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[_CaliforniaKid]

It wasn't Sorensons Summary that claimed it... that was the title of Schmidts paper itself. As published in the Science Journal in 1988. That was already addressed in the 2004 farms article when Larson accused FARMS of the same thing you just did.

I believe it was Ray whose title was about pre-columbian horses, wasn't it?

[Guest]

Yes... you are correct Chris... My Bad.

As his next target, Larson turns to a find of horse teeth from a site in the Yucatan called Mayapan (p. 192). Larson claims that Sorenson "misrepresented the evidence" (p. 192). The find is not really pre-Columbian, he says, but prehistoric Pleistocene. He points out that the horse teeth were "heavily mineralized [fossilized]" (p. 192) and were the only materials at the site showing that characteristic. He notes that "the reporting scholar did not suggest that the Mayan people had ever seen a pre-Columbian horse, but that in Pleistocene times horses lived in Yucatán, and that 'the tooth fragments reported here could have been transported in fossil condition' by the Maya as curiosities" (p. 192). Thus, Larson concludes, Sorenson's "assertion about pre-Columbian horses must be corrected to refer to ancient Pleistocene horses" (p. 192), which would put them thousands of years before the Jaredites (pp. 31–32).

We are at a loss, however, to see where the article "misrepresented the evidence." Every item that Larson cites as a corrective to it is mentioned in it. (It is true that Sorenson was unimpressed with the idea of Pleistocene curios, for which, he says, the biologist proposing the idea can cite neither evidence nor precedents.) Furthermore, although Larson seems to be saying that Sorenson misapplied the term pre-Columbian to the Mayapan finds, the term comes from the original "reporting scholar" himself—Clayton Ray, of the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Massachusetts—who was using it to say, at a minimum, that the horse remains do not derive from the colonial or postcolonial period. The title of Ray's article, from the Journal of Mammalogy, is "Pre-Columbian Horses from Yucatan," and he applies the label "pre-Columbian" not only to the discoveries at Mayapan but to those made in three caves in southwestern Yucatan—excavated by H. C. Mercer and later studied by Hatt—in which horse material was found associated with pottery and showing no sign of fossilization. Ray concludes, "The [Mayapan] tooth fragments reported here could have been transported in fossil condition as curios by the Mayans, but the more numerous horse remains reported by Hatt and Mercer (if truly pre-Columbian) could scarcely be explained in this manner."65

http://farms.BYU.edu/display.php?table=review&id=531

You better get that book too Chris... So we can confirm Ray said the horse remains at Mayapan were also pre-columbian!

We got to check those Farms guys out at every turn so we can make them offenders for a word!

[_Zakuska]

You know its really funny... here the apologists are more or less Believing the Scientists... and the Critics are beating them up. Whats up with that? Usually isn't it the other way around? :SHOK:

[_CaliforniaKid]

I suspect the vast majority of scientists who have written on the history of horses in the Americas would disagree with you that the apologists are believing them. Actually, Sorenson's tone is quite deprecatory toward scientists who don't share his views.

[_Zakuska]

I can see that in the parenthetical here...

(It is true that Sorenson was unimpressed with the idea of Pleistocene curios, for which, he says, the biologist proposing the idea can cite neither evidence nor precedents.)

[_beastie]

Since I have a snow day, I can respond a bit more to this now. However, there's really not much more to say at this point.

Zak,

No one is disputing that there were pre-columbian horses in the caves. What we - and I believe the scientists - are asserting is that these precolumbian horses were of a Pleistocene dating.

I don't read spanish, but what I've been able to deduce from reading references to it is that Schmidt's article was about the timing of the arrival of human beings in the Yucatan. And note that the Ray article refers to a "new locality" for the horse conversidens, not a new dating. Apparently this was one of the first findings of that horse in the Yucatan area.

This all reminds me of the The New World apologetics tape I recently watched. It was misleading in the same way that these statements about the "precolumbian horse" are misleading. Here's where I discussed one flagrantly misleading, although technically accurate, statement from that video:

http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... rney+faith

I’ll start with the one most flagrant misrepresentation in the video. Yes, there were many misrepresentations, but this one was the most shocking. Under the special features section, one section is called “The Flora and Fauna of the Book of Mormon Lands”. One of their experts, “Wade E. Miller, Geology and Paleontology” was commenting on the animal life in the Book of Mormon. He said: “They would have found horses here, which are for the most part easily domesticated. The earliest horses in the world were here in North America, and it wasn’t until later, geologically speaking, that they got into the Old World.”

This statement is so inaccurate and misleading it can only be described as either a deliberate lie, or made by a person completely ignorant of the history of the horse in the New World. Since this individual is an expert is paleontology, I’m going to assume that he knew, good and well, that no experts, other than the Mormon fringe and a few other Christian fringe, believe that a visitor to the New World in 600 BC “would have found horses here”.

Now, he’s technically correct to state that the there were early horses here in North America, but omitting the fact that these same prehistoric horses went extinct thousands of years prior to 600 BC is such an egregious, misleading omission it’s best called a lie.

