The Narrow Neck Debate Continues...

[MormonMason]

 

Thought I would do some research on Squires book.

On page 97 Squire mentions small heaps each comprising of three or four skeletons. Each of these had the appearance of elaborate funeral service such as saving the bones of their dead and in fixed intervals set aside for a large family funeral (page 98).

 

The only arrows found in these mounds were pristine never before used arrows pointing in one direction, they were for ritualistic use in the burial .This coincides with historic records that validate these burials; Queen Cofitachequi has reported (to Hernando de Soto) that the mounds served as burial places for their nobility. To continue the mounds Squire speaks of on page 98 are those of Fort Ancient which existed from approximately 1000 AD to the mid 17th century.

 

To summarize the sources that Rob Osborn is using has in no way a connection to mass warfare in or around the hill Cumorah and they do not date to 385 AD.

 

And, Fort Ancient (in Ohio, by the way, as you probably already know) was a ceremonial or ritual space, not a military one.  The embankments only served a secondary defensive function.  In fact, most of the type of earthworks like this one are confined to Ohio, not New York.

 

Now, in fairness to Rob, the embankment walls of this site were said to have been constructed "nearly 2,000 years ago," or circa A.D. 9 and no earlier (dating back to the time of the 2009 excavations of the structure).  The remainder of later findings at Fort Ancient do date to the Late Prehistoric Period, ranging from A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1750.  But, again, it was not a military fortification but a ceremonial space.  Ongoing research continues at this site, by the way.  However, in this place the dating is too early to have been involved in the final battles of Cumorah.

 

In addition, the Hopewell culture ended in A.D. 500, which is too late for the final destruction of the Nephite people.  The dating doesn't match and is no evidence of the final battles of the Nephites and is 484 miles away from the New York hill later named Cumorah.  Definitely not a fit for the final battles.

Edited September 16, 2013 by MormonMason

[Rob Osborn]

When I CFR I want page number, how many times do I need to ask this? Do not tell me to read something that is not answering a CFR. When you make a claim and directly connect it to the hill Cumorah I want to know where to read it myself. Since it was you making the claim you are the one who has to do this it is part of the board guidelines. Now produce page number or retract your statement.

How can you guarantee this?

CFR I was speaking about the hill Cumorah this was your answer CFR. Please dont tell me to read something give me the page number.

You can read their minds?

I have read this thread, By calling me "closeminded" I must be getting under your skin with all my CFRs that have been unanswered

This is not answering a CFR. I was speaking about evidence around the Hill Cumorah in New York and that is what you told me to read. Please tell me what page number.

I accept that method of dating shows that it possibly could date back but not to the time of the Book of Mormon, in which is what I keep CFRing you for some evidence that supports your argument that dates to the Book of Mormon.

I gave you the link, just read the book. You have to read at least the first 75 pages to get proper context.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Rob Osborn

[MormonMason]

I gave you the link, just read the book. You have to read at least the first 75 pages to get proper context.

I've been reading it.  It does not support your view--at all.  Subsequent archaeological digs and study only serve to confirm that these sites date wildly to the wrong time periods to be of use as evidence for the final battles around New York's hill.

[Rob Osborn]

Have you even read the entire thing yourself? I mean every page and that very carefully.  None of these ruins date to Book of Mormon times.  None.  Compare what you read in that book with current dating of the ruins and you will see that the modern archaeologists are very closely in agreement with the general dating that Squier gives for a lot of these kinds of remains.  None of these are Book of Mormon period ruins.  None.  I'd give this up as any kind of evidence for the location of the final battles of the Book of Mormon.

I wasnt aware that modern archaeologists went over these same sites in western New York that Squier mentions and dated them Could you provide a link?

[Rob Osborn]

I've been reading it.  It does not support your view--at all.  Subsequent archaeological digs and study only serve to confirm that these sites date wildly to the wrong time periods to be of use as evidence for the final battles around New York's hill.

Well...a CFR is in order for you to provide evidence that the earthen fortifications in New York as mentioned by Squier are being dated.

[Calm]

I gave you the link, just read the book. You have to read at least the first 75 pages to get proper context.

While that might be required to get the overall context, if there is evidence in the book, there should be specific enough information about findings to provide specific quotes...such as "this site was found in this area and is dated to ****, items found here were.....".

[Calm]

I wasnt aware that modern archaeologists went over these same sites in western New York that Squier mentions and dated them Could you provide a link?

