Spencer Lake Horse Skull

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_CaliforniaKid
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Spencer Lake Horse Skull

Post by _CaliforniaKid »

The results are in. I'd be happy to send the relevant pages of Mr. Barker's article to anyone who wants them. Otherwise, here's a summary from my blog:

In 1936, a horse skull was excavated in Spencer Lake, Wisconsin. The skull was found in a burial mound that was later to be securely dated to the Late Woodland Period, about 1000 years before the European conquest of the New World. The researcher who excavated the skull, W. C. McKern, had found no stratigraphic evidence that the mound had been disturbed, and so concluded that it could not have been planted. A university student, however, came forward and claimed to have planted the skull. McKern interviewed the student and, based on discrepancies between the student's description of the planted skull and the one McKern had excavated, concluded that the excavated skull could not be the one the student planted. A heated debate ensued, which ended in something of a stalemate.

In the late 1960's, after McKern had retired, the student came forward and gave more details, which help to explain the absence of stratigraphic disturbance. In the words of Alex Barker, "Sketches they [the purported prankster and his friends] provided of the pit they dug suggest that their short tunnel would have largely been within a single stratum, rather than crosscutting strata as did the usual, vertically oriented looting pits. As a result, the intrusive pit fill would have been relatively undifferentiated from the intact fill around it" (Barker, 30). Barker concluded in 2001 that the skull was a hoax, and that the discrepancies in the prankster's story were due merely to his faulty memory. The evidence was ambiguous enough, however, that it has continued from time to time to be used as possible evidence for the Book of Mormon. In fact, Daniel C. Peterson seems to be alluding to the Spencer Lake skull when he says in a recent FAIR video that horse bones "found in the upper Midwest" "have been radiocarbon dated to about the time of Christ." Presumably in his reference to radiocarbon dating he is thinking of the Late Woodland date of the mound, which was obtained by carbon dating some charcoal found therein. Peterson suggests that archaeologists' late dating of this and other horse finds are simply "assumed, on the basis of ideology and preconceived opinion."

In 2002 all that changed when Dr. Stephen Jones (a physicist whose research interests, oddly enough, include cold fusion, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and Book of Mormon horses) of Brigham Young University contacted Barker and offered to fund AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) dating of the horse skull itself. Samples were sent to two separate radiocarbon labs, both of which returned post-conquest dates (averaging about 150 years ago). This study has finally settled the controversy surrounding the Spencer Lake horse skull. The skull is a hoax, and provides no evidentiary support for the Book of Mormon.

Works Cited:

Barker, Alex W. "Stewardship, Collections Integrity, and Long-Term Research Value," in Our Collective Responsibility: The Ethics and Practice of Archaeological Collections Stewardship, ed. S. Terry Childs (Washington, D. C.: Society for American Archaeology, 2004) 25-41.

http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.com/2 ... skull.html
Last edited by Guest on Tue Feb 19, 2008 8:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
_Canucklehead
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Post by _Canucklehead »

So I wonder when we can expect a video retraction from DCP to be posted on Youtube.
_Bond...James Bond
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Post by _Bond...James Bond »

Canucklehead wrote:So I wonder when we can expect a video retraction from DCP to be posted on Youtube.


Like never...I'm sure he'll unavailable for comment due to a planned speaking trip to Germany or France or some such place where they don't have techology.
"Whatever appears to be against the Book of Mormon is going to be overturned at some time in the future. So we can be pretty open minded."-charity 3/7/07
_beastie
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Post by _beastie »

Great work, chris, and please email me the pages.

by the way, this was my favorite post on the mirror MAD thread:

Chris stated:

This study has finally settled the controversy surrounding the Spencer Lake horse skull.


MBeesley responded:
I love it when people end statements with pronouncements like this. I can't begin to count the number of fallacious attacks against Mormonism that have been settled in one forum or another, only to raise their ugly head again like a Zombie that refuses to die.


Chris responded:
So an attack on the Spencer Lake horse skull's authenticity is an attack on Mormonism?


MBeesley:
Uh huh. Yeah. Right. That's what I said.

Uh, no, that's not what I said. To clarify, Mormons will continue to assert evidences for the Book of Mormon that have been "debunked" just like the anti-Mormons will continue to raise dumb arguments against its authenticity, even though such arguments have been sufficiently laid to rest.

Hope that helps.


And has help from the choir from Life on a Plate:
Way to read something into the post that isn't there based on your preconception of the poster.


Chris, let me help you out here, based on my years of experience "so-called debating" believers. Your fatal error here was assuming that MBeesley's post was actually a RESPONSE to yours, rather than a response to the internal dialogue
he's having in his head with himself.

It's classic, though, isn't it? You thoroughly debunk one specific reference cited by various apologists publicly as support for the contention that the horse really, really DID exist during the Book of Mormon time period, and, to Beesley, this becomes evidence that anti-mormons continue to raise dumb arguments against its authenticity, even though such arguments have been sufficiently led to rest.

Did I hear the word "dumb"?
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.

Penn & Teller

http://www.mormonmesoamerica.com
_CaliforniaKid
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Post by _CaliforniaKid »

beastie wrote:Chris responded:
So an attack on the Spencer Lake horse skull's authenticity is an attack on Mormonism?


That actually wasn't me. I think it was Alf. I didn't even understand what mbeesley was getting at until s/he clarified. But I think your comment about the internal dialogue is probably correct. You'll have the pages in your inbox in a few.
_beastie
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Post by _beastie »

That actually wasn't me. I think it was Alf. I didn't even understand what mbeesley was getting at until s/he clarified. But I think your comment about the internal dialogue is probably correct. You'll have the pages in your inbox in a few.


Whoops and thanks!
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.

Penn & Teller

http://www.mormonmesoamerica.com
_CaliforniaKid
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Post by _CaliforniaKid »

Nemesis on MADB:

- Do not start board wars or cross-posting (duplicate discussions from other boards on the MADB boards or vice versa in order to continue an argument). Links to other discussion boards will not be permitted in most cases.

Thread Closed.


What a butthead.
_rcrocket

Post by _rcrocket »

May I see the study itself?
_skippy the dead
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Post by _skippy the dead »

CaliforniaKid wrote:Nemesis on MADB:

- Do not start board wars or cross-posting (duplicate discussions from other boards on the MADB boards or vice versa in order to continue an argument). Links to other discussion boards will not be permitted in most cases.

Thread Closed.


What a butthead.


Hmph. Dual-posting happens often without consequence. There was no argument "continued" here - this is a parallel discussion.

I'm going to guess that if the exposure of the hoax hadn't made Dr. Peterson look bad by relying on said hoax, that thread wouldn't have been closed. Nobody was able to refute you, so it was best to close the thread and let it drift onto page 2 and beyond, out of the view of others.
I may be going to hell in a bucket, babe / But at least I'm enjoying the ride.
-Grateful Dead (lyrics by John Perry Barlow)
_Who Knows
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Post by _Who Knows »

CaliforniaKid wrote:Nemesis on MADB:

- Do not start board wars or cross-posting (duplicate discussions from other boards on the MADB boards or vice versa in order to continue an argument). Links to other discussion boards will not be permitted in most cases.

Thread Closed.


What a butthead.


Or 'vice-versa'? So they really do moderate your posts on other boards. huh.
WK: "Joseph Smith asserted that the Book of Mormon peoples were the original inhabitants of the americas"
Will Schryver: "No, he didn’t." 3/19/08
Still waiting for Will to back this up...
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