13,000 year old mammoth found on Santa Rosa Island

[rodheadlee]

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mammoth-fossil-channel-islands-20160915-snap-story.html

 

"The timeline of the mammoth overlaps the age of the oldest skeletal remains of man on the North American continent". It doesn't mean much for the BoM except maybe the elephants in the BoM were really mammoths. i wonder how the got out to Santa Rosa Island? It's about 26 miles offshore, south of Santa Barbara, CA. It's really snotty seas in the Santa Barbara Channel more often than not.

Ether 9: 19 And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.

[The Nehor]

Wow, is he okay?

[RevTestament]

19 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mammoth-fossil-channel-islands-20160915-snap-story.html

 

"The timeline of the mammoth overlaps the age of the oldest skeletal remains of man on the North American continent". It doesn't mean much for the BoM except maybe the elephants in the BoM were really mammoths. i wonder how the got out to Santa Rosa Island? It's about 26 miles offshore, south of Santa Barbara, CA. It's really snotty seas in the Santa Barbara Channel more often than not.

Ether 9: 19 And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.

Last ice age the continental shelves were coastline. A Smithsonian archeologist located a mammoth tooth which a fisherman had hauled in from 40 miles off the Carolina coast. Complete with a spear point or stone tool. The tooth still had good collagen. Dated to about that time as well. Supposedly there was a whole mammoth head which the fishermen threw back. There have actually been a number of Clovis sites with Mammoth and Mastadon bones mixed in with Clovis spear points etc. Even one sticking into the rib bone. The American Elephant or Mastadon would be the elephant of the Ether, and the Mammoth possibly the Curelom - or perhaps one of the 4 tusked Gomphotheres. I believe the latest elephantidae find in the Americas has been dated to about 4500 BC.

[hope_for_things]

34 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mammoth-fossil-channel-islands-20160915-snap-story.html

 

"The timeline of the mammoth overlaps the age of the oldest skeletal remains of man on the North American continent". It doesn't mean much for the BoM except maybe the elephants in the BoM were really mammoths. i wonder how the got out to Santa Rosa Island? It's about 26 miles offshore, south of Santa Barbara, CA. It's really snotty seas in the Santa Barbara Channel more often than not.

Ether 9: 19 And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.

13,000 years ago, isn't that a little bit early for this to have a BoM connection?  

[bcuzbcuz]

21 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

Last ice age the continental shelves were coastline. A Smithsonian archeologist located a mammoth tooth which a fisherman had hauled in from 40 miles off the Carolina coast. Complete with a spear point or stone tool. The tooth still had good collagen. Dated to about that time as well. Supposedly there was a whole mammoth head which the fishermen threw back. There have actually been a number of Clovis sites with Mammoth and Mastadon bones mixed in with Clovis spear points etc. Even one sticking into the rib bone. The American Elephant or Mastadon would be the elephant of the Ether, and the Mammoth possibly the Curelom - or perhaps one of the 4 tusked Gomphotheres. I believe the latest elephantidae find in the Americas has been dated to about 4500 BC.

4500 BC? Before Adam?

[strappinglad]

These scientists can't get the dating correct to save their lives. 13,000 years old my foot. It is obviously no more than 12,800 years. Humpf !

[cinepro]

1 hour ago, rodheadlee said:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mammoth-fossil-channel-islands-20160915-snap-story.html

"The timeline of the mammoth overlaps the age of the oldest skeletal remains of man on the North American continent". It doesn't mean much for the BoM except maybe the elephants in the BoM were really mammoths. i wonder how the got out to Santa Rosa Island? It's about 26 miles offshore, south of Santa Barbara, CA. It's really snotty seas in the Santa Barbara Channel more often than not.

 

 

[rodheadlee]

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

13,000 years ago, isn't that a little bit early for this to have a BoM connection?  

 Yes but perhaps they went extinct later than we know.

[bcuzbcuz]

49 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

 Yes but perhaps they went extinct later than we know.

What is easier to accept? An answer that fits a questionable text or an answer that fits to an enormous amount of scientific information? Mammoths lived in the Americas. But they died out more than 10,000 years ago. There is evidence that backs up such data. That elephants (or mammoths or mastodons ) lived or thrived in the Americas 10,000, or 5,000, or 2,000 years ago is not just conjecture but wild fantasimal imagination. You, or anyone, needs evidence to support such a statement.

 

[rodheadlee]

1 hour ago, bcuzbcuz said:

What is easier to accept? An answer that fits a questionable text or an answer that fits to an enormous amount of scientific information? Mammoths lived in the Americas. But they died out more than 10,000 years ago. There is evidence that backs up such data. That elephants (or mammoths or mastodons ) lived or thrived in the Americas 10,000, or 5,000, or 2,000 years ago is not just conjecture but wild fantasimal imagination. You, or anyone, needs evidence to support such a statement.

