Horses

eyewitness account from Guns, Germs, and Steel page 73 

One of the more obvious anachronisms contained in the Book of Mormon is the presence of horses.  There are many other anachronistic plants and animals present in the Book of Mormon, such as wheat, cattle, ox, sheep, elephant and the ass.  I consider the horse the most interesting of these anachronisms, due to the impact of the horse on societies that actually possess them.

For reference, the following are the horse verses from the Book of Mormon.

Book of Mormon scholars concede that there is no evidence of the existence of the horse in the New World during the specified Book of Mormon time period, although some hint at some future supporting evidence yet to appear, or the possible development of dated references. 

Given the fact that schoolchildren in the United States have long been taught that the Europeans introduced horses to the New World, it seems surprising that so many believing LDS read these passages in the Book of Mormon without protest or question.  In my opinion, this is likely due to the fact that human beings rely on a different part of their brain in religious contexts than they do in other non-religious contexts.  It just doesn’t “connect”.  Moreover, this flaw did not “connect” with other nineteenth century authors, either.  Solomon Spalding, in Manuscript Story, mentions horses in connection with the inhabitants of the New World.

Part of the difficulty is that the fact that the Native Americans soon adopted and adapted their entire culture to the horse, once it was, in fact, introduced by the Europeans.  The Indian and his horse is so embedded in our conceptions of Indians that it is a challenge to extricate the two. 

Diamond emphasizes this fact, on page 75.

Despite the firm modern association of the horse to the Native American, it is universally accepted among mainstream archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians that there is no evidence of the existence of a pre-Columbian horse, excepting the long-extinct species. How have they arrived at this conclusion? 

There are several ways that scientists can fairly accurately ascertain the existence of past animals.  The easiest method is, of course, through fossilized remains and bone remnants.  Horses are one of the best candidates.  From Horses Through Time, published by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, edited by Sandra L. Olsen, page 13:

Using such fossils, scientists have, indeed, constructed a timeline for the existence of and subsequent extinction of the horse species in the American continent.

Admittedly some climates are more conducive to the preservation of animal bones than others.  Mesoamerica, while not the best climate for such preservation, does, indeed, offer many examples of other animal bones.  In fact, there is an abundance of animal bones in Mesoamerica, even from the Pleistocene era.  The following are just a few of many references to excavated bones in Mesoamerica.

The article most often cited to support Sorenson's assertion is a 1956 article from the Museum of Comparative Zoology by Clayton C. Ray.  This article cannot be accessed online, but Chris Smith obtained  and scanned it. 

Additional information is available to evaluate these original dated findings.  The book "Ice Age Faunas of North America" has certain pages available on a google book search, and several of these pages address this event.

The same text also addresses the Hatt findings. 

This reference clarifies that the horse remains were from the Pleistocene Era, which ends around 11,550 years before present.

A summary of the animal remains in the Loltun Cave was also provided.

Note that Equus Conversidens is listed as ONLY Pleistocene. The Bison reference is to a now extinct species that was extanct during the Pleistocene era.  This is likely what Mercer originally thought were "cattle" bones.

Now, where were the Pleistocene animal remains found?  The next citation makes it very clear:

There was only one citation that made the dating of the horse bones seem questionable, and it certainly wasn’t placing them up in level V.  This citation does not contradict the previous one, because we already know the scientists say that the demarcation between the Pleistocene era and the Holocene era could be in the bottom of Level VII.  This would be around 9,500 BC. 

Level VII is a ceramic level, and we already know that the animals were at the bottom of Level VII.  There is uncertainty as to whether the demarcation between the Pleistocene and Holocene eras would be in Level VIII or at the bottom of Level VII.  The rest of the citations in this book accept the placement of the demarcation in Level VII. 

Now could this be evidence of the horse in the BoM time period?  Nonsense.  This is like Sorenson’s earlier statement that supposedly finding pockets of extinct animals surviving into 8,000 BC would constitute evidence for the BoM.  We are still talking about many thousands of years prior to the BoM time period. 

Yet another citation refers to this particular find.  The following is obtained from the text “The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of North America”, page 62, which is available from a google book search:

This citation demonstrates that the horse remains were identified as extinct Pleistocene animals, and were located in the lower levels underlying the ceramic levels.

