Book of Mormon Horses

Found!

Book of Mormon Horses In America! 

Earthshaking discovery of Book of Mormon horses ( Hagerman Horse )

found within Smithsonian Institute. 

What! Horses in North American before Hernado Cortez? Nah you gotta be kidding me!

This is the typical response many Book of Mormon believers face from skeptics.

Yet if you search the Book of Mormon, you will find at least 13 verses saying horses existed alongside mankind in Ancient America. Can this be true?

Let's examine the 13 Book of Mormon passages which records horses living alongside Pre-Historic man, prior 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Book of Mormon Records of American Horses

2 Nephi 8:23 Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots;

2 Nephi 8:98 Whose arrows shall be sharp, and all their bows bent, and their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind, their roaring like a lion.

Enos 1:34 And it came to pass that the people of Nephi did till the land, and raise all manner of grain, and of fruit, and flocks of herds, and flocks of all manner of cattle, of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many horses.

Alma 12:76 And they said unto him, Behold, he is feeding thy horses.

Alma 12:77 Now the king had commanded his servants previous to the time of the watering of their flocks, that they should prepare his horses and chariots, and conduct him forth to the land of Nephi:

Alma 12:79 Now when King Lamoni heard that Ammon was preparing his horses and his chariots, he was more astonished, because of the faithfulness of Ammon, saying,

Alma 12:82 And it came to pass that when Ammon had made ready the horses and the chariots for the king and his servants, he went in unto the king, and he saw that the countenance of the king was changed; therefore he was about to return out of his presence;

Alma 12:188 Now when Lamoni had heard this, he caused that his servants should make ready his horses, and his chariots.

3 Nephi 2:30 And they had taken their horses, and their chariots, and their cattle, and all their flocks, and their herds, and their grain, and all their substance,

3 Nephi 2:44 And the Nephites being in one body, and having so great a number, and having reserved for themselves provisions, and horses, and cattle, and flocks of every kind, that they might subsist for the space of seven years,

3 Nephi 3:1 And now it came to pass that the people of the Nephites did all return to their own lands, in the twenty and sixth year, every man, with his family, his flocks and his herds, his horses and his cattle, and all things whatsoever did belong unto them.

3 Nephi 9:101 Yea, wo be unto the Gentiles, except they repent, for it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Father, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots, and I will cut off the cities of thy land and throw down all thy strongholds;

Ether 4:21 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.

Mainstream Christianity would have all Book of Mormon believers think Joseph Smith was a fraud, a liar or the devil in incarnate. Is this truly so? Upon what evidence should we convict Joseph Smith for perjury? Could Joseph Smith have been telling the scientific truth 180 years ago? 

Many Book of Mormon critics, have said horses didn't arrive in America till about 500 years ago, around the time of Hernando Cortez. This post dispels that myth by using recognized sources of authority.

Introduction

Years ago as a child and later a young man I was a horse nut! I rode, read and breathed anything horses. As you see above I did well in show competition! When I began to answer my priesthood calling in the RLDS Church, I began meeting people who didn't know horses originated from America... It took a while, but over time I remembered something I had read as a boy about horses. I couldn't put my finger upon it at first, but then  I remembered reading a school text book about prehistoric horses in America.

I've compiled this information into one post.... I hope you enjoy. Never let it be said, Joseph Smith was never a prophet, or that he was a liar.... Joseph Smith told the truth. But the worlds  knowledge of Ancient American archaeology is just now beginning to catch up with what the Book of Mormon declared and Joseph Smith knew and announced to the world 180 years ago.

Below is the compiled information:

Evidence Book of Mormon History Is Accurate

Horses before "mules" at the Panama Canal

June 15, 2009

Story written and first posted

By the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

http://www.stri.org/english/about_stri/headline_news/news/article.php?id=1001

Evidense for those who doubt the Book of Mormons claimes.

Aldo Rincón, STRI paleontology intern, unearthed a set of fossil teeth in the Panama Canal that Bruce MacFadden, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, describes as belonging to Anchitherium clarencei Aldo Rincón, STRI paleontology intern, unearthed a set of fossil teeth in the Panama Canal that Bruce MacFadden, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, describes as belonging to Anchitherium clarencei, a three-toed browsing horse the size of the modern donkey, living 15 to 18 million years ago.