You need to provide the locations and/or names of the sites first so he can find them for you.

[Rob Osborn]

I've been reading it.  It does not support your view--at all.  Subsequent archaeological digs and study only serve to confirm that these sites date wildly to the wrong time periods to be of use as evidence for the final battles around New York's hill.

Well...a CFR is in order for you to provide evidence that the earthen fortifications in New York as mentioned by Squier are being dated.

You need to provide the locations and/or names of the sites first so he can find them for you.

He claimed I was wrong, I await his CFR.

[MormonMason]

Well...a CFR is in order for you to provide evidence that the earthen fortifications in New York as mentioned by Squier are being dated.

No problem.  Here is the actual website for Fort Ancient State Memorial:

 

http://www.fortancient.org/archaeology

 

 

Here is something you can read on the site:

Early investigations at Fort Ancient were conducted in the form of mapping expeditions in the early 1800s and expanded towards the end of the century to surface collecting and full-scale excavations by William King Moorehead, a local man from Xenia, Ohio. Moorehead, along with others, was convinced that the impressive bluff-top embankment walls were created to defend against invaders. Later research showed, however, that Fort Ancient represents an embankment of ceremonial space rather than a fortress. Archaeological investigations have been nearly continuous at Fort Ancient since Moorehead, but the techniques used and the information gained have drastically changed how the site is viewed.

 

And, yet another page (Ongoing Research):

The embankment walls at the Fort Ancient earthworks in Warren County, Ohio, have been under siege by erosion since their construction nearly 2,000 years ago. 

 

And, you can find this in the Ohio Prehistory section:

The Hopewell prospered for perhaps six centuries, but around A.D. 500, the culture “collapsed.” 

 

 

Additional summaries of the information they have been learning about the site are found on the site under the archaeology section.  Happy reading. 

Edited September 16, 2013 by MormonMason

[Sevenbak]

There was a mile between both those hills and Cowdery confined the battle to between them.  With a number of somewhere between hundreds of thousands and over a million people, stuffed into that valley only a mile across? Not likely.

 

You also should be aware that Oliver Cowdery had resigned as editor of the Messenger and Advocate before that personal letter you cited was published therein. (See page 131, June 1835).

Some thoughts here... First, you'll have to convince me that the text or Oliver's reflects that the entire battle both started and ended in that mile wide valley, all women and children included.  He says that "THE ENTIRE POWER AND NATIONAL STRENGTH" of both peoples ended in that vale. That is wide open.  Second, given Mormon's accounting, how many people in hand to hand combat can one reasonably expect to fit in a mile wide battle, and how deep or long was that battle?  Cumorah is about 3/4 of a mile long, but no one is limiting the cutoff of that battle to the ends of the hill...

 

Also, what difference does if make if Oliver Cowdrey resigned before the letter was published in the T&S?  And why are you downplaying it as a "personal letter"?  It was reprinted at least 3 other times as official church history publications, including official C. History missionary pamphlets in England.

[MormonMason]

There is something else you need to know about Squier.  He is identified as an amateur archaeologist by other archaeologists.  See, for example, the following:

 

In 1846, two amateur archaeologists, Ephraim George Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis, took an interest in these earthworks and set out to survey and to excavate them.

http://ohiosrvc.org/Graphics/pdf/squier_davis.pdf

 

He wasn't even a professional archaeologist.  Do you have anything more reliable than Squier?

[Sevenbak]

Smart man yes, I wonder why these replica toys are only found in Mesoamerica, not the US (that date to the Book of Mormon).

 

 

Yet there is not a single artifact that has ever confirmed coming from two great battles. In the same place we have found artifacts from Native American Indians as small as campsites of 12 people from the Clovis time period (think 10,000 years ago). One might think if we can find artifacts from such small encampments of ten thousand years ago we should be able to find some evidence of two such battles at such a large scale, and we know where to look. But alas nothing has been found.

Everything I've read from the text tells me that the land northward was far less advanced, far more wicked, far less developed than the land southward, or their homeland.  However, there are indeed similarities in some artifacts.  

 

 

Here's just one, from an Oklahoma Hopewell site, I believe.  Feathered serpents? Possibly, but at the very least, the style or art is very reminiscent of the Mayan culture.