One interesting aspect of these particular defenses is that they tend to rely on dated references.  One possible reason for this is that the results of radiocarbon dating was less reliable in its early phase.  The following statement by Paul Martin, in an essay dealing with mammoth extinction, also emphasizes this point:

In addition to the unreliability of early carbon dating, another problem originates from the excavation of caves themselves.  The abstract for the article Excavations in Footprint Cave, Caves Branch, Beliz, states the following:

Given these circumstances, it is understandable that earlier archaeologists may have been confused about their finds, but these updated sources demonstrate that when these findings are more thoroughly investigated, the same conclusion is verified:  there was no post-Pleistocene, pre-Conquest horse in the New World.

Sorenson utilized an additional reference.  We can read a reference to it in Daniel Peterson's review of The Quest for Gold Plates titled "Ein Heldenleben? On Thomas Stuart Ferguson as an Elias for Cultural Mormons":

It is odd that the "two Mexican archaeologists" were not named, but the reference for footnote 5 is an article by Peter Schmidt titled "La entrada del hombre a la peninsula de Yucatan."  Other sources utilize Schmidt's study of the Loltun caves to draw conclusions about the chronological layers.

The aforementioned book The Ice Age Cave Faunas of North America, page 262, makes this statement:

Note that the author is utilizing information provided in Schmidt's report.  This statement clarifies that the extinct animal remains were at the BOTTOM of Level VII, which is the possible demarcation for the Pleistocene Era.  In fact, elsewhere in this same text, it is asserted that, indeed, Level VII is Pleistocene in dating:

Thanks to the help of Chris Smith, who provided scans of the text, and John Williams, who translated the text from Spanish, I was able to obtain the pertinent sections of the Peter Schmidt text.  First, let’s review the portion of the previously quoted Peterson essay that refers to this research:

Now here’s the pertinent section from the Schmidt research, with important sections bolded:

Now let’s compare Schmidt’s statements to the Peterson/Sorenson summary of those statements. 

Peterson:

Schmidt:

My comments:  While there is nothing in this Schdmit reference about horse bones above Level II, Peterson may have been referencing the earlier Mercer find.  However, the horse bones from the top levels were identified as the modern horse, post-Conquest. 

Peterson:

Schmidt:

My first comment is that the Peterson/Sorenson summary in misleading in that it states that Schmidt said the possibility that horse bones were stirred upward from lower levels to higher levels by tunneling rodents is “not easy to accept”.  This is not true.  Schmidt accepts that the tunneling rodents disturbed the layers, as does Mercer. 

From page 118 of the Mercer text:

It should be noted that the numbers of the layers vary depending upon researcher.  Earlier, on page 116, Mercer defined “layer 3” as follows:

This seems to roughly correlate with Schmidt’s level VII. 

Rodents heavily populated this cave and obviously disturbed the layers.  What Schmidt referred to as “difficult to accept” is that the horse bones were dragged into the caves later, not that the rodents may have disturbed the remains.  Note again: " Horse bones seem to have formed the last layer of the Pleistocene or Epi-Pleistocene in various caves, OR they must have been dragged into the caves decades up to millenia later, something that is difficult to accept given the climatic conditions of the Tropics."   Schmidt is NOT saying that it would be difficult to accept that rodent tunneling disrupted the layers of the cave, and hence relocated the horse bones from the lowest level (the only level in which the bones were in "primary" context). He is saying that one must EITHER accept that the horse bones were in the lowest layer and were disturbed, OR they were dragged in later.  The idea that they were dragged in later is difficult to accept.

The more fundamentally misleading context of the Peterson/Sorenson statement is that it implies that Schmidt did not believe that the horse remains dated from the Pleistocene era.  Yet Schmidt made it obvious that he believes that the later layers were disrupted and that “only layer VIII remains a possible area of occurrence of both lithic material and pleistocene bones in a primary context.”   This is consistent with the conclusions arrived at in the Ice Age Fauna text quoted above.   

Hun horse

A frequently repeated argument among those who insist that the absence of evidence of the horse dating to the Book of Mormon time periods in Mesoamerica does not constitute evidence of absence is the following:

Daniel Peterson, Matthew Roper:  Ein Heldenleben?