Once processed, the fossil will return to Panama.Expanding the Panama Canal to make way for super-sized ships is providing geologists and paleontologists with rare finds. Carlos Jaramillo, STRI stratigrapher, has, in collaboration with the University of Florida and the Panama Canal Authority, organized a team of researchers and students who move in following dynamite blasts to map and collect exposed fossils.

"This is one of very few places in the tropics where we have access to fresh outcrops before they are washed away by torrential rains or overgrown by vegetation, and we expect the fossils that we have been salvaging to resolve some major scientific mysteries," said Jaramillo."What geological forces combined to create the Panama land bridge? Were the flora and fauna of Panama before the land bridge closed similar to those of North America, or did they include other elements?"

The latest finding appears in the Journal of Paleontology, vol. 83: 489-492.

Hagerman "Horse" - Equus simplicidens

NPS.GOV

What makes the Hagerman Horse so important? First, the discovery from Hagerman is the largest sample of this extinct species from one locality. Over two hundred individuals of both sexes and all ages were recovered by the Smithsonian. Included are complete skeletons as well as skulls, jaws and detached bones. They were about the size of the present day Arabian horse, and had a single toe (hoof). Vertebrate paleontologists must often work with single, isolated bones or teeth. So it is often difficult to assign them to an already described species when differences in sex or age of an individual are taken into consideration. The large number of individuals recovered at the Hagerman Horse Quarry simplifies this problem here.

Despite the popular use of the name, Hagerman Horse, it is actually more closely related to the zebras. Although we don't have fossil evidence of stripes, the pattern of the chewing surfaces of the teeth and details of the skull and rest of the skeleton indicate that this animal was more closely related to the living Grevy's Zebra of Africa than to horses. So the next time you're at the zoo, take a good look at the zebras on display and you'll have an opportunity to see a close relative of one of the earliest residents of the Hagerman area.

Many different scientific names have been applied to this horse. James W. Gidley, the Smithsonian paleontologist, who led the initial excavations at Hagerman in 1929, felt that the horse being uncovered was different enough in its skeleton that it represented a new species distinct from any other known fossil horse. He proposed the name Plesippus shoshonensis. By placing the Hagerman horse in the genus Plesippus, he considered it to be closely related to another fossil species, Plesippus simplicidens, from Texas. Although another horse, Equus idahoensis, had been described from elsewhere in this region, Dr. Gidley considered his new species to be more primitive. Since the early work of Gidley, many other studies on fossil horses have been made and the consensus is that the horse at Hagerman does belong in the modern genus Equus and that it is the same as the extinct species from Texas, simplicidens. So today most paleontologists refer to the Hagerman Horse by the scientific name of Equus simplicidens.
The Hagerman Horse also has the distinction of being the earliest record of Equus, the genus that includes all modern horses, donkeys, and zebras.

Even though the species found at Hagerman, Equus simplicidens, is known from elsewhere such as Nebraska, Florida, and Texas, all of the other records are much younger, making the sample from Hagerman the oldest.

Did You Know?Hagerman Fossil Beds is one of only three units in the National Park system that contains portions of the Oregon National Historic Trail.

http://www.nps.gov/hafo/naturescience/hagerman-horse.htm

Remains Show Ancient Horses Were Hunted for Their Meat

Hillary Mayellfor National Geographic News
May 11, 2001

Scientists have found the first definitive proof that early humans in North America hunted horses for their meat.

Prehistoric horses, which were much smaller than today's horses, standing about 4.5 feet (1.5 meters) high at the shoulder, became extinct about 10,000 years ago. Scientists considered it likely that hunting by humans was a factor in their extinction, but until now there was no hard proof.

The first conclusive evidence comes from spearheads tainted with the residue of horse protein. They were found along with other animal remains on the river plain of St. Mary's Reservoir in southern Alberta, Canada.

"In the past, we could really only attribute the demise of these ancient horses to climate and environmental changes," said Brian Kooyman, an archaeologist at the University of Calgary and the lead scientist at the dig.

"There has been suggestive evidence at other sites—Lubbock Lake in Texas, for instance—that early peoples were utilizing horses," he said. "But this discovery raises the very real possibility that overhunting by the Clovis people played a significant role in the extinction."
European explorers reintroduced horses to the New World several thousand years after the ancient ones died out.

Prehistoric Detective Work

The floor of the reservoir is covered with animal tracks of mammals, including wooly mammoths, camels, giant bison and helmeted musk oxen. "Clovis points," the spearheads associated with some of the first humans to reach the continent, found in the river plain have been dated to between 11,000 to 11,300 years old.

