Horses in Ancient America?

[beastie]

Certainly there were periods of drought in Mesoamerica. The drought would have negatively impacted everyone.

The BoM presents this picture of social contrast during periods of wealth. The once righteous are blessed with riches, and then, sadly, they often become selfish and wicked and neglect taking care of the poor, who are starving and naked.

Beo -

The reason why Mesoamerica is different is due to the ecological adaptations they were forced to make to survive, and thrive, in their particular environment, which sometimes acts like a rainforest and sometimes acts like a desert. To adapt to this, they developed several methods of agriculture, but they were all based on the individual familial unit. Read Arthur Demarest's book for a more detailed picture, particularly his chapter "Settlement and Subsistence: the Rain Forest Adaptation".

It's always been a puzzle as to how the Maya sustained such large populations, and this is part of the answer to the puzzle. Their approach to agriculture was different than our own. Demarest, in the aforementioned chapter, notes: "Western civilization's urban-versus-rural distinction is in applicable to the Classic Maya world." The households were so self sufficient that, even in a "city", the homes were organized around this unit of food production. The main bulk of their diet was corn-based (which explains why maize is such a predominant, figurative "image" in both their myths and actual pictures). Again, Demarest: "While hunting and gathering activities added important sources of protein to the Maya diet and provided raw materials for their craftspeople, the bulk of the Maya diet was based, of course, on agriculture." This seems counter-intuitive to modern people, due to their unusual environment, but this is because the Maya knew how to adapt to their environment, and incorporate several methods of agriculture into their system.

Here's a lengthier summary from Demarest, p 146:

Traditional theories of hte rise of complex society and the formation of states explain the development of elites as managers of critical aspects of the economy.  Functionalist thinking dictates that if institutions of inequality in wealth and centralization of power exist, they must have arisen for a "practical" reason.  Thus, early chiefs and archaic states are assumed to have been invovled in aspects of the economy which required centralized management, such as construction and maintenance of hydraulic systems, management of trade in subsistence goods, and  corporate orginization of intensive agriculture systems.  Yet, as we have seen, in the Maya lowlands one of the secrets of their rain forest adaptation was that it was decentralized - allowing local adaptations to the microenvironmental conditions for each patch of ground.  Farming families, drawing upon generations of knowledge of their soils, gradients, and vegetation, were able to apply any of a variety of intensive or extensive gardening or field systems to suit those local conditions.  Indeed, areas most successful in avoiding erosion with sustainable agricultural systems, such as the Pasion and Petexbaun regions, were successful precisely because they were decentralized and locally controlled.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Beastie writes:

The TEXT supports the use of the Jubilee analogy as figurative. It could not be considered as literal, in the context.

Would you defend this assumption for me?

Ben

[MAsh]

As you know, Clark gave a devotional at BYU last spring.  Some of his statements can only be described as misleading, particularly given the audience.

One last point about significant evidence.

[beastie]

Could you please provide me the source for your transcript of Clark's BYU devotional?

http://www.tungate.com/John-E-Clark_BYU-pr...-transcript.doc