Book of Mormon Evidence

Dr. Roger Kennedy, the former director of the Smithsonian’s American History Museum, addressed a misperception about earth mounds, noting that earth mounds are actually buildings. Build and building are also very old words, often used in this text [his book] as they were when the English language was being invented, to denote earthen structures. About 1150, when the word build was first employed in English, it referred to the construction of an earthen grave. Three hundred and fifty years later, an early use of the term to build up was the description of the process by which King Priam of Troy constructed a “big town of bare earth.” So when we refer to the earthworks of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys as buildings no one should be surprised.” Jonathan Neville Mounds and Mormons

“Hidden Cities: The Discovery and Loss of Ancient North American Civilization – by Roger G Kennedy, former director of the Smithsonian’s American History Museum is one of the most profound books on the hidden archaeology of North America.  How and why was it hidden away for centuries and why is it important to the future of America?  Reprinted by The Free Press, New York after overwhelming demand for its powerful message.  372 page soft cover.

Steven E. Smoot believes so, and he shared his story with for over 10 years with thousands of guests at conventions and with the sale of his book.

In the Book of Mormon Evidence Conferences (Now in its 28th semi-annual event) which is not sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, whether at the Davis Conference Center or the Mountain America Expo Center is it filled to capacity with LDS church members seeking more information on a variety of topics all focused on the Book of Mormon prophet Lehi and his descendants, where and how they lived, and how they vanished into thin air.

Smoot’s hypothesis is based on earthen mounds and archaeological artifacts found throughout Ohio, Mississippi and other heartland states between the Canadian border and the Gulf of Mexico. Most notable are the mound cities and burial grounds like those found in the Mississippi Valley.

“This was a more highly advanced civilization than previously thought,” Smoot said. 

In a recent documentary Roger Kennedy, retired director of the Smithsonian Institute, said he had never heard of such civilizations. He had never considered the numerous mounds throughout the area to be more than piles of dirt. But that has changed.

After archaeological digs and significant artifacts and documentation had come forward over the years, Kennedy said the Smithsonian had to take another look.

“We now realize that tens of thousands of archaeological consequences are now hidden in our ground,” Kennedy said.

“One city across the river from St. Louis, the Cahokia Mounds, are bigger than the pyramid of Giza,” Smoot said. “There are 500 mounds in just one county dating back from 1,000 B.C. to 400 A.D.”

The fleeting notion that Columbus was the first to step foot on American soil is more sullied by the findings of modern archaeologists, Smoot said.

“The question is, who wasn’t here,” Smoot said. He noted the evidence of Vikings, Greeks, Polynesians, Welsh, Chinese and others.

So where did all this history go? According to Smoot, at one time there were 500 Native American languages and 50 linguistic families.

“Explorers were amazed at what they were finding in the early 1800s. They were finding symbols with old-world connections,” Smoot said. “We found early Jesuits seeking the lost 10 tribes. They thought the American Indians were of Jewish descent. They believed the Indian people worthy of salvation.”

Smoot said there were notes with opinions of the Jesuits stating that Indians in the Pennsylvania area were similar to the Jews of England.

All that changed when three men — John Wesley Powell, Lewis Henry Morgan, and E.B. Squier — first documented the mounds in the mid-1800s. They formed an association for the advancement of science and promulgated the evolution of societies.

HISTORY OF AAAS

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the betterment of all humanity. The formation of AAAS in 1848 marked the emergence of a national scientific community in the United States. While science was part of the American scene from the nation’s early days, its practitioners remained few in number and scattered geographically and among disciplines. AAAS was the first permanent organization formed to promote the development of science and engineering at the national level and to represent the interests of all its disciplines.

Smoot continues, “The evolution began with savages, then to barbarians and eventually civilized man. They categorized Indians as savages, thus sufficiently taking away their societal influence. Religionists like Joseph Smith and his church were considered barbarians.

Smoot quickly noted that both Powell and Morgan’s fathers were Methodist ministers who preached in Palmyra, N.Y., in 1830 and were instrumental in spreading some of the radical thinking against Smith, founder of the LDS Church.

Smoot believes the Indian history got lost through political debunking and battles over opinions that escalated in the late 1800s. Powell wrote the blueprint for how to handle Indians based on them being deemed savage.