"The area where the remains were found is large—3 to 4 square kilometers [1 to 1.5 square miles]," Kooyman said. "We uncovered the remains of a prehistoric horse with several smashed vertebrae and bones that bore evidence of butchering, and then two of our students found several Clovis points around 550 yards (500 meters) away."

Laboratory analysis showed that the spearheads had the residue of horse protein on them; they apparently had been thrust into the horse.
"It was a near miss," Kooyman said of the discovery. "We weren't going to bother testing them [for horse protein residue]. We'd had similar findings before and the points all came back from the lab clean. But the two graduate students kept insisting we send them in, and we're glad they did."

As the ice began to retreat on the North American continent 14,000 to 12,000 years ago, humans made their way to the New World. A massive extinction of megafauna—animals weighing more than 100 pounds (45 kilograms)—occurred in North America about 10,000 years ago.

The role of humans in the extinction is the subject of debate among scientists.
"Retreating ice would cause changes in temperature, vegetation bands and probably a patchiness in vegetation and loss of habitat," said Paul McNeil, a Ph.D. candidate in paleontology at the

University of Calgary who has been working the site. "This would stress the animal populations, and it wouldn't take much to push them over the edge to extinction."
"Environment and climate change were definitely factors in the extinction event, but there had been numerous instances of glaciers advancing and retreating during the Pleistocene, and this is the only time we see a megafaunal extinction. The arrival of humans is the only real new factor," he said.

The lakebed where the footprints, animal skeletons and artifacts were found is usually flooded. Currently, however, the region is undergoing a drought. St. Mary's reservoir is expected to fill with water again, perhaps soon, so the scientists are working feverishly—sometimes in the midst of brutal sandstorms—to document the tracks and continue the archaeological excavations.

From a preservation standpoint, McNeil noted, the tracks are better protected under water. "One of the results of glaciations is a denuded countryside, with lots of dust and sand and silt. So when the wind blows it can be fierce enough to erode meters at a time," he said.

The researchers are excited by their discoveries at the site and how they are helping to fill in details of the past. "It's an amazing sight, like a snapshot of what life was like in the late Pleistocene, 10,000 years ago," said McNeil.

"The tracks represent living animals and a living ecosystem. In your mind you can see the animals cohabitating, gathering in the same place," he said. "We've found the only camel tracks we know of in North America—at one place you can see where five of them were walking next to each other."

Threatened by the filling of the lake, Kooyman said: "Right now we're just scrambling to do the really critical things."

Ancient Horses In America

Academy Natural Sciences Give Evidence

Book of Mormon History Accurate

Horses were introduced into the Americas during the 16th Century by the Spanish Conquistadors. Escapees from the Spanish stocks thrived and quickly established large wild populations. The absence of these "noble animals" before the colonization of the New World and the horse's success thereafter were seen by some Europeans as one more bit of evidence that the American fauna was inferior to that of the Old World (1).

The Old World pedigree of the horse was first challenged by the discovery of fossil teeth in South America which had been collected by a young Charles Darwin and examined by Richard Owen in 1840 (2).

There had been scattered reports of fossil horse teeth from the United States, but these were either dismissed or ignored by the European scientific community.
In 1848, Joseph Leidy settled the question of ancient horses in North American by publishing a systematic examination of Pleistocene (Ice Age) horse fossils from the collections at the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia and elsewhere (3).

He concluded that there were at least two North American horses species and that both were different from Old World species (4).








Top view of four molars of Equus occidentalis. This image is a detail from a lithograph in Extinct Fauna of the Western Territories (1873). Click here or on the fossil to view the full lithograph.
The implication of ancient horses in the Americas was significant. After all, if wild horses were present during the Pleistocene (Ice Age) and thrived once they were re-introduced by the Spaniards, why were they missing when the Spaniards arrived? In 1848 Leidy wrote:

"For it is very remarkable that the genus Equus should have so entirely passed away from the vast pastures of the western world, in after ages to be replaced by a foreign species to which the country has proved so well adapted: and it is impossible, in the present state of our knowledge, to conceive what could have been the circumstances which have been so universally destructive to the genus upon one continent, and so partial in its influence upon the other." (5).



In later years Leidy had the opportunity to examine and describe other fossil horses. Some were the same or closely related to the Pleistocene species he wrote about in 1848. Others were much older. The most notable of these were the Pliocene horses from the Niobrara River area of Nebraska and the Miocene horses from the White River Badlands of South Dakota. By the end of his career Leidy had described and named several new species of horses belonging to Equus, Anchippus, Anchitherium, Hipparion, Hippodon, Merychippus, Parahippus and Protohippus (6).