 

That is why I said perhaps.

[Calm]

7 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Wow, is he okay?

[VideoGameJunkie]

I can never tell how scientists figure out the age of things.

[RevTestament]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

They need to change that smilie to crane that snorted at Dr. Seuss' birdie - that's all I can ever think of when I see it...

Edited September 17, 2016 by RevTestament

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, bcuzbcuz said:

What is easier to accept? An answer that fits a questionable text or an answer that fits to an enormous amount of scientific information? Mammoths lived in the Americas. But they died out more than 10,000 years ago. There is evidence that backs up such data. That elephants (or mammoths or mastodons ) lived or thrived in the Americas 10,000, or 5,000, or 2,000 years ago is not just conjecture but wild fantasimal imagination. You, or anyone, needs evidence to support such a statement.

When we find evidence of both humans and elephantidae on Santa Rosa Island dating to about 13,000 years ago (11,000 BC)  (http://articles.latimes.com/1999/apr/11/news/mn-26401 ), that does not mean that they are the only elephantidae and humans who ever lived there or elsewhere in the Americas.  Those are merely data points.  Your conclusions from those data points are absurd.  Kneejerk rejection is irresponsible.

We also have mammoth remains on St Paul Island, Alaska, dating to 3750 BC, and on Wrangel Island, Russia, to 1650 BC.  http://www.researchgate.net/publication/248289948_Phylogeographic_analysis_of_the_mid-Holocene_Mammoth_from_Qagnax_Cave_St._Paul_Island_Alaska , and http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/woolly-mammoths/story?id=15648648 .

We also find sedimentary DNA evidence of mammoths on the Yukon River, at Stevens Village, central Alaska, dating to 5600 BC,  “Mammoths Hung On Longer? Late-Surviving Megafauna Exposed by Ancient DNA in Frozen Soil,” ScienceDaily, Dec 15, 2009, online at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091214151946.htm .  The reasonable conclusion reached is that “to confidently rule out the possibility that small numbers of mammoths persisted into the Holocene in northwestern North America, macrofossil surveys would need to be intensified significantly,” and that “sedaDNA evidence for mammoth and horse persisting into the Holocene in interior Alaska is incompatible with such rapid extinction and indicates that late-surviving mammoths in the New World were not confined to islands in the Bering Sea.”  Indeed, “the duration of human/megafaunal overlap was probably even greater than suggested by our sedaDNA results, raising questions about the mode and tempo of extinction.”  Cf. James Haile, et al., “Ancient DNA reveals late survival of mammoth and horse in interior Alaska,” PNAS, Dec 17, 2009, online at http://www.pnas.org/content/106/52/22352.full .

[Hagoth]

11 hours ago, VideoGameJunkie said:

I can never tell how scientists figure out the age of things.

Go to Khan Acadamy and watch the short videos about carbon dating and potassium-argon dating for quick primers on a couple of techniques. I promise you will find it fascinating. There are many other chemical/geological dating techniques (uranium series, etc.), plus stratigraphy, flourine absorption, dendrochronology (tree rings), speliothem dating (accretion layers in cave formations), coral dating, geomagnetism, archaeomagnetism, thermoluminescence, and many more.

People who try to throw suspicion on a particular dating technique because it doesn't fit their personal beliefs/theories fail to take into account  the many methods of dating things and the manner in which these have all been very carefully cross-referenced and calibrated. 

Edited September 17, 2016 by Hagoth

[Hagoth]

Ether 9:17 Having all manner of fruit, and of grain, and of silks, and of fine linen, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious things;

 18 And also all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man.

 19 And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.

Apparently the Jaredites had many beasts of burden, and they call out elephants as being especially useful. I think we have a long way to go to close the gap between mammoths and domesticated utilitarian elephants. A piece of carved ivory would go a long way. Or the representation of elephants, cattle, oxen, cows, sheep, pigs, etc. in ancient American art, alongside the many jaguars, macaws, monkeys, bats, crabs, hummingbirds... that actually are depicted. And bones. Surely these creatures weren't all some kind of cartilaginous mutation that lacked bones. We have a timeline of human skeletal remains in the Americas going back over 13,000 years, so you would think one bone from one of those creatures would have surfaced at some point. The common argument is that they would have disintegrated in the acidic soil since BoM times, in which case we have to explain why turkeys, dogs and the occasional duck (actual American domesticates) were exempted from the laws of physics. And please, please, tapirs need not apply.