“The most common question that is asked about mounds is, “How many exist?” In the 1800’s the Smithsonian sponsored many expeditions to identify mound sites across America. A map (shown below) was produced by Cyrus Thomas in 1894 in a Bureau of Ethnology book. They found approximately 100,000 mound sites, many with
complexes containing 2 to 100 mounds. The figure of 100,000 mounds once existing— based on Cyrus Thomas map revealing 100,000 sites—is often cited by others, but that estimate is far, far too low. After visiting several thousand mounds and reviewing the literature, I am fairly certain that over 1,000,000 mounds once existed and that perhaps 100,000 still exist. Oddly, some new mound sites are discovered each year by archaeological surveys in remote areas. But in truth, a large majority of America’s mounds have been completely destroyed by farming, construction, looting, and deliberate total excavations” – Gregory L. Little, Ed.D., The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American Mounds & Earthworks, Eagle Wing Books, Inc., Memphis, TN [2009].

By 1894 the mound investigation and archaeological digs had ceased. With the Indians now considered savages it was easier to convince people that Native Americans needed to be put away on reservations.

“The ancient inhabitants of this country must be lost,” Powell said.

“They pictured them in loin clothes running around with tomahawks in their hand,” Smoot said. “There are those who would seek to close the history book for a better world.”

With renewed interest in the mound cities and the early Native Americans, Smoot believes it’s time for people to look at all the possibilities.

“There is a larger history with implications for our day,” Smoot said.

For more information about the conference visit www.BookofMormonEvidence.org.

Understanding Lamanites- Nothing but Raw Meat

Enos 1:20 “And many of them did eat nothing save it was raw meat; and they were continually seeking to destroy us.”

“One hundred and seventy-nine years after Lehi’s family left Jerusalem, the Lamanites were “feeding upon beasts of prey” and many were eating “nothing save it was raw meat.” This diet, consisting of meat only, would require a very large sustainable population of wild animals, or very large animals, or both. One 1,800 pound bison will feed a large number of people. It has been estimated that between 30-60 million bison once roamed the Great Plains of North America. Living in tents was a necessary part of the Indian culture of moving with bison herds and correlates well with Eno’s description of the Lamanite lifestyle. In an Ancient Archaeology article, Discovery Reveals Ancient Bison Hunting in Illinois, [2006] archaeologist Alan Harn found “bison remains with a spearpoint, indicating that humans hunted the animals as long as 2,300 years ago. Annotated Book of Mormon page 121

Bison Migration

In Alma 22:31, Mormon describes a wild animal that came (migrated) from a northern region for food. In Mosiah 18:4, Mormon describes how the land of Mormon was “infested, by times or at seasons, by wild beasts.” And in Ether 9:34, it says that “the people did follow the course of the beasts, and did devour the carcasses of them which fell by the way” following a great dearth (drought) that forced the beasts to retreat southward. The map on the left shows the ancient migration of bison based on available zoo-archaeological, paleontological, oral and written historical accounts. Herds came from the north to graze on the fertile grasses of the plains of North America. (Stephenson, R. O. et al. Wood bison in late Holocene Alaska and adjacent Canada: Paleontological, archaeological and historical records, [2001],125-159; S. C. Gerlachand M. S. Murrya, eds.)

Seasonal Migrations“Bison migrated up to 310 miles betweensummer and winter ranges…” – Mystery of Migration, Planet Earth Series [1981]. David Hocking and Rod Meldrum Annotated book of Mormon page 246

Ancient Bison in North America

“The greater portion, both of the entire skeletons or extinct animals, and the separate bones, have been taken up from black mud [in Big Bone Lick, Kentucky], about twelve feet below the level of the creek. It is supposed that the bones of mastodons found here could not have belonged to less than one hundred distinct individuals, those of the fossil elephant (E. prim genius), to twenty, besides which, a few bones of a stag, horse, megalonyx, and bison, are stated to have been obtained….In regard to the horse, it may probably have differed from our Equuscaballus as much as the zebra or wild ass, in the same manner as that found at Newberne [sic] in North Carolina appears to have done” – Charles Lyell, Travels in North America in the Years 1841-1842, New York: Charles E. Merrill[1909], 139-144.

The first paleontological site in North America wasprobably at Big Bone Lick, which is now Big Bone Lick StatePark near the Ohio River in Union, Kentucky. A Frenchcommander organized a dig there in 1739. Bones retrievedby him were sent to the Natural History Museum in Paris,France. In the 1960’s, the University of Nebraska conductedanother dig and several mammal fossils were recoveredincluding: possible wolf and black bear, modern bison, ancientbison, two types of musk ox, American moose, wapiti elk,common Virginia deer, extinct stag moose, caribou, flat-headed peccary, extinct North American horse, possibletapir, American mastodon, woolly mammoth, and two typesof giant ground sloth. The most common fossil found at theBig Bone Lick dig was the modern bison.