Evidence contradicting this claim can be found here (provided by Matt Amos from Zion's Lighthouse Message Board  Hun ZLMB

Rock painting from Gobi Alatai province, Khanyn Khad Mountain Hunnu princess

Matt also provided the following citation from Encyclopedia Brittanica:

 Chris Smith, known as "California Kid" on various LDS related message boards, shared pertinent information on his blog regarding this topic.  He graciously gave me permission to include that here.

http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.com/2010/03/hun-horse-bones-and-book-of-mormon.html

Wisconsin Spencer Lake Horse Skull

Daniel Peterson, in the FAIR online video The Book of Mormon and Horses, made the following statements:

“There have also been some horse bones that have been radiocarbon dated to about the time of Christ that were found in the upper mid-west in the United States.”

“Preliminary reports seem to indicate that those horse bones do date, in fact, to Book of Mormon times.”

Daniel Peterson horse claim

filmed in January 2006

This can only be a reference to the Spencer Lake horse skull.  (Additional evidence that this is what Dr. Peterson was referencing can be found in this thread from Mormon Apologetics Discussion Board:

MAD discussion Spencer Lake)

 It has been long rumored within LDS internet circles that the horse skull was in the process of being radiocarbon dated, and despite claims of a hoax by some, would provide just the evidence Book of Mormon believers needed.  The radiocarbon dating was being conducted by Dr. Stephen  Jones, a professor at BYU, as is Dr. Peterson.  Before sharing the results of those tests, a brief review of the history of this find is in order.

 

There Were No Ancient Vikings in Wisconsin?

Prank at Spencer Lake Mounds

By K. Kris Hirst, About.com

Spencer Lake Hoax

One extremely persistent rumor in alternative archaeological circles is that there is evidence--suppressed evidence--that the Native American mounds of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa were built by Vikings. To support this premise, oddly shaped glacial erratics are thought to be "Viking mooring stones," various "rune stones" of very dubious origin are cited, and, as in the case of this story, there are rumors of horse skeletons which were found in mounds--and the evidence suppressed. One of the funniest stories associated with these Viking legends has to do with the Spencer Lake Mound in extreme northwest Wisconsin. There was, undeniably, a horse skull found in Spencer Lake Mound. How it got there is a tale worth telling.

Spencer Lake Mound and the Clam River Focus

The Spencer Lake Mound is a large round, hemispherical burial mound, the largest of several mounds located on terraces near the shore of Spencer Lake, Burnett County, Wisconsin. During the 1935 and 1936 excavations by the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, excavators found a total of 58 separate secondary burials, accounting for a total of at least 182 individuals. Artifacts recovered from the site included triangular arrow points, a shaft straightener, red ochre, a hearth, and a few sherds of Clam River pottery, which is part of the BlackDuck ceramic group. Birchbark baskets and the claws and skin of a beaver were recovered from the burials.

The Clam River Focus was established by archaeologist Will McKern, and besides Spencer Lake Mound includes the Clam Lake Mound Group. The people who built and used these mounds to bury their dead lived during the end of the Middle Woodland period, ca 500-700 AD, well before the historic period--and, for those trans-oceanic Viking aficionados, a good 300-500 years before the Viking colony in Newfoundland called L'Anse aux Meadows site was occupied.

How the Story Began

During the summers of 1935 and 1936, the University of Wisconsin excavated Spencer Lake Mound. The principal investigators were Ralph Linton and W. C. McKern; their staff of students included A.C. Spaulding, George Quimby, David Stout, and Joffre Coe--all destined to become pretty famous archaeologists in their own rights. It was in the fall of 1936, probably, when a young college student signed up for a beginning anthropology course taught by Ralph Linton. The young man, who is known in this story only as Mr. P., had been an avid artifact hunter while growing up in northwestern Wisconsin. Conversing with his classmates in 1936, Mr. P. discovered that excavations at the Spencer Lake Mound the previous summer had revealed an astonishing artifact: a horse's skull buried deep within the mound.

Mr. P's Confession

This was quite a shock to Mr. P. After gathering all of his available courage, he went into Linton's office and confessed that in 1928, the then-teen aged Mr. P. and a buddy had spent an afternoon pot-hunting the Spencer Lake Mound.