Top view of the molar teeth of Protohippus perditus(top) and Merychippus mirabilis (bottom). These images are details from a lithograph published in On the Extinct Mammalian Fauna of Dakota and Nebraska (1869). Click here or on the teeth to view the full lithograph.
Leidy provided detailed descriptions of these fossil horses and compared the anatomies of the different species. He noted patterns of increased crown height and structural complexity in horses teeth. Although most of the material at his disposal were teeth or jaw fragments, he was also aware that some ancient horses such as Hipparion had three toes rather than one. However, Leidy —ever reluctant to theorize— never published on the evolutionary relationships of horses.
That task would be acomplished by O. C. Marsh a few years after Leidy had abondoned paleontology. Marsh was guilty of oversimplification, (7) but his sequence of transitional fossils was a stunning achievement instrumental to the acceptance of Evolution among scientists and the public.

The honors assocated with the elucidation of horse evolution would rightly go to Marsh, but it was also Leidy who alerted the world to the riches in fossil horses to be found in North America. In his 1869 monograph, On the Extinct Mammalia of Dakota and Nebraska Leidy took delight in noting that all of the eight genera of fossil horses then known to sciencecould be found in North America while only three were known from the Old World. In addition he commented:

"The Solidungulates [horses and their close relatives] are better represented than in the recent fauna of any part of the world, and indeed the Pliocene deposits of the Niobrara would appear to indicate that the North American Continent was at one time emphatically the country of Horses."
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Websites:
Florida State Museum's Fossil Horse Cybermuseum:www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vertpaleo/fhc/firstCM.htm

Kathleen Hunt's web page on Horse Evolution:www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol.html
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Notes:
The idea of the inferiority of the New World's fauna was shared by many Europeans, including some scientists. The formalized by the great French scientist de Buffon (1707-1788) during the 1760s. He theorized that the lack of superior animals such as the horse, lion or elephant in the New World was caused by its harsher climate. Buffon de-emphasized the theory later in his long and productive career, but many Europeans continued to perceive an inferiority in the American fauna; a notion readily reinforced by comparisions with the Eurasian and African faunae. Fossil discoveries by Leidy, O.C. Marsh, E.D. Cope, among others, thoroughly discredited any notion of Old World monopoly on impressive animals. [go back]

Charles Darwin collected the fossil horse teeth during his voyage on the Beagle. He forwarded the fossils to Richard Owen, the great British paleontologist and anatomist who first coined the word "Dinosauria". Owens concluded that the South American horse was distinct from the Old World species and named it Equus curvidens.[go back]

On the fossil horses of America. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 3(11): 262-266.[go back]

Leidy identified two species. The first was the same species named by Richard Owen, Equus curvidens. The second was a new species which Leidy first named Equus americanus. Ten years later, Leidy discovered that the name "americanus" had already been used for another South American fossil horse, so he renamed his species Equus complicatus.[go back]


Leidy wondered why the horse become extinct in the Americas when its successful reintroduction by the Spaniards demonstrated that the New World was a favorable environment. Darwin asked the same question (in nearly the same way) 11 years later. Today's scientists still grapple with this question. Most consider climatic change, over-hunting by newly arrived humans or a combination of the two as the most plausible explanations for the extinction of the American horse (and other large mammals) at the end of the Pleistocene.[go back]

Etymology:Equus (EH-kwis) = horseAnchihippus (ANK-ee-HIP-us) = near or close to horseAnchitherium (ANK-ee-THEER-ee-um) = near or close to beastHipparion (hih-PAIR-ee-on) = pony Hippodon (HIP-oh-don) = horse toothMerychippus (MARE-ee-HIP-us) = ruminant-like horseParahippus (PAR-ah-HIP-us) = near horseProtohippus (PRO-toe-HIP-us) = first horse[go back]

O. C. Marsh, with considerable encouragement from Thomas Huxley, presented the story of horse evolution as a simple, linear progression from a small forest mammal with generalized teeth and multi-toed feet to the large and fleet horse with single-toed feet and teeth specialized for feeding in the open grassland. This scenario reinforced the widespread perception of progressive evolution. Although it was first proposed as a demonstration of Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection, this linear progression later prompted some notable paleontologists, including Henry Fairfield Osborn and William B. Scott, to propose orthogenesis (innately directed evolution) as more plausible than Darwin's natural selection in explaining evolution. It wasn't until the middle of the 20th century, George Gaylord Simpson demonstrated a more complicated and considerably less progressive history of horse evolution, that Darwinian natural selection became the central mechanism for evolution.