Bison Intentional Killing

While studying in England, Lewis Henry Morgan was heavily influenced by British evolutionary theorists of his day, who at that time would tout the intriguing works of Thomas Malthus. His ideas were growing in popularity and, even then, being proposed as a tool to perfect both man and society through population control measures. Malthus affirmed, “my object was to apply it, to try the truth of those speculations on the perfectibility of man and society, which at that time excited a considerable portion of the public attention.”⁴¹⁴

One of his most daunting ideas found in Malthus’ 1798 book, Essay on the Principle of Population, in the forth chapter, titled The Check To Population Among the American Indian. In this chapter he would refer to the Indians as savages living in a barbaric country. He depicted the Indians as “tribes of hunters, like beasts of prey whom they resemble in their mode of subsistence, will consequently be thinly scattered over the surface of the earth… Under such circumstances, that America should be very thinly peopled in proportion to its extent of territory, is merely an exemplification of the obvious truth, that population cannot increase without the food to support it…I would wish particularly to draw attention of the reader, [to] the mode by which the population is kept down to the level of this scanty supply.”⁴¹⁵

More about Bison on my blog here: https://bookofmormonevidence.org/bison-killing/

Powell Family, Palmyra and the Book of Mormon

Lost American Antiquities by Steven E. Smoot Chapter 34

“In the Arlington Cemetery Eulogy of John Wesley Powell’s life, G. K. Gilbert of Rochester, New York remarked:

The qualities, which enabled him so splendidly to perform his many self-imposed tasks, were an inheritance from his parents, who possessed more than ordinary intelligence. Joseph Powell, his father, had a strong will, deep earnestness, and indomitable courage, while his mother, Mary Dean, with similar traits possessed also remarkable tact and practicality. Both were English born, the mother well educated, and were always leaders in the social and educational life of every community where they dwelt. Especially were they prominent in religious circles, the father being a licensed exhorter in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Both were intensely American in their love and admiration of the civil institutions of the United States and both were strenuously opposed to slavery, which was flourishing in America when they arrived in 1830. For a time they remained in New York City and then re-moved to the Village of Palmyra whence they went to Mount Morris, Livingston County, New York, where, on March 24, 1834, the fourth of their nine children, John Wesley, was born. Because of the slavery question Joseph Powell left the Methodist Episcopal Church on the organization of the Wesleyan Methodist Church and became a regularly ordained preacher in the latter. It was in this atmosphere of social, educational, political, and religious fervor that the future explorer grew up.²⁸³

The Powell’s had found their way to one of the most intensely evangelical districts in America. All during the building of the [Erie] canal and well into the 1830’s western New York was on fire with religion, as Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Methodists vied to save souls; observers called this “the burned-over district” because of the frequent revivals that raged like forest fires through the countryside. Rochester was the persistent center of the fire. In 1830 a New England preacher, Charles Grandison Finney, with bulging blue eyes and tense, gripping voice, came to that city and for six months preached nearly every night and three times on Sunday, converting thousands.²⁸⁴

While Rochester could point to Finney and his stupendous achievements, Palmyra made its own contribution to the religious ferment, one that would eventually reverberate to the far western deserts. Palmyra was the birthplace of Mormonism. Joseph Smith, Mormonism’s founder, was an uneducated farm boy living south of the village center. Smith’s tales and teachings would cause reverberations throughout the region, as the doctrines he espoused would be heard far and wide.

The Book of Mormon rolled off the press in Palmyra, New York in 1830. Its publication created no small stir with much controversy in the area. The book tells of ancient cultures that migrated to America hundreds of years before Christ.

However, the Mormon story had begun years earlier near the Palmyra Township of western New York, with stories of heavenly visitations to its youthful founder, Joseph Smith. His audacious claims were met with either delight or disdain, depending on the listener. For many, he was either a deluded dreamer or a charlatan. For others, he was a prophet, raised up by God, who had personally appeared to him in 1820 and later sent angels to guide Smith to an ancient record inscribed on gold plates and buried in a hill. Of this experience, Smith said:

“I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country and shown who they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people, was made known unto me; I was also told where were deposited some plates on which were engraven an abridgment of the records of the ancient prophets that had existed on this continent.” ²⁸⁵

This claimed ancient record was found in an area of the country where many other artifacts were being retrieved from mound explorations. Joseph Smith claimed to have translated the record and to have shown the plates to eleven others, who reportedly witnessed and gave testimony that they did indeed, see and handle the plates. Upon the translation of the record according to Smith, it was returned to a heavenly messenger, as instructed. Smith’s translation of this record would go on to be printed and published in Palmyra in 1830 as the Book of Mormon.