The boys dug a sizeable hole, consuming the better part of a hot afternoon, without encountering any kind of a recognizable feature. They were about to backfill the opening when one of them suggested that they bury a horse's skull that lay along the edge of a nearby field a short distance away. This seemed like a brilliant suggestion to the undisciplined minds of the boys, so the skull was retrieved and carefully laid in an oriented position at the bottom of the excavation before backfilling commenced. Anticipation of the probable results of this piece of mischief somehow eased the monotony of the backfilling, and the miscreants mutually agreed that in about two hundred years some archaeologist would dig up the skull and conclude that he had found something really worthwhile [from Mr. P., Wisconsin Archeologist 45(2):120 (1964)].

Linton found the story amusing, apparently, and a mightily relieved Mr. P. went off onto a career of his own, outside of archaeology. But, either Linton didn't tell McKern about the prank or he did tell McKern but McKern didn't believe him. For whatever reason, over the next 25 years or so, at least three publications--and probably a few others--described the Spencer Lake Mound as containing an in situ horse skull.

In 1962, Mr. P., by then a college professor but still with an avocational interest in archaeology, dropped into the office of Robert Ritzenthaler at Milwaukee Public Museum, when the first major monograph for the Clam River Focus (including the Spencer Lake Mound) was being prepared. Mr. P. told Ritzenthaler about his youthful escapade, and

he was quite contrite about it and agreed to prepare a statement of the facts as best he remembered them, after 34 years. A copy of this was sent to McKern, who responded with a statement to the effect that he was convinced that the skull he excavated was not the planted one, but as there was reasonable doubt, he would make some revisions [in the monograph] and suggested that his statement be published. Mr. P., however, requested that neither his statement nor McKern's be published, a request that was honored, until the Griffin review. [Ritzenthaler, Wisconsin Archeologist 45(2):115-116 (1964)].

James B. Griffin Exposes the Prank

Enter James B. Griffin, undeniably doyen of archaeology for the American northeast. In 1964, Griffin wrote a review of the Clam River Focus monograph, and noted that despite the previous publication of a horse skull in Spencer Lake Mound, there was no mention of it in the book. And, so, finally, notwithstanding the high level of embarrassment suffered by Mr. P., with an academic career of his own to maintain, notes by Mr. P., W. C. McKern, and Robert Ritzenthaler describing the story above were published in the Wisconsin Archeologist, and the situation was resolved. Further evidence (beyond Mr. P.'s complete lack of motive for making this story up) was provided by Walter Pelzer, mammologist at the museum in those days, who looked at the skull and identified it as a western mustang, a horse imported for use on Wisconsin farms in the early 20th century. Pelzer also spotted rodent gnawing on all planes of the skull that suggested to him that it had been exposed to the weather for a while before being buried. Radiocarbon dates of the charcoal recovered from the mound provided a use date for the mound between circa 500-1000 AD.

At no point in these proceedings has any archaeologist ever believed the presence of the horse indicated early Viking presence in the American Midwest. The horse skull only suggested to McKern and others that the Clam River Focus sites (of which Spencer Lake Mound is one) dated to the early historic period (i.e., 1700s). But, because there are publications in dusty library stacks saying there was a horse skull in Spencer Lake Mound, the rumors continue to persist, I suppose on the principle that if it's in print it must be true. But no! despite what you may have heard, as far as the evidence shows, the only Viking presence in the Americas was a failed 11th century colony in Newfoundland called l'Anse aux Meadows.

McKern, W. C.
1964 The Spencer Lake horse skull, Response to Mr. P.'s letter of June 28, 1963. Wisconsin Archeologist 45(2):118-120

1929 Wisconsin archeology in light of recent finds in other areas. Wisconsin Archeologist 20(1):1-5.

1942 The first settlers of Wisconsin. Wisconsin Magazine of History 26(2):153-169

1963 The Clam River Focus. Milwaukee Public Museum Publications in Anthropology No. 9. Milwaukee.

Mr. P.
1964 A Burnett County hoax. Wisconsin Archeologist 45(2):120-121

Ritzenthaler, Robert
1964 The riddle of the Spencer Lake horse skull. Wisconsin Archeologist 45(2):115-117

1966 Radiocarbon dates for Clam River Focus. Wisconsin Archeologist 47(4):219-220

Having an actual confession was no deterrent to those determined to find evidence of the horse during Book of Mormon times, and their determination resulted in the offer of Steve Jones to have the skull radiocarbon dated.  There have long been rumors that when this carbon dating was revealed, it would demonstrate that the horse was, indeed, from Book of Mormon time periods, as Dr. Peterson’s statement above demonstrates..s.