 

Edited September 16, 2013 by Sevenbak

[MormonMason]

Some thoughts here... First, you'll have to convince me that the text or Oliver's reflects that the entire battle both started and ended in that mile wide valley, all women and children included.  He says that "THE ENTIRE POWER AND NATIONAL STRENGTH" of both peoples ended in that vale. That is wide open.  Second, given Mormon's accounting, how many people in hand to hand combat can one reasonably expect to fit in a mile wide battle, and how deep or long was that battle?  Cumorah is about 3/4 of a mile long, but no one is limiting the cutoff of that battle to the ends of the hill...

 

Also, what difference does if make if Oliver Cowdrey resigned before the letter was published in the T&S?  And why are you downplaying it as a "personal letter"?  It was reprinted at least 3 other times as official church history publications, including official C. History missionary pamphlets in England.

I am mentioning that it is a personal letter because it was a personal letter.  It just got published in the Messenger and Advocate like a lot of other correspondence did.  And, I did not write Times and Seasons.  I wrote Messenger and Advocate.  The best that this evidence could be used to support is that Joseph Smith once held a view that this was the place of the final battles.  Joseph Smith changes his views on a number of points as he learned more.  There is another reference that he claimed that Manti was in Illinois (I do not now recall the source at the moment) but the Bok of Mormon is clear that Manti was south of Zarahemla, on the land southward and by the Sidon.  In 1842, Joseph Smith's editorial put Zarahemla in Mesoamerica, and Manti would have been south of Zarahemla, so...what do you think he was thinking? We know he changed his views on various points and that shows that he knew about as much about the geography of the Book of Mormon as any of us.

 

And as to the region around the New York hill, there is no way it could sustain a population of a million people, much less several hundreds of thousands, for a period of four years!  Tens of thousands would have died from starvation and plague, and from harsh upstate New York winters, before the Lamanites ever got there.  There is nothing reporting anything like that.  The Book of Mormon is clear that Mormon "gathered in all" of the people "in one" in Cumorah.  That is one body.  They weren't scattered around the landscape for hundreds of miles.  They were "in one," meaning in location.  New York's hill and environs could not have sustained so large a population for four years.  The growing season was too short and there would have been all sorts of serious logistical problems before the Lamanites ever got there, including polluted water that would have brought the Nephites the gift of cholera with the resultant deaths.

 

Have you got some "thus saith the Lord" kind of material from Joseph Smith positively identifying these New York lands as the actual places of the final battles? If you do, please do share it.

Edited September 16, 2013 by MormonMason

[Sevenbak]

Smart man yes, I wonder why these replica toys are only found in Mesoamerica, not the US (that date to the Book of Mormon).

 

 

Yet there is not a single artifact that has ever confirmed coming from two great battles. In the same place we have found artifacts from Native American Indians as small as campsites of 12 people from the Clovis time period (think 10,000 years ago). One might think if we can find artifacts from such small encampments of ten thousand years ago we should be able to find some evidence of two such battles at such a large scale, and we know where to look. But alas nothing has been found.

Not a single professional archeological dig has been done at Cumorah.  However, we have mass amounts of accounts of 200-400 years of discoveries and destruction/tampering of relics/artifacts in Western New York of highly advanced, but long forgotten civilizations in the region.  I don't so easily dismiss so many accounts.  Personally, I think this is a good example of where the law of witnesses that we hold as truth in the Gospel, has some real value outside of it. 

 

Here's some very relevant and varied accounts of what I'm referring to:

 

 

• Memoir on the Antiquities of the Western Parts of the State of New York by Governor De Witt Clinton in 1820
• History of the State of New York by John V. N. Yates and Joseph W. Moulton in 1824
• The Natural, Statistical and Civil History of the State of New York in Three Volumes by James Macauley in 1829
• American Antiquities by Josiah Priest in 1833
• A Geographical History of the State of New York: Embracing its History, Government, Physical Features, Climate, Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology, Education, Internal Improvements, &c. With a Separate Map of Each County. The Whole Forming a Complete History of the State. by J. H. Mather and L. P. Brockett, M. D. in 1848
• Documentary History of New York by Christopher Morgan in 1849
• Aboriginal monuments of the state of New-York : comprising the results of original surveys and explorations; with an illustrative appendix by E. G. Squier in 1849
• Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase of Western New York by O. Turner in 1850
• League of the Iroquois by Lewis Henry Morgan in 1851
• Antiquities of the state of New York : being the results of extensive original surveys and explorations, with a supplement on the antiquities of the west by E. G. Squier in 1851, previously published asAboriginal monuments of the state of New-York : comprising the results of original surveys and explorations; with an illustrative appendix in 1849.
• Ancient Man in America Including Works in Western New York and Portions of Other States, by Frederick Larkin, M.D. in 1880
• Aboriginal Occupation of New York by Rev. Dr. William M. Beauchamp in 1900
• Metallic Implements of the New York Indians by Rev. Dr. William M. Beauchamp in 1902
• Metallic Ornaments of the New York Indians by Rev. Dr. William M. Beauchamp in 1903
• Archeological History of New York vol. 1-2 by Arthur Caswell Parker in 1920
• History of New York State, 1523-1927, vol. 1-6 by Dr. James Sullivan in 1927
• Pre-Iroquoian Occupations of New York by William A. Ritchie in 1944
• The Archaeology of New York State by William A. Ritchie in 1965
• Ephraim George Squier and the Development of American Anthropology by Terry A. Barnhart in 2005