Purporting to be a historical record of migrations of ancient near Eastern cultures to the Americas, the book tells of their rise to glory and their tragic fall. The thrust of this religious narrative is an abridgment of records comprising the writings of a number of different religious leaders and includes the record of a visit to these people of the resurrected Christ. The historical account also foretells modern day events and a latter-day rise of the descendants of those ancient populations.

The Book of Mormon, along with the claims of its translator and the missionary-minded church he established—a restoration, he insisted, of Christ’s ancient church—created no small stir in Palmyra and indeed throughout the young nation. As it turns out, two of the preachers vying for converts in the immediate area of Palmyra had sons who would go on to play a significant role in how the knowledge of ancient American cultures would be handed down. The two preachers’ sons were E. G. Squier and John Wesley Powell.

Upon arriving in America, the Powell family, steeped in their Methodist beliefs, would be confronted continually with a myriad of religious views, as many religions in the area were vying for converts. This battle for converts “was another American strangeness to absorb along with Jacksonian politics, Manhattan street life, wild forest scenes, and Yankee twang. They had brought with them the true Christian faith, based on the traditional Bible, and they needed no other, certainly not one from an upstart bumpkin who said he had seen angels.”²⁸⁶

In Powell of the Colorado, William Culp Darrah writes:

The Powell family moved on to Palmyra, New York, as another station on the road to (the western) wilderness. The town was still excited over the new sect, which called themselves Mormons. The first printing of the Book of Mormon of five thousand copies had but recently been finished. A few years earlier, Joseph Smith, a young farmer, had received a vision revealing to him the existence of that record of the fullness of Christ’s Gospel, and on September 22, 1827, … gold tablets bearing cryptic characters were delivered into (Joseph) Smith’s hands… Joseph Powell [John Wesley’s Father] did not find the opportunity he sought in Utica. Tailoring was not satisfying; it was but a means to an end. A licensed exhorter of the Methodist Church was expected to follow his regular trade or profession, but there had been little chance for him to carry on religious work. There were six churches in the town and all who desired to attend services had an opportunity to do so. Joseph Powell wanted to bring religion to those who were beyond his reach.²⁸⁷

Despite the comfortable life they were enjoying in western New York, John Wesley Powell’s father, Joseph became restless “and informed the family that he now had his eye on Ohio. God was summoning to move once more. Joseph longed not merely to build churches but to preach the gospel and save souls. He had come to the New World with a mission to evangelize as well as prosper. Western New York State had plenty of preachers; Ohio did not. So, with many tearful good-byes, the family packed their clothes and portable goods and headed deeper into the nations interior.”²⁸⁸

Powell’s family life from birth, moving ever westward, would shadow the westward migration of the early Mormon pioneers from New York to Ohio then on to Illinois. His interests and business would also drive his steps to follow the trails blazed by these early pioneers across the open plains, over the Rocky Mountains and into the valleys of the Great Salt Lake on numerous occasions.²⁸⁹

The Powell’s moved westward to Ohio…“taking a steamer across Lake Erie, then making a long canal trip south from Cleveland through Akron, Massillon, Coshocton, Newark, Columbus getting off at the former capital of Chillicothe. Inspired by the Erie Canal’s success, developers dug the Ohio Canal over three hundred miles long (going all the way to the Ohio River), with 152 locks and 16 aqueducts. When linked to the Erie Canal, it put much of the state within cheap, easy reach of New York City.”²⁹⁰

“Over the next three decades hundreds more followed them, clustering together in what became southern Jackson County, Ohio, trying to keep their language and culture intact.”²⁹¹

In Ohio the Powell family was looking to buy a small parcel to build a home when they met Big George Crookham, a large robust man who invited them to setup camp at his farm, as he would help them find a small property near Jackson, Ohio. Big George would become a real influence in Wesley’s life as later he became Big George’s pupil.

“Big George” Crookham was a strict but inspiring school master who had himself read as a lad such works as; David Hume’s History of England and Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and other substantial books; but the intimate instruction which had the greatest influence on him was the field trips and walks through the countryside…They dug in the prehistoric mounds of Jackson and Ross Counties…during which he was introduced to the elements of geology, archeology and natural history.²⁹²

With the extended construction of the Erie Canal, the corridor to the west was established and the Powell family was there to see this mass migration of tens of thousands of pioneers moving ever westward in pursuit of their dreams. Many would settle in America’s heartland, amidst some of the largest concentration of the ancient mounds and earthworks of the Hopewell and Adena cultures.