In reality, the radiocarbon dating results were in long ago.  In fact, the results were in years prior to Dr. Peterson’s statement on the linked FAIR video.  A book published in 2004 explains the results.  Thanks to Chris Smith for sharing the relevant pages, which he discusses on his blog here: http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.com/

Horses Through Time, page 80

The first advantage immediately noted in the New World was the advantage held by the Spaniards in their wartime strategies and battles.  Although it is difficult to extricate the advantage of the horse from the other elements of technological superiority, which, ironically, includes other Book of Mormon anachronisms such as steel weapons and metal armor, it is still possible to see the importance of the horse in this overall picture.  The Spaniards, themselves, were well aware of the advantage the horse gave them, and at times seemed to view the horses as essential as they, themselves, were.  The following quotes from Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel demonstrate this point.

And from Horses Through Time, page 85:

The military advantage of the horse is clear, as demonstrated in these quotes.  However, this is just one element of many in regards to the impact of the horse on social evolution, although some of these elements are intrinsically tied to the military advantage of the horse.  When one group of people has the advantage of the horse, that group spreads their memes, including, for example, their language.  The horse expands the trade region, as well, and opens up many other opportunities due to the ability of the horse to transport cargo.

Horses Through Time, page 3

One of the groups specifically noted to have had horses was the Jaredite culture.  Sorenson dates the Jaredite culture beginning at 3000 B.C.  In An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, page 116, he states:

This early date is quite problematic in terms of Mesoamerican history.   The Olmec culture, the only culture that achieved the necessary level of social stratification to qualify as either the Jaredite culture or the culture in which the Jaredites participated, did not achieve that level of social stratification until much later.  If we accept Sorenson’s dating and argument, the case is already closed.  San Lorenzo, the city Sorenson cites as Lib, is the earliest Olmec city to achieve the necessary social stratification.  Richard Diehl, in his book The Olmecs, America’s First Civilization, page 29, states:

As Sorenson’s book is decades old, it is possible that he did not have access to the level of detail we currently do regarding the Olmec civilization, and hence, believed the early date was viable.  However, other Book of Mormon scholars, like Brant Gardner, adamantly reject the early dating, and seems to be more comfortable with a date around 1500 BC.  (Brant Gardner)  This at least puts us within the range of the social stratification of San Lorenzo, so I will accept his dating without further criticism. 

So, accepting the later date for the Jaredite culture, we have a culture that possessed the horse from the possible very inception of the concept of an urban center in the New World.  Given the advantage of the horse as explained above, it seems reasonable to conclude that this people would have spread their language, at the very least, far and wide.  Yet there is nothing in the evolution of languages in the New World to even hint at such a possibility.

From Guns, Germs, and Steel, page 368:

So, again we are left with a problematic proposal:  if the horse existed in Mesoamerica since Jaredite times, then it left no trace of the sort of social evolutionary impact that we see in other cultures that possessed the horse.

Given how unlikely these propositions are, some Book of Mormon scholars have proposed that the actual horse did not exist during the Book of Mormon period, but that Joseph, or perhaps Nephi, named an unknown animal “horse”, and we are left with that translation artifact.  There have been two main animals suggested as the “horse”, or animal X, the deer or tapir.  The deer argument is flawed from the outset, due to the fact that each “namer” involved, whether it was Joseph, Nephi, or the Jaredites, were familiar with both the deer and the horse. The deer is mentioned many times in the Old Testament and deer were present in ancient Israel during the given time periods. The misnaming suggested by Book of Mormon scholars occurs when one animal is an unknown.  Therefore, I suggest that the “deer” argument does not even merit further discussion.

The tapir is a more interesting possibility, due to the fact that it is, indeed, related to the horse.  So if we accept that the “namer” chose to call it a “horse” without any qualifiers, such as “horse that man does not ride”, or “strange looking solitary horse”, or “horse with a snout”, then we must analyze the context in which the animal is cited in the Book of Mormon to see if the tapir could fulfill that context.

