Finnish Archaeologist Digs Up Ancient Civilization In Brazil

[Calm]

DNH?

Did not happen...

Edited September 18, 2013 by calmoriah

[cursor]

Whoa ... I thought title of the thread read, "Finished Archaeologist Digs Up Ancient Civilization in Brazil."

I thought I'd see an obituary.

[why me]

I am with TSS and JDave...I say "cool", but imo assuming that anything earlier than 1492 or some other date in the Americas has something to say about the BoM....all that does is hold the door way open to error.

 

 

I think that the comparison with ancient Egypt was a nice one. And this makes it cool. He compared the site to what the Egyptians accomplished. And that is quite a coincidence. Considering that the site goes back 2000 years, and the civilization ended 700 years ago is also telling.

[why me]

 This is wildly untrue.  Just read the work of Brazilian archeologist Anna Roosevelt and some of Charles Mann's books.

I think that the find was a major one and one that has not been found previously. This was the learning experience that was mentioned in the news piece. One thing that is for sure is that this find will change the history of these civilizations. We are speaking about the Amazon.

[why me]

Here is a television segment about it:

 

http://areena.yle.fi/tv/1996748?start=1m40s

 

I don't see many smiling people in finland. After the news report they show some Finns and no one looks too happy.

Edited September 18, 2013 by why me

[sheilauk]

Here is a television segment about it:

 

http://areena.yle.fi/tv/1996748?start=1m40s

 

I don't see many smiling people in finland. After the news report they show some Finns and no one looks too happy.

I've been to Finland and have some friends there.  Finns do smile!  And those I know are happy.  When I've spoken to shop assistants etc, they've always smiled, been very polite and seemed happy.  However, their demeanour when simply walking around, thinking or not doing much does seem morose to outsiders.  They tend to only get animated and talk and smile if there is something to talk or smile about!  It can lead to, what to those from other countries, can seem like awkward silences and thinking they are miserable, when they are simply relaxed.  Its cultural.

Edited September 18, 2013 by sheilauk

[omni]

Ummm....the comparison was simply that of scale; not having anything to do with civilization or cultural likeness.

There you go again Senator, always gotta be a wet blanket. This looks like another "bullseye" to me, I mean what are the chances of two ancient societies both using pottery?

Edited September 18, 2013 by omni

[Que]

Argh puns can draw the moderators ire don't they?

I was gonna sit back and watch this thread with a bag of popcorn, but now I say nor way: if I feel sweetish I may eat a danish instead.

[Darren10]

I want to go down for time and eternity as being, with all my heart and soul, firmly and staunchly, and absolutely, on the side of those who think this is cool.

That is so cool of you.

[MormonMason]

Oh Great…that’s all we need to muddy the waters….another possible site for the setting of the Book of Mormon. Added to the LGT (Limited Geographic Theory), the HGT (Hemispheric GT) and the other HGT (Heartland GT)…we can now add, postulate about and debate the BGT (Brazilian GT). 

 

Despite all of these alternative conflicting theories, I still stand by my favorite theory for BoM setting…the DNH...seems to be the one with the most evidence supporting its conclusions.

Don't know what you are fussing about.  There already have been a couple South American settings proposed by authors.  What's one more?

Edited September 19, 2013 by MormonMason

[why me]

Don't know what you are fussing about.  There already have been a couple South American settings proposed by authors.  What's one more?

I think that we also know that we are not just dealing with one civilization but a series of civilizations that were interconnected. One thing that this dig did find was the sophistication of the people who lived there. This correlates well with the book of mormon. We are not basically dealing with a people who were living out of typees but with a rather advanced civilization who molded the land to suit their purposes.

Edited September 19, 2013 by why me

[Damien the Leper]

Not everything that holds similarities with Egyptian work has anything to do with Lehi. This is far from being a credible Mormon-type of subject. It's just mere speculation with very little to go off of.

[canard78]

I think that the people were settled throughout the area. I do find the comparison with Egypt interesting. It seems that there was something in common with that part of the world. Also, the discovery of a different type of ceramics was also interesting. The book is not closed on the book of mormon because of archaeology. More is being discovered with interesting comparisons.

 

Comparison with Egypt? Barely!

 

The geometrical patterns have been made with earth mounds and moats. Many of them are huge, with sides measuring up to a few hundred metres. Over 300 such structures have been discovered in the Brazilian state of Acre alone.

The construction feat involved can be compared to that achieved by those that built the pyramids in Egypt.

Pärssinen points out that people here must have expended as much energy as the workers in Egypt, shaping the earth into vast motes and mounds, in complex, multiple structures.

