses survived to such a late date as to be involved with civilized or near-civilized people whose remains are seen in the ceramic-using levels.5 Surprisingly, the Mexican researchers show no awareness of the horse teeth discovered in 1957 by Carnegie Institution scientists Pollock and Ray. (Some uncomfortable scientific facts seem to need rediscovering time and time again.)

The footnote references Peter Schmidt's "La entrada del hombre a la peninsula de Yucatan." Chris obtained this article for me, and I dealt with it in detail here:

http://mormonmesoamerica.com/horses.htm

I know you find my website difficult to read for some reason, but just do a "find" for the word "Schmidt" on the page and it will lead you to the appropriate section. I just don't feel like copying and pasting the entire thing.

[_beastie]

by the way, if you want to continue your Mercer quest, please start another thread to do so. I'd prefer to keep this thread dedicated to the purpose of tracking your troll-like behavior.

[_Eric]

Oh how Creepy Crockett loves to troll!

Look at how hard he is trying for my attention.

What an interesting specimen.

[_Yahoo Bot]

Well, I keep in mind what you've done to me, with Beastie's help and encouragement:

1. Death threats over my face book account. I was able to get your face book account closed.

2. Death threats here, although you de-posted them. But I saw them -- something about coming over to my house and "rolling me in the dirt."

3. A complaint to the state bar about me.

4. Multiple signed email attacks directed to my partners, alleging different wild things about me.

5. Claims here that I'm a child molester.

6 Unwanted PMs, forcing me to disable PMs here.

And all this why? Because I had the temerity to defend your father for you making fun of him and your sister on this Board when he asked for prayers and fasting on behalf of your sister? And because I had challenged your silly gulag posts as exaggerative?

My goodness. Something about a violin is appropriate here.

[_Eric]

Does anyone believe Creepy Crockett's false accusations?











**chirp chirp**

[Guest]

Yes, Ice Age Cave Faunas dealt directly with Mercer.

But it does not appear that you have Mercer.

Cave really doesn't dispose of Mercer at all.

Mercer's book is really quite fascinating. He was a Harvard grad and the Director of the museum at UPenn. His digs at the Yucatan caves were strictly by the modern scientific method, although obviously he lacked the ability to carbon date his finds.

But, he documents many horse finds at the caves. It is pretty obvious from his book (and this led Clayton Ray to conclude similarly by studying Mercer) that some of these finds were modern pre-Columbian.

At page 172 of this book he notes modern horse finds, but says that these finds must be post-Columbian because "we find no reason for supposing that the people of Yucatan knew the American fossil horse, or scattered its remains in late portions of their culture layers." Nonetheless, his co-author and editor notes that these finds were non-fossilized Equus occidentalis (western) and not Equus caballus (Spanish), nothing that elsewhere in America Equus occidentalis is always found fossilized - - a definite anomaly.

Elsewhere, Mercer describes deep horse finds among human occupation stratum (68-69.) Figure 27 shows from Actun Chekt-a-leh horse finds in human statrum between the first and second foot.

At page 40, he photographs and documents deep horse finds in human stratum, but one can see that he thinks this is an anomaly, because he describes them as "two horses' teeth (see Fig 14) that had probably worked down from the surface in recent time."

Elsewhere in his book he puts problematic late dating on sub-surface stratum only because there are horse bones in the stratum.

These specimens are currently in the UPenn Museum; too bad they haven't been carbon dated. Probably buried in a drawer some place.

But, it was Mercer's conclusions that led the Smithsonian Ray to conclude that these were modern pre-Columbian.

The Cave book mentions Mercer only once, and in passing, only to say that Mercer found "modern" horse at Yucatan. But this obviously ignores Mercer's find if E. Occ. in a non-fossilized condition.

[_Yahoo Bot]

Does anyone believe Creepy Crockett's false accusations?

Well, as ttribe has kept doing, when you keep denying the reports to my firm, he just links back to your post where you have boasted doing this.

The Facebook threats from the Facebook account "Eric Norwood" I've posted several times on this board.

The state bar complaint -- you've actually posted an image and link on this board in earlier days.

The PM threats to me -- they are maintained by the mods, I think.

The death threat on this board -- no I can't prove; you de-posted it.

The repeated claims that I am a child molester -- yes, they are on this board in its history.

Too bad the index on this board doesn't go back all that far. But these posts are there for anybody willing to look. (Why would they? What a bore. This is only between you and me. I yank, you yelp.)

Really, how credible a person are you? What a foolish post you made of that dialog you had with a distraught parent. Don't you think that that parent and West Ridge will discover that? How credible are you in your quest to divulge that stuff?

I'm willing to declare a truce. You send a letter of apology for your emails to my firm. You withdraw your complaint to the State Bar. All will be forgiven and nothing more said about it.

[_Spider-to-the-Fly]

Mr. Yahoo Bot,

Are you the kind of lawyer that tries to resolve disputes between people in an amicable, as painless way as possible? Or are you the kind of lawyer that likes to stir the pot of contention to feather your own nest with more fees?

I hope the former. Your continual harping and dredging up the past here suggests you might be the latter. I am sure that your 2010 postings in this vein have introduced the accusations to a whole host of new posters that had no idea, until you decided to 're-publish' them.

On the other hand, if your purpose here is to try to divert away from Mormonism's problematic history and present, you are for the most part just spinning your wheels. There are discussion threads now about the KEP, why the Church tried to keep it hidden, peep stones, and the like. I know you expressed gleefulness over the fact that for July, the appropriate name of this board would be Rules Discussions. That, however, was not due to your attempts to divert posters here from investigating and analyzing Mormonism's past.

In sum, I'll just ask, don't you get tired of bringing this up, over and over and over...? Do you really want to drag matters that mentioned your wife and children out into the light, again and again and again...? If you do, you might want to ask your therapist for a refund.

Regards,

Spider.