 First, for reference, there are two articles that discuss the tapir as the “horse” on the FARMs website, the aforementioned “Horses in the Book of Mormon” and “Unanswered Mormon Scholars”.  One source in particular is cited in each article, although “Unanswered Mormon Scholars” does not provide a full reference.  The source is article written by Fradich and Thenius called Tapirs in the old series Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia, Volume 13, Mammals IV, page 29.  Both articles make mention of the noted similarities between the horse and the tapir, as well as noting that a tapir can be domesticated if captured young, and that in Brazil some farmers used them to pull ploughs.  I was fascinated by these claims, particularly the latter, since none of the information I found about tapirs on the Internet seemed to support the idea of a tapir being used as a domesticated draft animal.  In fact, the information I read seemed to contradict the idea for two main reasons.  One is that the tapir is not a herd animal, and second is that the tapir is a shy animal that can demonstrate extreme behavior under captivity.    Note that the particular tapir in question would be the Tapirus Bairdi, Baird’s tapir, although there are more similarities than differences between the different species.

The following information is obtained from the aforementioned article in Grzimek’s Encyclopedia, which begins on page 17.

The section which refers to the farmers using them to pull ploughs has been cited as support for the possibility that the tapir was the Book of Mormon “horse”, yet the sentence specifically states that there have been few attempts to domesticate tapirs, and it’s only in the last century some Brazilian farmers attempted to do so.  This was completely omitted from the FARMs article, which I find misleading.  If human beings who have lived in the same areas as tapirs for centuries rarely domesticate them, this tells us something about their suitability for domestication.  One difficulty, particularly in keeping them in groups, has to do with the fact that they do not have a rank order, or, in other words, they are not a herd animal.  Jared Diamond, in Guns, Germs, and Steel discusses the domestication of animals in various cultures, as well as the fallacious idea that some cultures may not have domesticated animals that could have been domesticated for cultural reasons.  (as some have suggested in regards to the “horse” in Mesoamerica)

From page 163

Diamond then cites examples of how quickly and successfully non-European peoples adopted European domesticates, including Native Americans and the horse.

We could very well substitute the words “tapir” and “Mesoamericans” for “zebras” and “African” in the preceding paragraph.  If tapirs were able to be domesticated and used in a manner that could be labeled “useful for man”, then they would have been by the native people, not just by a small group of foreigners from the Old World.  Yet, outside of a few isolated attempts, they have not been.  The reason for that lies not in the people, but in the animal itself.

Diamond continues:

He then shares specific unusual pets, such as kangaroos, possums, cassowaries, eagles, cheetahs, gazelles, hartebeests, cranes, giraffes, and the brown bear.  He comments:  “Over a century ago, the British scientist Francis Galton summarized this discrepancy succinctly:  “It would appear that every wild animal has had its chance at being domesticated, that [a] few… were domesticated long ago, but that the large remainder, who failed sometimes in only one small particular, are destined to perpetual wildness.” (page 165)

Diamond shares even more evidence that only certain species are suitable for domestication.  All big animal species suitable for domestication at all were domesticated within the first few thousand years of the sedentary farming-herding societies’ development.  Also, DNA evidence shows that big mammals sub species that were domesticated in different parts of the world diverged from the same population.  Also, modern efforts to domesticate big mammals that were not already domesticated have largely failed.  Hence, it is some quality of the animal itself that lends to domestication, and not the particular peoples.  Diamond isolates six groups of reasons for failed domestication. 

1. Diet – mammalian carnivores are not domesticated for food due to the inefficiency of the conversion of food biomass into the consumer’s biomass.
2. Growth Rate – domesticates must grow quickly
3. Problems of Captive Breeding – some mammals simply do not breed in captivity
4. Nasty Disposition – tendency to kill humans disqualify large mammals
5. Tendency to Panic – some species are more nervous, fast, and programmed for instant flight than others and cannot be herded
6. Social Structure – almost all species of domesticated large mammals had wild ancestors who:  lived in herds, maintained a well-developed hierarchy among herd members, and the herds occupy overlapping home ranges.  This is the ideal structure for domestication, in which the human takes over as the dominant leader.

Upon consideration of the tapir, it seems that two, and possibly three, characteristics disqualify it for domestication.  They have a tendency to panic, and sometimes engage in unacceptable behavior when panicked (witness the urine incident cited above, and some tapirs have attacked humans when panicked).  They do not have the herd structure, and they probably have difficulties breeding in captivity. 