 

 

There's nothing in that to make us think there is any link whatsoever with Egypt. I would imagine the guy says Egypt for the sake of the news story. Egypt is probably the world's most famous feat of human engineering. It makes the news story a lot easier for the lay reader to put into context. There are many huge human works around the world - they're just not as well know to most people as the Egyptian ones.

[canard78]

I think that the comparison with ancient Egypt was a nice one. And this makes it cool. He compared the site to what the Egyptians accomplished. And that is quite a coincidence. Considering that the site goes back 2000 years, and the civilization ended 700 years ago is also telling.

 

Coincidence... you picked the perfect word.

 

Coincidences are of no real significance. There are plenty of coincidences backing up Joseph as author. But they're probably coincidences, not causes.

[why me]

Comparison with Egypt? Barely!

 

 

There's nothing in that to make us think there is any link whatsoever with Egypt. I would imagine the guy says Egypt for the sake of the news story. Egypt is probably the world's most famous feat of human engineering. It makes the news story a lot easier for the lay reader to put into context. There are many huge human works around the world - they're just not as well know to most people as the Egyptian ones.

It is just a short news story about a great find in the amazon. I have no idea why he used Egypt. But I don't think that it was for a news story. Most likely because of his experience he equated the find with the great feats of the Egyptians in terms of knowledge. What the article does show is that an advanced civilization existed in that part of the world. Something that the book of mormon also claims.

[why me]

Coincidence... you picked the perfect word.

 

Coincidences are of no real significance. There are plenty of coincidences backing up Joseph as author. But they're probably coincidences, not causes.

The way I see it, it would not matter what was found. You would dismiss it. It would have to be a spot on bulls eye for your mind to begin to believe it. And that is okay. In terms of Joseph writing the book, I think that we would need to find the paper shop where the paper was bought and the ink also. It took much time to write that book....with a lot of paper and ink and feathered pens. Not to mention the rough drafts and the ability to burn every piece of scrap paper etc. The practicalities do not support Joseph as author.

[Stargazer]

This civilization was in fact talked about before this.  In the book 1491, the author described interesting structures that appeared to be adaptive platforms for farming and habitation in the Amazon, where the soils were conditioned for crops using apparently deliberately crushed ceramic material.  The book in fact made the point that there were many more natives in all these places, from North to South America, than the Europeans found when they started settlement, and this was because of the diseases that initial contact caused, and that then preceded white settlement by large margins. 

 

My own native ancestors in Northern California (area of Redding, CA) were briefly visited by a Spanish expedition many years before US settlers showed up, and that visit resulted in a terrible malaria epidemic.  More than half of the Maidu died in what was actually a wave of epidemics.  Well before whites arrived to settle the area.

[Glenn101]

Coincidence... you picked the perfect word.

 

Coincidences are of no real significance. There are plenty of coincidences backing up Joseph as author. But they're probably coincidences, not causes.

 

 

Maybe you could start a new thread and lay out for everyone just how concidental those many coincidences are. I hear a lot of that, but I have never really seen anyone explain those coincidences in a plausible way.

 

I also have not seen any apologetic material that really quantifies those coincidences in a measurable way. So, right now we have a bunch of skeptics who say that all of thsoe coincidences are just that, without laying out a good argument for their point of view, though to give Dan Vogel credit, he is trying. And we have apologetics who point out some pretty amazing coincidences, yet are not able to really make a case with numbers on the probabilities. Hugh Nibley did come up with some pretty fantatic numbers, but I do not know how he arrived at his conclusions.

 

Maybe you could start with the Old World travels, the Valley of Lemuel, nahom, and Bountiful candidates and goe from theire.

 

Glenn

[canard78]

The way I see it, it would not matter what was found. You would dismiss it. It would have to be a spot on bulls eye for your mind to begin to believe it. And that is okay. In terms of Joseph writing the book, I think that we would need to find the paper shop where the paper was bought and the ink also. It took much time to write that book....with a lot of paper and ink and feathered pens. Not to mention the rough drafts and the ability to burn every piece of scrap paper etc. The practicalities do not support Joseph as author.

Hold your horses! (or llamas/tapirs)

Where did I say in this thread that I need perfect bullseyes or that Joseph's the author?

I don't think great nations need to be established in Latin America, there are already lots of those as it is. I'm just saying that trying to link each and every find in Latin America to the Book of Mormon undermines the credibility of a few models that are properly researched and fit the text (like Sorenson's).

[canard78]

Maybe you could start a new thread and lay out for everyone just how concidental those many coincidences are. I hear a lot of that, but I have never really seen anyone explain those coincidences in a plausible way.