Now, I'm assuming since Miller is an expert in geology and paleontology, that he actually knows that the early horses in the New World went extinct around 11,000 BC. But do the people who are listening to the video, eager for supporting evidence, know that? I'm sure many do not. So this sounds like hard-core, solid evidence of the HORSE in the New World during the Book of Mormon time periods.

Zak, I think that you're doing something similar, albeit inadvertently. Each time you see a scientist refer to "precolumbian horses" you seem to be automatically assuming that they mean horse remains that post-date the extinction and pre-date the arrival of Spaniard horses. Well, they don't. Remember - [i]although you believe that there are in error[/b] - these scientists believe that there were no horses after the extinction of the Pleistocene horse, prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, in the New World. So when they refer to a precolumbian horse, unless they've informed you otherwise, they're talking about the pre-extinction horses.

Sorenson's statement:

(It is true that Sorenson was unimpressed with the idea of Pleistocene curios, for which, he says, the biologist proposing the idea can cite neither evidence nor precedents.)

I'd like to know just what he is asserting is without precedents! It is well known that the Maya (like modern human beings) liked to obtain unusual items (usually unusual because they derived from a different locality or were difficult to obtain). The possession of those unusual items was what differentiated the elites from the commoners, since they lived in an area that usually afforded all the basic necessities of life, with the exception of drought situations. A fossilized horse bone could very well be such an item.

[_beastie]

We got to check those Farms guys out at every turn so we can make them offenders for a word!

Offenders for a word? I suppose since "words" are being used to assert something that flatly contradicts what virtually all reputable scholars believe, which is that there were no horses post-extinction, preSpaniards, in the New World, then, yes, they're offending for "a word". But the phrase "offenders for a word" implies that the critic is making a big deal of a minor, insignificant error (the way I've often seen apologists do, as well).

The reality is the exact opposite of such a trivial error. When you are making an assertion that flatly contradicts the accepted science, it is your responsibility to back up that assertion with good, solid, evidence that has been carefully vetted and evaluated. Instead, you have Sorenson throwing out references that are frequently completely debunked by critics. These references have not said what Sorenson attributed to them, and he was using them to supposedly build his case against accepted science.

Have you forgotten his metallurgy references??? Sorenson twice claimed that research by Linne supported the idea that the process of metallurgy existed in the New World during the Book of Mormon time period. When I obtained those actually sources, they said nothing of the sort. It was either a case of rank incompetence or outright dishonesty. Take your pick, but that taught me to NEVER trust Sorenson's summary of a source. NEVER - especially when he claims the source is backing a controversial claim that is not accepted by the scholars in the field.

[_beastie]

This background information might partially explain the interest in the Loltun horse bones:

How many horse-like species were there in the New World at the end of the
Pleistocene? FaunMap, an electronic database documenting the late Quaternary
distribution of mammals in the United States, developed at the Illinois State Museum
and directed by Russel Graham and Ernest Lundelius, lists seventeen North American
equines. (Let me add uncritically, though, that the creators of FaunMap, who also list
five North American mammoth species, espouse the “splitting,” as opposed to the
“lumping,” end of taxonomic thinking.)

Despite its wealth of species, the entire Equus genus disappeared from the New
World at the end of the Pleistocene, along with the South American equids Hippidion
and Onohippidium. The horses later used by American Indians were, therefore, the
descendants of animals imported from Europe. Horses were, with that importation,
completing a journey around the planet by returning to the continent on which they’d
originally evolved.

http://www.megafauna.com/megafauna_dot_com_book.pdf

If there were quite a few different horse species at the end of the Pleistocene, then determining which particular species a new set of bones belonged to would be quite interesting. Where did each species tend to distribute? The Equus conversidens was also referred to as the "Mexican" horse, and the Equus occidentalist as the "western" horse. So finding an Equus conversidens in the Yucatan would be a notable find, and perhaps constitute a "new locality" for one of these species.

[_Zakuska]

Now, he’s technically correct to state that the there were early horses here in North America, but omitting the fact that these same prehistoric horses went extinct thousands of years prior to 600 BC is such an egregious, misleading omission it’s best called a lie.

Heres the problem with this Statement Beastie...

That 1800BC Carbon Date and the 400AD ceramic date could demonste this to be false. It all depends on how you interpret the data. How did these Bones show up in Mayan ruins (dare i say Museums) and caves? Or does that data show contemporary existance... side by side.

This data could show us that the Plestocene horse survived until Book of Mormon times and then went extinct. Again that would follow with the destruction of the Nephites with all there horses and Cattle that the gatherted together for the last battle. What did the Lamanites do with the booty when they killed the nephites? Did they eat them or continue breeding them?

Its all becoming subjective.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Zakuska,

If you want to overturn a scientific paradigm, you have to find evidence that supports your view. Not evidence that could support your view if you spin it the right way, but evidence that really does support your view. A good rule of thumb is that if the evidence you're adducing is "all subjective" then it's probably not going to attract much attention.

In any case, I don't think it's that subjective at all. There are a variety of extinct Pleistocene fauna at the bottom of layer VII. If that part of the layer dates to the same time period as the 1800 BC charcoal then the scientific paradigm is more wrong that we could ever have imagined, because all those species survived about ten thousand years longer than scientists generally believe.

-Chris