Above:

Another Photo of Smithsonian Scientists 

excavating Hagerman horse fossil

Complete Fossil of Ancient Horse Found in Peru
Monday, 24 February 2003

Horses reached the Americas long ago, but eventually died out LIMA: Geologists have uncovered the most complete horse fossil in the Americas, expanding knowledge of an ancient species that had died out on the continent 10,000 years ago.A team from Peru's Natural History Museum told reporters on Friday they had discovered the preserved skeleton of an Equus (Amerihippus) santaeelenae in July 2002 in the arid region of Arequipa, about 1,000 km south of Lima.

The fossil, unearthed in an area of volcanic ash and mud flows, had its head arched back and its front legs splayed out in front of its body. It was to be put on public display in the capital Lima at the end of the month. "Without a doubt, this is the most complete horse fossil that exists in the Americas. Absolutely all the bones have been preserved," said Rodolfo Salas, head of the palaeontology department at the museum. Compared to today's horse, the Equus santaeelenae had a large head, a thick neck and short legs. "It was definitely a good runner ... and lived in open areas like savannahs or pastures," Salas said.

Horses are thought to have arrived in South America about 3 million years ago, making their way across the isthmus of Panama from North America. But its population dwindled and it became extinct about 10,000 years ago - about the same time humans are believed to have settled South America. They were re-introduced following the arrival of Spanish conquistadors and colonists in the 16th century."Horses were reintroduced to South America," he added. "With this (find) we hope to remind people this animal did exist here." Reuters Note for Blog Manager: So you see, the Book of Mormon could well be an inspired work after all!

Other Links and Stories About Horses In North America...

http://www.turanianhorse.org/prehistoric.html

Skeleton of the Oligocene (30 million-year-old) horse, Mesohippus, is a
featured exhibit at the new North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in MedoraBy John W. Hoganson

https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndfossil/education/pdf/mesohip.pdf

Developers of the recently opened North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame contacted me about having a fossil exhibit in the

new Hall in Medora. Of course, what would be more appropriate than an exhibit interpreting the evolution of the horse? Most

people are under the false impression that horses did not inhabit North America until they were introduced by the Spaniards

during the early days of conquest. But horses are indigenous to North America. Fossil remains of the earliest horse, referred

to as Hyracotherium (or sometimes Eohippus), have been recovered from early Eocene (about 50 million years old) rocks in

North America. In fact, they were some of the most abundant mammals that lived during that time. The fossil record of horses

in North Dakota extends back to the Oligocene, about 30 million years ago, when the diminutive horse, Mesohippus roamed

western North Dakota. Mesohippus was tiny, about the size of a sheep. The adults were only about 20 inches tall at the

shoulder. They also had three toes on each foot compared to the modern horse Equus that has one. Mesohippus was also

probably more of a browsing herbivore compared to the modern grazing horse. We have found many Mesohippus fossils in

North Dakota but no complete skeletons. Consequently, the Mesohippus skeleton on exhibit at the Cowboy Hall of Fame is an

exact cast replica.

We have also found the remains of 50,000-year-old horses in North Dakota indicating that horses lived here during the last

Ice Age. By that time, horses had attained the size and aspect of modern-day horses and are placed in the modern horse genus,

Equus. Horses did become extinct in North America some time near the end of the Ice Age, several thousand years ago. Why

they became extinct in North America and not in the Old World is a matter of debate. Spanish conquistadors did have horses

with them when they arrived in the southwestern part of what is now the United States in the 1500s, but most scholars believe

that Native Peoples in the southwest probably did not have extensive access to horses until the 1600s. Apparently the Mandan

in North Dakota acquired horses by about 1750. The importance of the horse to Plains Indians cannot be overstated. In this

respect, some scholars have referred to the period from the time Native Peoples obtained horses until the near extermination

of the buffalo about 1880 as the “Horse Culture Period.” The importance of the horse on the Great Plains extends to the days

of pioneers and settlers and is equally prominent today in Cowboy culture.

Skeleton (cast) of the 30-million-year-old horse, Mesohippus,

on display at the new North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in

Medora.

Architectural sketch of the new North Dakota Cowboy Hall of

Fame in Medora.