One of the Powell’s’ residence was located near the edge of the plateau, and below they could see the tangled riverine forest of Little Salt Creek, which flows west to the Little Scioto, which enters the Ohio River about fifty miles away. An anonymous historian wrote, “Along most of these creeks, and especially along the [Salt], is some of the most beautiful, romantic, and picturesque scenery the eye of man ever beheld.”²⁹³ “Wildlife and humans had long come here looking for that very practical necessity after which the stream was called—salt. The valley offered several salt licks where bison and elk, and before them mastodons and giant bears, had congregated, sometimes leaving their bones. In 1836, geologists, while excavating salt deposits in Jackson County, unearthed the skeleton of a hairy mammoth whose tusks measured eleven feet and weighed 180 pounds each.”²⁹⁴ Also found in Jackson County and some of the neighboring counties of Ohio—Scioto, Butler, Montgomery and Ross County—are some of the largest and most impressive concentrations of ancient works and mound structures as surveyed by Squier and Davis in their 1848 report.

Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, near Marietta, Ohio

As one walks along the path leading past the many burial mounds at the Mound City Hopewell Culture Center in Ross County, Ohio, one can only guess about what additional knowledge is still buried in those mounds, decaying away with time. At what point does society stop and ask whether the silence and social engineering surrounding these ancient cultures has really led to a greater good for mankind?

The remaining mound sites which are found in National and State parks are but a vestige of a once large number of historical sites that Squier and Davis estimated would be in the thousands. Mounds, along with earthworks and enclosures, were estimated at over fifteen hundred in the state of Ohio alone. As of 2005, the Ohio Historic Preservation office had identified and compiled over 35,000 prehistoric sites in the state, with an estimate that over 60% of those, are located on private lands and with approximately 90% of those sites being referenced to be pre-Columbian.

As the late Roger G. Kennedy, former director of the National Park Service and former director of the American History Museum at the Smithsonian Institution, said:

“The search for harmony is not a new phenomenon in Ohio. Propitiatory sacrifice was not invented in the Middle East. Perhaps, as we move forward toward an attempt to restore our own harmonious relationship to our mound-building predecessors, we may find, in the Old or New Testament texts, analogies to the physical testaments they have left to us. Analogies do not explain things away. Instead, they may be opening to understanding, declaring that we are all baffled by the enigmas of the universe, and that it is possible that the American Indians, we, and ancient peoples of the Old World, including the Jews, may have sought ways of seeking harmony with mysterious systems we cannot understand and cannot control. In this spirit, let us return to the mounds, and risk some guesses about why and how they were built.²⁹⁵“

Metal Ornaments, Highly Valued by the Mound Builders

Squier and Davis, Ancient Monuments, Fig. 88

Ancient Works, Marietta, GA

_______________________

²⁸³ See: Arlington Cemetery Eulogy / J.W. Powell.Net
²⁸⁴ Johnson, P.E., Shopkeeper’s Millennium, 137.
²⁸⁵ Joseph Smith, Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, compiled by Alma P. Burton, Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City, 1977, 275-6.
²⁸⁶ Worster, 16.
²⁸⁷ William Culp Darrah: Powell of the Colorado, Princeton, University Press, 4
²⁸⁸ Worster, 20.
²⁸⁹ See: Ibid.
²⁹⁰ Ibid., 22.
²⁹¹ Ibid., 21.
²⁹² Darrah, William Culp: Powell of the Colorado, (Princeton University Press) 12: George L Crookham, History of the Hanging Rock Iron Region; 369-370: History of the Scioto Valley of Ohio, 471: see also Jackson Standard, March 5,1857.
²⁹³ See: Worster, 24-History of Lower Scioto Valley, 458
²⁹⁴ Worster, 23-24.
²⁹⁵ Kennedy, Hidden Cities; 242

Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, 1848 by Smithsonian (Entire Book)

$29.95 This is an actual reprint of the very first publication of the Smithsonian Institution and comprises the results of extensive original surveys and explorations in 1848.  It contains the earliest study of the remains of the Moundbuilders whose civilization thrived in the Heartland of North America from 500 B.C. to 400 AD – Book of Mormon time frames!  A ‘must read’ for anyone desiring to learn more about the Nephites from one of the earliest sources. 306 page softbound. Purchase Here

Ancient Monuments of The Mississippi Valley, Set of 48 original plates in 1848 (Black and White Mounds)

$9.95 This spiral bound oversized book contains a complete set of 48 of the plates from the book, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley by the Smithsonian’s E.G. Squier and E.H. Davis from their original surveys. These reproductions have been enlarged 120% from the original size for greater detail.  They include such works as those of Newark, Chillicothe and Marietta, Ohio, the Great Circle & Octagon, Fort Ancient, Fort Hill, Serpent Mound, and “the Cross.” Purchase Here