The Name of the TRUE Church

[_gdemetz]

Okay, I'll quote it:

"Most historians claim that all Indian ponies descended from European horses brought to America by the Spanish - but note the great difference in size as indicated by the level of the riders feet. Not even evolutionists claim such a great change in 350 years."

"According to Hunter and Ferguson, the claim made by the Book of Mormon that horses were on this continent and used in ancient America
for purposes similar to the uses we make of them today finds strong support in the numerous fossil remains of horses that have been obtained from the asphalt deposits of Rancho La Brea in southern California. Of course, it is claimed that those fossil remains predate Book of Mormon times. However, there is no logical reason, since horses were here prior to the Jaredites and the Nephites, that horses could not have still been in America during the period in which those ancient civilizations flourished...We could do no better at this point in dealing with this subject than to quote from an official publication of the Los Angeles county museum on the subject of the existence of horses in early times in America."

You may read it all under the topic of "Horses - Ancient America Foundation."

[_ludwigm]

Okay, I'll quote it:

"Most historians claim that all Indian ponies descended from European horses brought to America by the Spanish - but note the great difference in size as indicated by the level of the riders feet. Not even evolutionists claim such a great change in 350 years."

"According to Hunter and Ferguson, the claim made by the Book of Mormon that horses were on this continent and used in ancient America
for purposes similar to the uses we make of them today finds strong support in the numerous fossil remains of horses that have been obtained from the asphalt deposits of Rancho La Brea in southern California. Of course, it is claimed that those fossil remains predate Book of Mormon times. However, there is no logical reason, since horses were here prior to the Jaredites and the Nephites, that horses could not have still been in America during the period in which those ancient civilizations flourished...We could do no better at this point in dealing with this subject than to quote from an official publication of the Los Angeles county museum on the subject of the existence of horses in early times in America."

The quote is something You can see above this line.

You may read it all under the topic of "Horses - Ancient America Foundation."

On the Ancient America Foundation site (do You see the reference in this line???) there is no "horses" topic. That word is not appearing on that main page.
The topics are:

1. AAF Research
2. Book of Mormon Culture
3. Books and Newsletters
4. Featured Articles
5. New
6. Religious Philosophy
7. Slideshows and Presentations
8. Other Languages
9. AAF Notes
Authors and Contributors
Online Materials Purchase
BOOKSTORE
ADMINISTRATION
Log - in

I don't think You are past recovery.

One cannot always be right. I may have been out in that.

[_Spanner]

Crickey dick, I found the AAF horse page. It is nonsense. This is their evidence:



Any evolutionist, or animal breeder, would tell you that 350 years would be ample time to make a smaller or bigger horse. In less than two hundred years feral horses in the Kaimanawa in New Zealand have produced a distinctive breed (12-15 hands). But the AAF are attempting to stack the deck by showing Indian ponies (13-15 hands) next to European heavy cavalry horses (Clydesdale = 16-18 hands). When both are the end products of breeding from an Arabian horse which would have been 14-15 hands high.

The carving is a small 4 legged animal - too small for a horse. Labeling it as such doesn't make it true when there are a number of candidate animals that actually existed at the time which are more likely - might as well call it a unicorn.

There is no evidence of horses in the Americas since the last ice age - about 12 000 years ago. They were extinct in America till the Europeans reintroduced them. Speculation that they could have survived is not evidence that they did.

[_Drifting]

Okay, I'll quote it:

"Most historians claim that all Indian ponies descended from European horses brought to America by the Spanish - but note the great difference in size as indicated by the level of the riders feet. Not even evolutionists claim such a great change in 350 years."

"According to Hunter and Ferguson, the claim made by the Book of Mormon that horses were on this continent and used in ancient America
for purposes similar to the uses we make of them today finds strong support in the numerous fossil remains of horses that have been obtained from the asphalt deposits of Rancho La Brea in southern California. Of course, it is claimed that those fossil remains predate Book of Mormon times. However, there is no logical reason, since horses were here prior to the Jaredites and the Nephites, that horses could not have still been in America during the period in which those ancient civilizations flourished...We could do no better at this point in dealing with this subject than to quote from an official publication of the Los Angeles county museum on the subject of the existence of horses in early times in America."

You may read it all under the topic of "Horses - Ancient America Foundation."

Gdemetz, we have covered this already. Fossilised remains from the era's well before the Book of Mormon era does not constitute evidence of horses DURING the Book of Mormon era. If it did, we could say that we believe dinosaurs lived in America during Book of Mormon times because we have found fossilised remains there, albeit dating from previous millennia.