 

I also have not seen any apologetic material that really quantifies those coincidences in a measurable way. So, right now we have a bunch of skeptics who say that all of thsoe coincidences are just that, without laying out a good argument for their point of view, though to give Dan Vogel credit, he is trying. And we have apologetics who point out some pretty amazing coincidences, yet are not able to really make a case with numbers on the probabilities. Hugh Nibley did come up with some pretty fantatic numbers, but I do not know how he arrived at his conclusions.

 

Maybe you could start with the Old World travels, the Valley of Lemuel, nahom, and Bountiful candidates and goe from theire.

 

Glenn

Perhaps you misundstand me (and I realise that I've created my own reputation that would make it easier to be misread). I'm not saying all evidence is a coincidence nor that all coincidences can be treated as evidence. I find a lot of Sorenson and Gardner compelling. I would call them correspondences as they do. There are some 19th C coincidences with the BoM text but that doesn't mean Joseph wrote it as they're probably only that, a coincidence (not a correspondence).

When I use the word coincidence I mean that there is an apparent parallel that is probably of very little value. The word means: "A remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection."

There is probably no causal connection between the remarkable 19th C/BoM concurrences. I would make the same conclusion about these Brazilian mounds. In fact I don't even see anything remarkable about it (at least not in relation to the Book of Mormon). There may, however, be a causal connection between the concurrences that Sorenson proposes in Mormon's Codex. So far they seem more remarkable than the Brazilian dig.

[Glenn101]

Perhaps you misundstand me (and I realise that I've created my own reputation that would make it easier to be misread). I'm not saying all evidence is a coincidence nor that all coincidences can be treated as evidence. I find a lot of Sorenson and Gardner compelling. I would call them correspondences as they do. There are some 19th C coincidences with the BoM text but that doesn't mean Joseph wrote it as they're probably only that, a coincidence (not a correspondence).

When I use the word coincidence I mean that there is an apparent parallel that is probably of very little value. The word means: "A remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection."

There is probably no causal connection between the remarkable 19th C/BoM concurrences. I would make the same conclusion about these Brazilian mounds. In fact I don't even see anything remarkable about it (at least not in relation to the Book of Mormon). There may, however, be a causal connection between the concurrences that Sorenson proposes in Mormon's Codex. So far they seem more remarkable than the Brazilian dig.

 

Thanks for the clarifications on your meanings. I do wish there was some method of determining some statistical problabilities on some of those things. But then you have the old saying, thereare lies, damned lies, and statistics...

 

As you may have guessed by now, I could easily be classified as a TBM. I do believe in the restoration of the Gospel most completely. But I have this odd quirk where I like to see things laid out, to see what the odds of something really having happened are. That is something that I haven't seen done as of yet. Like thr Valley of Lemuel, Nahom, Bountiful connections. What would be the odds of someone who has never been to the area or seen an accurate map make something like that up out of thin air but be able to find very plausible candidates for those places.

 

Or the odds of Joseph actually being the author of the Book of Mormon, forgetting about any historical aspects, but just the otherstuff that has been discovered by different scholars and throwing them all in together. The skeptics feel that it would be rather easy while TBM's say there is just no way. How could something like that be given any type of statistical rating?

 

Oh, to keep the subject on topic, I don't think there has been any type of connection established or even an attempt to be established, between this new arheological find and Egypt or the Book of Mormon.

 

 

 

Glenn

Edited September 20, 2013 by Glenn101

[Tacenda]

Thanks for the clarifications on your meanings. I do wish there was some method of determining some statistical problabilities on some of those things. But then you have the old saying, thereare lies, damned lies, and statistics...

As you may have guessed by now, I could easily be classified as a TBM. I do believe in the restoration of the Gospel most completely. But I have this odd quirk where I like to see things laid out, to see what the odds of something really having happened are. That is something that I haven't seen done as of yet. Like thr Valley of Lemuel, Nahom, Bountiful connections. What would be the odds of someone who has never been to the area or seen an accurate map make something like that up out of thin air but be able to find very plausible candidates for those places.

Or the odds of Joseph actually being the author of the Book of Mormon, forgetting about any historical aspects, but just the otherstuff that has been discovered by different scholars and throwing them all in together. The skeptics feel that it would be rather easy while TBM's say there is just no way. How could something like that be given any type of statistical rating?

Oh, to keep the subject on topic, I don't think there has been any type of connection established or even an attempt to be established, between this new arheological find and Egypt or the Book of Mormon.