The sole remaining possibility for Book of Mormon scholars is to insist that the “horse”, or animal X, was not domesticated in the Book of Mormon.  To analyze that claim, let’s return to a couple of specific passages.

First, this passage seems to contradict the assertion of some Book of Mormon scholars who claim that only elite had “horses”.  Second, this is a mass movement of a very large group of people (even factoring in the possible population exaggeration) in one direction.  How were all these animals moved in one direction?  Herding is the most likely answer.   It is true that some Native Americans moved groups of deer by strategic hunting, but that would hardly work in this circumstance of such a significant group marching together with all their various animals.  Third, the animals were kept in close proximity for years after arriving at the destination.  Fourth, the horse is once again mentioned in close proximity to the chariot, which is used in the context of travel. 

These verses demonstrate the firm connection of horses to chariots and transportation.  This scenario does not fit within the context of a pet being taught a “trick”, like the tapir pulling plough, but rather an animal that was consistently used for a specific purpose.

“All of which were useful unto man” indicates a domesticated animal used for a specific purpose, not a trained pet.  So we are left with this proposition:  if the Book of Mormon “horse” is really a tapir, then tapirs were domesticated only by one small group of people, never to be replicated by anyone else, despite sharing characteristics that disqualify large mammals from domestication. 

These passages also demonstrate another difficulty I have not yet addressed, which is that the horse is not the sole animal X that requires a Central American counterpart.  Most notable cattle, asses, and oxen also require a potential candidate.  Very few suggest potential candidates offered other than the deer or tapir – for good reason, they are the only candidates that can be considered at all, out of native Central American large mammals.  The deer has already been eliminated for “horse” and could be eliminated for cattle, asses, and oxen for the same reason.  All the “namers” were familiar with all of these animals.  So are we to assume that the “namer” was using a variety of names all to describe “tapir”?  If so, the text can only be described as nonsense. 

To summarize this section, here are the “if….then” questions that need to be evaluated in context.

if the horse did exist in Mesoamerica during Book of Mormon times, then not a single bone or tooth from any of these horses has ever been discovered, despite the fact that the remains of an abundance of other animals have been discovered in Mesoamerica

if horses existed in ancient Mesoamerica during the Book of Mormon time period, then despite the fact that ancient Mesoamericans depicted many animals in art and ideology, they never depicted a horse or included the horse in any of their mythology

if the horse existed in Mesoamerica since Jaredite times, then it left no trace of the sort of social evolutionary impact that we see in other cultures that possessed the horse

if the Book of Mormon “horse” is really a tapir, then tapirs were domesticated only by one small group of people, never to be replicated by anyone else, despite sharing characteristics that disqualify large mammals from domestication

It is clear to me that each of these proposals is highly unlikely, and fails to fit within the context of not only what we know about ancient Mesoamerica, but what we know about the history of other peoples in other parts of the world, as well. 

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Bibliography

Adams, Richard E. The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas: Volume 2, Mesoamerica, Part 1.  New York:  Cambridge University Press.  2000.

Barker, Alex.  “Stewardship, Collections Integrity, and Long-term Research Value”, page 30 in  Our Collective Responsibility: The Ethics and Practice of Archaeological Collections Stewardship  The Society for American Archaeology. Washington DC. 2004.  

Bennet, Robert R.  Horses in the Book of Mormon. Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, . P. N/A

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?id=129&table=transcripts

Blanton, Richard and Gary Feinman, Stephen Kowalewski, Linda Nicholas.  Ancient Oaxaca.  New York:  Cambridge University Press.  1999.

Book of Mormon Anachronisms: Part 3: Warfare. FAIR.  <Warfare>

Braswell, Geoffrey.  The Maya and Teotihuacan Reinterpreting Early Classic Interaction.  Austin:  University of Texas Press.  2003.

Brown, Kathryn and Travis Stanton.  Ancient Mesoamerican Warfare.  New York: Altamira Press.  2003.

Carrasco, David.  Religions of Mesoamerica Cosmovision and Ceremonial Centers.  Illinois:  Waveland Press, Inc.  1990.

Ray, Clayton C.   Precolumbian Horses from Yucatan. Journal of Mammalogy 38 (1957): 278.

Coe, Michael.  Breaking the Maya Code.  New York: Thames & Hudson.  1999.

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