[thesometimesaint]

13 hours ago, VideoGameJunkie said:

I can never tell how scientists figure out the age of things.

Various radiometric measures, tree ring data, soil deposition, to name a few.

[Jeanne]

22 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Wow, is he okay?

[Robert F. Smith]

14 hours ago, Hagoth said:

Ether 9:17 Having all manner of fruit, and of grain, and of silks, and of fine linen, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious things;

 18 And also all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man.

 19 And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.

Apparently the Jaredites had many beasts of burden, and they call out elephants as being especially useful. I think we have a long way to go to close the gap between mammoths and domesticated utilitarian elephants. A piece of carved ivory would go a long way. Or the representation of elephants, cattle, oxen, cows, sheep, pigs, etc. in ancient American art, alongside the many jaguars, macaws, monkeys, bats, crabs, hummingbirds... that actually are depicted. And bones. Surely these creatures weren't all some kind of cartilaginous mutation that lacked bones. We have a timeline of human skeletal remains in the Americas going back over 13,000 years, so you would think one bone from one of those creatures would have surfaced at some point. The common argument is that they would have disintegrated in the acidic soil since BoM times, in which case we have to explain why turkeys, dogs and the occasional duck (actual American domesticates) were exempted from the laws of physics. And please, please, tapirs need not apply.

Archeologists are pretty good at finding artistic representations from the Classic Maya period, which is long after the Book of Mormon era, and there is an even bigger problem finding bones and representations from the 2nd millennium B.C. Olmecs (presumably Jaredite), or other less commonly excavated areas and periods.  There is also the problem of formulaic language used on nearly every occasion, often having little to do with reality.  This is true generally worldwide.

As to the tapirs, bear in mind always that it was not the Mormons but the Mesoamerican Amerinds and the Spanish Conquistadores who spoke about the tapirs being equivalent to this or that which is the realistic, anthropological base from which Mormons take withering and unfair criticism.

Edited September 18, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Hagoth]

15 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Archeologists are pretty good at finding artistic representations from the Classic Maya period, which is long after the Book of Mormon era, and there is an even bigger problem finding bones and representations from the 2nd millennium B.C. Olmecs (presumably Jaredite), or other less commonly excavated areas and periods.  There is also the problem of formulaic language used on nearly every occasion, often having little to do with reality.  This is true generally worldwide.

As to the tapirs, bear in mind always that it was not the Mormons but the Mesoamerican Amerinds and the Spanish Conquistadores who spoke about the tapirs being equivalent to this or that which is the realistic, anthropological base from which Mormons take withering and unfair criticism.

Of course Nephi also encountered cows, asses oxen and horses, goats, etc. Doesn't it seem a bit odd that these would have vanished abruptly between the Preclassic and Classic? In Sorensen's chart he equates all of these animals to tapirs, or possibly deer, so why would Nephi list the same animal several times under different names? The problem is that there just weren't enough large New World mammals to fit into Nephi's/Ether's lists. Also, why did Ether call out Curloms and Cumoms by specific names, rather than picking familiar Old World equivalents? These were animals that were useful to the Jaredites in the same way as the elephants, so they presumably were pack animals, unless "useful" in the way that I find ribs and buffalo wings useful.

But what I find most head-scratch-worthy about the tapir substitution theory is the King Lamoni story. When Ammon tells Lamoni that his brothers are in prison in Middoni and that God has commanded him to rescue them, Lamoni immediately tells his servants to "make ready his horses and chariots" (Alma 20:6) so they can rush to their aid. I can't imagine that he was really telling his servants to bring his sedan chair and round up his pet tapirs and/or deer so they could make a hasty journey. Since tapirs and deer aren't domesticable they would probably have had to drag them along on leashes.

[Robert F. Smith]

7 hours ago, Hagoth said:

Of course Nephi also encountered cows, asses oxen and horses, goats, etc. Doesn't it seem a bit odd that these would have vanished abruptly between the Preclassic and Classic? In Sorensen's chart he equates all of these animals to tapirs, or possibly deer, so why would Nephi list the same animal several times under different names? The problem is that there just weren't enough large New World mammals to fit into Nephi's/Ether's lists. Also, why did Ether call out Curloms and Cumoms by specific names, rather than picking familiar Old World equivalents? These were animals that were useful to the Jaredites in the same way as the elephants, so they presumably were pack animals, unless "useful" in the way that I find ribs and buffalo wings useful.