Glenn

Forthrightness by you, is always appreciated.

[Senator]

 

 

Oh, to keep the subject on topic, I don't think there has been any type of connection established or even an attempt to be established, between this new arheological find and Egypt or the Book of Mormon.

 

Glenn

 

"The way I see it, it would not matter what was found. You would dismiss it. It would have to be a spot on bulls eye for your mind to begin to believe it."

[katherine the great]

A civilization in the Americas that suddenly ended 700 years ago most likely did not end due to European diseases.

[nealr]

Thanks for the clarifications on your meanings. I do wish there was some method of determining some statistical problabilities on some of those things. But then you have the old saying, thereare lies, damned lies, and statistics...

 

As you may have guessed by now, I could easily be classified as a TBM. I do believe in the restoration of the Gospel most completely. But I have this odd quirk where I like to see things laid out, to see what the odds of something really having happened are. That is something that I haven't seen done as of yet. Like thr Valley of Lemuel, Nahom, Bountiful connections. What would be the odds of someone who has never been to the area or seen an accurate map make something like that up out of thin air but be able to find very plausible candidates for those places.

 

Or the odds of Joseph actually being the author of the Book of Mormon, forgetting about any historical aspects, but just the otherstuff that has been discovered by different scholars and throwing them all in together. The skeptics feel that it would be rather easy while TBM's say there is just no way. How could something like that be given any type of statistical rating?

 

Oh, to keep the subject on topic, I don't think there has been any type of connection established or even an attempt to be established, between this new arheological find and Egypt or the Book of Mormon.

 

 

 

Glenn

 

I have done some rudimentary thinking on this subject, and would also like to see it get further developed. If anybody knows somebody with solid grounding in statistics who would interested in this kind of thing, please direct them to me! 

 

My background in statistics is limited to an entry level class I took a couple years ago. I did quite well in the class, but little more than the most basic concepts have stuck with me over time. But generally speaking, the probability of something happening by change is dependent on a lot of variables. If we reduce everything to two possibilities (1 - it happens; 2 - it doesn't happen), and assume that each has a 50% (.5) probability, then we can make some basic observations. If each "coincidence" has a probability of .5, then we can take the overall total of correlations and multiply .5 by that total to get a probability they they all would exist by chance. 

 

Take the Nahom/NHM correlation as an example. I have, through reading pretty everything I could get my hands on related to the subject, determined that there are 6 criteria (besides the name) for that location, all of which are met by the NHM tribal territory. They are:

 

1.      Existed prior to 600 BC (inferred from pre-existing place name)

2.      Is populated (inferred from pre-existing place name and burial grounds)

3.      Has suitable burial space for Ishmael to be buried

4.      Is at the end of the party’s south-southeastward route.

5.      Is where the party turned eastward

6.      Is in a general westward direction from Bountiful

 

If we add the name itself, we have 7 converging details. Assuming a .5 probability for each of these, then the probability that this is pure coincidence is  .5⁷, which comes out to be .0078125 (or, .78125%). In most cases, a probability lower than .05 (5%) is considered strong enough to infer a causal relationship (i.e., a non-random or non-coincidental occurrence). Sometimes, to be cautious, statisticians will require a probability lower than .01 (1%). In either case, the odds of Nahom/NHM occurring by change would be considered "statistically significant" enough to say it is not a coincidence. This would leave us with two possibilities: either Joseph Smith knew all that stuff about NHM and deliberately included them into his fictional tale, or the story was written by someone who actually traveled the area ca. 600 BC. Since, as can thus far be determined, it was impossible to know all this in 1829, we are really left with the latter option as the only plausible explanation.

 

To this, we can (and probably should, given their mutually dependent relationship) Bountiful, which Warren Aston has determined 12 critria, all met by a single location in Arabia. So, if we take .5¹², we get a probability of .0002441406 (or .02441406%). Again, we are left with the same to possibilities, and again current evidence leaves only that it was written by someone who had been there as a viable option. 

 

Now, the probability of both of these places (whose locations are mutually dependent) existing together as they do is thus .5¹⁹, which comes out to be .0000019073 (or .00019073%).

 

As you can see, we are already getting to infinitesimally small numbers. A similar exercise could be done with the best candidates of the Valley of Lemuel, Shazer, the more fertile parts, and the place of the broken bow. Then add all that to these, as we end up with a correlation that is highly unlikely to be pure chance.

 

But, as I said, I am not very much a statistics effort, so all of this should be taken with a huge grain of salt. It would be very interesting to get with someone who knows more about what they are doing with statistics to help me sort this out.