Edited September 16, 2013 by Sevenbak

[Calm]

And which of these books deals with sites that are dated to before 500 AD?

 

You need as well as location and mass discoveries correct time placement.

Edited September 16, 2013 by calmoriah

[Sevenbak]

Just wanted to post for the new people on the board. I am a true blue, believing, card holding, very active member of the church. There is no need to question my faith here.

 

I do not know where exactly the final battle took place. I know it happened some where. If it did happen in New York, then our Heavenly Father has hid all the battlements from such a battle from us. God must have also hid the enormous migrations of four groups of people  to this place. This is something he has not done in other areas of the world where we can read about battles in the Bible.

 

 

 

On the other hand Mesoamerican anthropologist have found much evidence to support such groups there. I do not know where, but it least the evidence is such that makes that place a much more plausible one than in New York.

The Lord didn't hide them, he just allowed people to live in the regions for a few centuries and till the soil know what was going on.  I think this is why so many early saints joined the church, because of what they saw, it made sense to them. I also think this is exactly why Joseph and others were employed as "money diggers".  There were things to be found.

Here's some of historian 's Orsamus Turner description of the region from his chapter one introduction.  He gets into specifics later.

 

 

Although not peculiar to this region, there is perhaps no portion

of the United States where ancient relics are more numerous.

Commencing principally near the Oswego River, they extend

westwardly over all the western counties of our State, Canada

West, the western Lake Region,...

Either as now, the western portion of our State had

attractions and inducements to make it a favorite residence; or

these people, assailed from the north and the east, made this a refuge

in a war of extermination, fortified the commanding eminences,

met the shock of a final issue; were subject to its adverse results.

Were their habits and pursuits mixed ones, their residence was

well chosen. The Forest invited to the chase; the Lakes and

Rivers to local commerce, — to the use of the net and the angling

rod; the soil, to agriculture. The evidences that this was one at

least, of their final battlegrounds, predominate. They are the for-

tifications, entrenchments, and warlike instruments. That here

was a war of extermination, we may conclude, from the masses

of human skeletons we find indiscriminately thrown together, in-

dicating a common and simultaneous sepulture; from which age,

infancy, sex, no condition, was exempt.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Sevenbak

[Robert F. Smith]

The Lord didn't hide them, he just allowed people to live in the regions for a few centuries and till the soil know what was going on.  I think this is why so many early saints joined the church, because of what they saw, it made sense to them. I also think this is exactly why Joseph and others were employed as "money diggers".  There were things to be found.

Here's some of historian 's Orsamus Turner description of the region from his chapter one introduction.  He gets into specifics later.

 

 

Although not peculiar to this region, there is perhaps no portion

of the United States where ancient relics are more numerous.

Commencing principally near the Oswego River, they extend

westwardly over all the western counties of our State, Canada

West, the western Lake Region,...

Either as now, the western portion of our State had

attractions and inducements to make it a favorite residence; or

these people, assailed from the north and the east, made this a refuge

in a war of extermination, fortified the commanding eminences,

met the shock of a final issue; were subject to its adverse results.

Were their habits and pursuits mixed ones, their residence was

well chosen. The Forest invited to the chase; the Lakes and

Rivers to local commerce, — to the use of the net and the angling

rod; the soil, to agriculture. The evidences that this was one at

least, of their final battlegrounds, predominate. They are the for-

tifications, entrenchments, and warlike instruments. That here

was a war of extermination, we may conclude, from the masses

of human skeletons we find indiscriminately thrown together, in-

dicating a common and simultaneous sepulture; from which age,

infancy, sex, no condition, was exempt.