You have no evidence of horses in America during Book of Mormon times.

[_gdemetz]

Okay Drifting, if you want to assume that they became extinct here without any evidence to back that up, then how about this quote from Daniel Johnson:

"Fortunately, there is hard evidence of horses in ancient Mesoamerica. What may be surprising is that this is not a controversial claim and it has been know doe some time. In 1895, Henry Mercer explored 29 caves in the Yucatan peninsula looking for evidence of prehistoric habitation. In the Loltun Caves of the Yucatan, he found the bones of many ancient animals, but no fossils. Between this early dig and 1977, ancient horse bones were found in the Huechil Grotto of this same cave system. Exactly how they got there is unknown, but it was probable that they were brought in by early inhabitants, since it is believed that early man hunted native horses. Because these bones are not fossilized, there is a limit to how old they may be. A tantalizing (but rarely mentioned) side note is that these horse remains in some caves were found alongside potsherds and other human artifacts. WE have not found any carbon dating on them, but it is doubtful that people outside the church would be as interested in them as we are. The fallacy that horses are not native to this hemisphere and were introduced by Europeans still lingers with us, even though these and other examples of ancient horses have been known for many decades. The fact that they were found in this area of the cave almost certainly indicates contact with ancient man; this can no longer be denied. The only question is when and why (or if) horses became extinct in this hemisphere."

[_Spanner]

umm, did you even look at the link I posted?

That there were horses around when the first humans arrived on the continent over 10000 years ago is not disputed or remarkable (my link above is over 5 years old now). What has that got to do with the Jaredites? Or the Nephites?

The (horse remains + humans = Nephite charioteers) fallacy occurs because when a scientist says there is evidence of an overlap between the last of the horses and the arrival of the first humans in the Americas, the Mormon mentally defaults to the arrival of the Jaredite submarines 4500 years ago. Not to the arrival of Asiatic explorers across the land bridge 10000-odd years ago, who are suspected by some researchers of hunting and eating some of the last of the doomed species. They also probably hunted mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers. There is a more than 5000 year gap - think of how much can happen in 5000 years! There is no more evidence that horses survived than there is that mammoths or sabre tooth tigers or giant sloths survived.

Horses were extinct well before the Book of Mormon period, and there is no evidence of the horse culture that would have been required for chariots and the like, at any time prior to the arrival of the Europeans.

Edited to tidy up.

[_Spanner]

The approach in this study is really exciting. Taking DNA from soil samples to get a snapshot of the animals at any given time period. One would think Mormon geneticists would be flocking to take core samples from mesoamerican sites to prove the existence of "flocks" of various animals, horses, and the like. Not to mention the plant pollens that would be expected. Maybe some wealthy Mormons could fund research projects to conduct DNA soil surveys at various sites. Hell, surely the church could fund a few gradstudents and post-docs. There would at least be a spin-off for real science.

"Dirt DNA has lots of exciting potential to contribute to extinction debates in other parts of the world too, as well as a range of archaeological questions," said Willerslev, who also points out that the approach is not restricted to looking back at the past. "We can also use it to make a list of modern species living in any particular location," he said. "This kind of information is really valuable for studies of animals that are hard to detect, and there are some neat forensic applications too."

Anyway - the dwindling remnants of the horse and mammoth populations can be detected in the sample from 7600 - 10500 years ago. Which is not surprising since the survival of isolated mammoth populations was known from bones and carcasses in a few sites. What was interesting was the controls for cross- contamination - more recent samples were bereft of horse and mammoth but did contain hare, bison, and moose. Which backs up the lack of remains for horses. So... no evidence of an ancient american horse culture, no physical remains from within the last 10000-odd years, and no soil DNA within the last 7600 years.

This article compiles a number of recent articles and has links. I have done your research for you, mainly to update myself on the evidence of the past few years. Science is honing in on the exact date of extinction of horse in the Americas, and and we now know that early humans hunted, butchered, and probably ate horses before they went extinct thousands of years before the Jaredites were supposed to have set sail. The Book of Mormon account remains fantasy.

[_gdemetz]

Spanner, perhaps you need more references. However, I don't have much hope that it would influence you since you seem very bias; Jaradite submarines?!? Really?!?

[_Spanner]

Spanner, perhaps you need more references. However, I don't have much hope that it would influence you since you seem very bias; Jaradite submarines?!? Really?!?

You have some more references?

[_gdemetz]

I can get more, but I honestly think that I would be wasting my time.