13,000 year old mammoth found on Santa Rosa Island

[Hagoth]

I think we're confusing King Lamoni with Santa Clause!

Hey guys, if these are truly satisfying answers for you, based on what the actual words in the actual Book of Mormon say, then more power to you. I tried and tried and tried for decades to make it work for me but I guess I just can't get it through my thick skull (or hard heart). Come to think of it I am feeling a bit stiffnecked after the Hopewell the latest Hopewell thread, probably from my head spinning. So don't let me distract you, I think you have have enough to worry about with the growing army of Heartlanders lying in wait.

[Stargazer]

8 hours ago, sunstoned said:

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

Rain deer?  What are you talking about? No such animal.

Oh, wait, you meant reindeer.

OK, in all seriousness, do you really expect that the only species of deer that is domesticable is the reindeer, and the rest can't be?  

And then we have the fact that the reindeer, also known as the caribou, have a circumpolar distribution.  That means Asia, Europe and North America.  

Just in case you want me to CFR this claim, try this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reindeer

Quote

The reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), also known as caribou in North America, is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, Subarctic, tundra, boreal and mountainous regions of northern Europe, Siberia, and North America.

Siberian reindeer, you may be surprised to learn, can carry humans like horses can.  That subspecies is large enough for the purpose.

[stemelbow]

10 hours ago, Hagoth said:

I think we're confusing King Lamoni with Santa Clause!

Hey guys, if these are truly satisfying answers for you, based on what the actual words in the actual Book of Mormon say, then more power to you. I tried and tried and tried for decades to make it work for me but I guess I just can't get it through my thick skull (or hard heart). Come to think of it I am feeling a bit stiffnecked after the Hopewell the latest Hopewell thread, probably from my head spinning. So don't let me distract you, I think you have have enough to worry about with the growing army of Heartlanders lying in wait.

I feel lucky I can say, "well we don't know too much about those ancient times and people, so maybe it's possible this BoM stuff happened to some extent or another" and thus do away with any perceived criticism. 

[Hagoth]

The parsimonious answer, without layers and layers of between-the-lines explanation, is that the author of that story actually was just telling a story about a guy guarding a flock of sheep with a sword and a king who rides around in a chariot driven by horses, because the author was making it up and didn't know any better. 

[canard78]

11 hours ago, Hagoth said:

The parsimonious answer, without layers and layers of between-the-lines explanation, is that the author of that story actually was just telling a story about a guy guarding a flock of sheep with a sword and a king who rides around in a chariot driven by horses, because the author was making it up and didn't know any better. 

Yup. 

(Carry on)

[bcuzbcuz]

On 19 September 2016 at 1:49 PM, Stargazer said:

Rain deer?  What are you talking about? No such animal.

Oh, wait, you meant reindeer.

OK, in all seriousness, do you really expect that the only species of deer that is domesticable is the reindeer, and the rest can't be?  

And then we have the fact that the reindeer, also known as the caribou, have a circumpolar distribution.  That means Asia, Europe and North America.  

Just in case you want me to CFR this claim, try this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reindeer

Siberian reindeer, you may be surprised to learn, can carry humans like horses can.  That subspecies is large enough for the purpose.

The Sami culture of the Arctic regions of Siberia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway have managed to use certain animals as animals of burden. The majority of their herds cannot/will not be confined to fenced in areas and are mostly free range (to the true meaning of free range (not the same as used on egg packages). These reindeer, like caribou, moose, elk, black-tailed-,white-tailed-,mule deer, llamas, guanacos, vicuñas, alpacas, etc.,  do not thrive being caged, fenced in (not domesticable). How the Sami choose animals that can be trained to pull loads or carry loads is beyond my knowledge, but there are only a small number of such animals in any herd.

The Inuit of the Arctic have no records of any successful training of caribou as pack animals. The various First Nations of North America that had pack animals, used dogs, before the Europeans introduced horses. The Quechuan (Inca) peoples were able to keep some llamas in corrals and use them as beasts of burden but they were never many such trainable animals. And llamas cannot carry very heavy loads.

I had a neighbour in Canada who tried to keep red deer as domesticated, fenced in herd animals. It was a venture that failed. He said that the deer just didn't thrive and the herd dwindled away.

[cdowis]

On 9/18/2016 at 9:43 AM, 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? 

And who said that they did?  There is a logical fallacy I call 'Not found, not exist" which is vefry common in these discussions.

The other possibility is that their numbers disappeared during the War of Extermination.  Horses were considered as food animals, especially if there was a famine during the war.

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?

 I personally don't accept his theory, and I refuse to defend it.  Why don't you ask him?

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?

See above.

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.

Tell us what would Joseph Smith have called a llama or a woolly mammoth.  What about amaranth (sheum?)

 

Edited September 22, 2016 by cdowis

[Sleeper Cell]

On Wednesday, September 21, 2016 at 2:51 PM, bcuzbcuz said:

These reindeer, like caribou, moose, elk, black-tailed-,white-tailed-,mule deer, llamas, guanacos, vicuñas, alpacas, etc.,  do not thrive being caged, fenced in (not domesticable). How the Sami choose animals that can be trained to pull loads or carry loads is beyond my knowledge, but there are only a small number of such animals in any herd.

...The Quechuan (Inca) peoples were able to keep some llamas in corrals and use them as beasts of burden but they were never many such trainable animals. And llamas cannot carry very heavy loads.

I have a neighbor who raises llama’s. They are certainly thriving, even though they are in corrals.   She seems to have had no problem training them.  Several even obey her hand gestures. As inexperienced as I am, even I had little problem leading most of them on extended walks around the neighborhood.  One was so domesticated that he would eat tangerines right out of my hand, and on the occasions when he was allowed to wander free in her back yard, he would follow me around like an overgrown puppy.

But you are quite right about the heavy loads.  I forget what their limit is, but it is probably well under 100 lbs. 
 

[cdowis]

52 minutes ago, Sleeper Cell said:

But you are quite right about the heavy loads.  I forget what their limit is, but it is probably well under 100 lbs. 

Of course there may be other breeds which may may be able to carry heavier loads.  We are talking about several thousand years between the Jaredites and our modern age.