Modern archeology shows that all of these areas (in the northeastern USA and Canada) were only lightly populated throughout their history, i.e., numbered in the thousands at best, not in the millions required by the Book of Mormon.

Were the ancestors of the Iriquois and Algonkians stupid?  Of course not.  These were very sophisticated people as paleoindians go, and they were well adapted to the local conditions.  However, by no stretch could they be equated with the very advanced civilizations of Mesoamerica -- the only literate area in the Americas.

[MormonMason]

On pages 49 and 50 of Squier's Antiquities of the State of New York, he mentions the following:

 

The embankments of this work are now between two and three feet in height, and the trenches of corresponding depth. The area of the work and the ground around it are covered with forest trees.  There are several depressions, which, probably, were the caches of the ancient occupants.

 

It is said that a number of relics have been recovered here from time to time, and among others the head of a banner-staff of thin iron, fourteen inches long and ten broad.  It is, of course, of French or English origin, and was probably lost or buried here by the Indians, into whose hands, by purchase or capture, it had fallen.

 

 

He then quoted on the 50th page another, earlier writer, and then formulated a date of 1555 as the date of the work based on the observation of the other author.

 

We know what this place is.  It is referred to as Fort Hill.  The place is now a cemetery, but portions of the earthworks were preserved on the grounds.  An 1853 handbook that used to be distributed by the Fort Hill association, was the beneficiary of further work and historical research done after Squier.  According to that handbook, we find things like the following that was subsequently learned about that Fort Hill earthwork:

This Cemetery is located, according to the traditions of native proprietors, upon the site of one of their principal villages, and includes the remains of an ancient sacrificial mound and fortification, erected by a people wiser yet weaker than themselves, who abandoned them ere they had been fully completed. The village bore the name of Osco, *1 and was the probable birth place of Logan, who in early youth, and about the year 1730, emigrated with Shikellimus, his father, from the Cayuga country to Pennsylvania, and subsequently to the valley of the Ohio, where his family were slain by Col. Cresap and his party in 1774. As these dissolving structures have attracted much attention, it has been deemed appropriate, now that these grounds are dedicated to the purpose of Christian burial, to insert in the hand book for visitors, such extracts from accredited traditions and reliable books as are supposed to indicate their antiquity, their evacuation by the builders, their subsequent occupation by the Cayugas, and some of the reasons for the prevalent opinion that the Indian village which once crowned this eminence was the natal hamlet of the illustrious Logan.

 

Of the architects and the era of their construction of the mound and the fortification, very little more can be gathered from the surviving Cayugas, than that the very far back in the past of the parent stock of the Iroquois*2, were engaged in protracted but successful wars with the red men from the south-west, who had irrupted into that portion of their domain south of the Lakes, and constructed along the valley of the Ohio, and as far eastward as the ancient village of Osco, earthen altars for the worship of the Sun, mounds for the sepulture of their dead, and embankments for personal defence; and that whilst they were in the actual possession of these works, and before they had fully completed them, they were forced to acknowledge the rightful sovereignty of the Iroquois over these woodlands and rivers, and to evacuate all their fortified posts east of the Mississippi. In this, all the six nations substantially agree, without being able to furnish any definite or even approximate dates, either of the commencement or termination of the contest.

 

http://cayuganet.org/forthill/handbook/handbook.htm#link1

 

 

Further facts are presented in the handbook that indeed show that Squier had been there, as well the the fellow he referenced, as well as other writings.  You really should avail yourself of the handbook or at least read the text of the handbook at the above link.  One thing all the later information combined with the historical research mentioned in the printed handbook pointed out is that the people who built the earthworks in that part of New York were the extinct Alleghanes, who were considered trespassers by the Iroquois and were expelled from the land and their earthworks after a series of battles and the confederation of the Six Nations.  In other words, again, no Book of Mormon dating for this earthworks location.

Edited September 16, 2013 by MormonMason

[Robert F. Smith]

His method of dating is to show its older than the trees that are growing. This could mean older than several hundred years to who knowds

Actually, Carbon 14 dating starts with the cutting down of the tree and its use in construction of a longhouse, sweatlodge, burial mound, or the like, the C14 date is keyed to the time of the cutting-down (when the tree stops living and stops taking up isotopic carbon).  Since logs might be used long after cut down, the date of occupation may be later, not earlier.