But what I find most head-scratch-worthy about the tapir substitution theory is the King Lamoni story. When Ammon tells Lamoni that his brothers are in prison in Middoni and that God has commanded him to rescue them, Lamoni immediately tells his servants to "make ready his horses and chariots" (Alma 20:6) so they can rush to their aid. I can't imagine that he was really telling his servants to bring his sedan chair and round up his pet tapirs and/or deer so they could make a hasty journey. Since tapirs and deer aren't domesticable they would probably have had to drag them along on leashes.

The tapir substitution theory is not a Mormon theory, but an anthropological fact of history, since both the Conquistadores and the Amerinds referred to that large and rather odd animal as equivalent to the Spanish horse.  Deer was another substitution used by the Amerinds for Spanish horse.  All that comes a millennium after the demise of the Nephites, and a couple of millennia after the demise of the Jaredites.  Since deer and tapirs are in fact domesticable, you need to rethink your claims somewhat.  In addition, one need not assume the substitution theory normative, since we do not in fact know that any substitutions were in fact made by BofM peoples, or by the modern translator.  The question is open-ended, as is the use of formulaic language in some cases where the actual animal is not meant literally.  We already have biblical examples in which animals are claimed to be present, when it is in fact unlikely (the domesticated camel in Abraham's time, for example).  I have no problem with inconsistent translation technique being applied by non-professional translators, not only in rendering names of one type of animal by another (the American bison is sometimes wrongly termed a buffalo, for example), but also in transliterating the name of an unknown animal -- such as curelom and cumom (we also have neas and sheum transliterations for food plants in Mosiah 9:9).  It needs to be acknowledged up front that there is nothing at all wrong with that.

Your first step would be to systematically name and classify each type of fauna according to time and circumstance in the BofM, and group them accordingly.  A scattershot approach is highly unscienfific.  The horse, pig, sheep, and other animals may have been present for a time, and then disappeared.  We have seen this phenomenon elsewhere in archeology.  Whatever lists one has need to be compared with complete lists of fauna in the Western hemisphere, before we start freely casting aspersions.

[Stargazer]

On 9/16/2016 at 7:20 PM, VideoGameJunkie said:

I can never tell how scientists figure out the age of things.

[Stargazer]

On 9/17/2016 at 2:15 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Archeologists are pretty good at finding artistic representations from the Classic Maya period, which is long after the Book of Mormon era, and there is an even bigger problem finding bones and representations from the 2nd millennium B.C. Olmecs (presumably Jaredite), or other less commonly excavated areas and periods.  There is also the problem of formulaic language used on nearly every occasion, often having little to do with reality.  This is true generally worldwide.

As to the tapirs, bear in mind always that it was not the Mormons but the Mesoamerican Amerinds and the Spanish Conquistadores who spoke about the tapirs being equivalent to this or that which is the realistic, anthropological base from which Mormons take withering and unfair criticism.

I like to point out that some of my ancestors were California Indians (see http://konkow.us and http://maidu.org/), and in our language there was no word for those domesticated beasts the white people brought with them (cows, goats and horses), so we just re-used one of our words to refer to them: "ku-mi".  Meaning "deer".  Since they kind of looked like deer.  

So, here's your deer:

[Stargazer]

12 hours ago, Hagoth said:

Of course Nephi also encountered cows, asses oxen and horses, goats, etc. Doesn't it seem a bit odd that these would have vanished abruptly between the Preclassic and Classic? In Sorensen's chart he equates all of these animals to tapirs, or possibly deer, so why would Nephi list the same animal several times under different names? The problem is that there just weren't enough large New World mammals to fit into Nephi's/Ether's lists. Also, why did Ether call out Curloms and Cumoms by specific names, rather than picking familiar Old World equivalents? These were animals that were useful to the Jaredites in the same way as the elephants, so they presumably were pack animals, unless "useful" in the way that I find ribs and buffalo wings useful.

But what I find most head-scratch-worthy about the tapir substitution theory is the King Lamoni story. When Ammon tells Lamoni that his brothers are in prison in Middoni and that God has commanded him to rescue them, Lamoni immediately tells his servants to "make ready his horses and chariots" (Alma 20:6) so they can rush to their aid. I can't imagine that he was really telling his servants to bring his sedan chair and round up his pet tapirs and/or deer so they could make a hasty journey. Since tapirs and deer aren't domesticable they would probably have had to drag them along on leashes.

Yeah, they are sure not domesticable alright:

PS - Don't tell the Laplanders about this inconvenient fact, it might cause them to laugh in your face.

[sunstoned]

22 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Yeah, they are sure not domesticable alright:

PS - Don't tell the Laplanders about this inconvenient fact, it might cause them to laugh in your face.

Wong continent dude.  There are no rain deer in the new world.