[MormonMason]

Actually, Carbon 14 dating starts with the cutting down of the tree and its use in construction of a longhouse, sweatlodge, burial mound, or the like, the C14 date is keyed to the time of the cutting-down (when the tree stops living and stops taking up isotopic carbon).  Since logs might be used long after cut down, the date of occupation may be later, not earlier.

Squier and others were using tree rings to determine a rough dating for some of the mounds.  C-14 testing hadn't been invented, yet.  But I understand what you are saying.  That exactly is what they are doing now, including at further excavations of such mounds and earthworks.

[Robert F. Smith]

Its quite too large in my opinion to be a hill, especially the hill Cumorah. 1500 feet is quite an elevation to climb.

In the KJV, we typically find two Hebrew words translated "hill," giba, and har.  The latter is also frequently translated "mount."  You might want to investigate how a "mount" can be a "hill," and vice-versa.  Your opinions might very well be colored by expectations.  No?

[Robert F. Smith]

The Book of Mormon is an abridgement of a lot of records kept chiefly by the Nephites which had been handed down until they fell into Mormons hands. Mormon states several times in his abridging the plates that he cannot even write but a hundredth of the many records in his possession-

3 And now, I speak somewhat concerning that which I have written; for after I had made an abridgment from the plates of Nephi, down to the reign of this king Benjamin, of whom Amaleki spake, I searched among the records which had been delivered into my hands, and I found these plates, which contained this small account of the prophets, from Jacob down to the reign of this king Benjamin, and also many of the words of Nephi.

4 And the things which are upon these plates pleasing me, because of the prophecies of the coming of Christ; and my fathers knowing that many of them have been fulfilled; yea, and I also know that as many things as have been prophesied concerning us down to this day have been fulfilled, and as many as go beyond this day must surely come to pass—

5 Wherefore, I chose these things, to finish my record upon them, which remainder of my record I shall take from the plates of Nephi; and I cannot write the hundredth part of the things of my people.

No straw man, just the hard facts. Mormon was in possession of a vast record vault. If he only abridged a hundredth part and it was what ws delivered unto Joseph Smith, then how far greater were the entire records in Mormons possessions. I can guarentee that Normon did not carry these records in his possession to Cumorah on his own back. He either had a wagon of some sorts or pack animals.

I,m talking about Moroni, not Mormon.

[Robert F. Smith]

Winter weather in NY being a problem: not if it was a warm period: see the chart on this page: http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm There would probably have been little/light snow or none at all....

Ancient climate can be determined with some accuracy via tree growth rings, ice cores in Arctic and Antarctic regions, etc.

You can find a better set of charts at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record .  Take a look at the 3rd chart (covering the last 2000 years).  Click on it to enlarge it, and tell me whether there is likely to be light to no snowfall at the Battle of Cumorah in New York.  Looks to me that this would entail the same type of very cold weather in New York they had always had (in Amerind memory), and it would certainly have made it into the Book of Mormon.  Yet it isn't there . . .

[Chronos]

Rob Osborn, CFRs don't work like that. You can't just say, "read the book" then refuse to answer again until your CFR is answered. Clean up the act or leave the thread.

 

~Chronos

[Anijen]

The Lord didn't hide them, he just allowed people to live in the regions for a few centuries and till the soil know what was going on. 

If they were not hid why have we not found any. Also that same soil that has been tilled this whole time we have been able to find small encampments from far older dates with much smaller groups.

 

 

I think this is why so many early saints joined the church, because of what they saw, it made sense to them.

Perhaps. I think their conversions were more on a spiritual basis rather than mounds.

 

 

I am a History and Anthropology major with the Hopewell, Adena, Clovis people as my specialty. It is my belief from my studies that Squiers and Davis (whom hated each other) were okay archaeologist even for amateur status for their time. The list of books you copied and pasted are great books [post 364] and although I have read many of them they support a theory where the ancient mound builders were not related to the Native American Indians in any way. Most writings at that time Including all of Squiers reflect this attitude. For example when The Indian is mentioned they are usually preceded by a slur such as the "wild red man" or "savages," while the Mound builders are described as majestic etc.  A widely held belief was that the lost tribes of Israel came to America not a group from the Book of Mormon. Thomas Jefferson although a deist really pushed this theory of the lost tribe not because of a religious reason, but because he wanted the US to be the next Egypt and Jefferson even had the Louis and Clark expedition one purpose was to find a connection for this.

 

Edited September 16, 2013 by Anijen