The Effect of the Destruction in 3 Nephi

Some Mesoamerican theorists, including John L. Sorenson, try to limit the amount of destruction that was caused by the 3-hour earthquake listed in 3 Nephi, by saying that “Nothing about the pre-crucifixion geography seems to have puzzled them, the volume itself says that the changes at the Savior's death were mainly to the surface.” Others claim that there must not have been much damage by writing: “The catastrophe had changed the face of the land (3 Nephi 8:12), but a changed face apparently did not mean that most of the basic land forms and ecological conditions had been rendered unrecognizable.”

Generally, all these theorists claim that the damage to the Land of Promise as written about in 3 Nephi, was not sufficient as to cause Mormon not to identify pre- and post-period topography of the Land of Promise three centuries after the events. While Mormon obviously understood the topography after the damage caused by the 3-hour earthquake, etc., that does not mean the Land of Promise was not significantly changed by the destruction.

On the other hand, some argue that we cannot hope to attain clarity of the land because of the great destruction that took place at the time of the Savior’s crucifixion. They feel that that event so changed everything that what could be seen of the landscape in former times would not be recognizable afterward.

What seems to be misunderstood by theorists is that the changes mentioned could be both severe and yet understood within the topography after the destruction. Take, as an example, an event where if a devastating earthquake were to hit central Utah that caused a deep canyon to appear between Ogden and Salt Lake City, a tall mountain range to jut up where the lake now stands, the entire airport area to sink into the earth, a valley to appear where the eastern shelf now sits, and hills jut up randomly where the Avenues now are, with the city of Santaquin disappearing and a mountain appearing where it was, the city of Bountiful collapsing, and the city of Draper disappearing—though these changes would be severe, would someone not be able to tell where the Capitol building is, the temple site, where North Salt Lake is located, and South Jordan, etc? If the entire Wasatch Mountains from Provo to Bountiful collapsed into the earth and a great sea appeared in their place, it would not change the understanding of the land between that Wasatch area of today and the Great Salt Lake.

The point is, damage can be severe and completely alter a landscape to where many parts were unrecognizable, yet major areas could still be identified. Besides, over the three centuries after the destruction, all the cities that could be rebuilt were, the roads repaired, and the altered landscape became the common landscape and whatever existed previously would not be thought of as normal. To Mormon, having all the records before and after covering about 900 years of history in the Land of Promise prior to his birth, he would have been able to relate one geographical appearance with another. As an example, after the above fictitious destruction to Salt Lake, one would know there used to be mountains in the east border where now was a great sea—and one would know that there used to be a city in the former corner canyon area where now are very tall mountains, etc.

The fallacious idea that an historian would not know how to describe topographical conditions of the past as they related to his present—to know what was before and after the destruction if there had been any serious damage, is completely disingenuous.

Having been to New York City before and after the destruction of the Twin Towers has not altered my understanding of lower Manhattan. Even in movies, we talk about where the towers were once located, etc. People adjust to changes quite easily. But it does not change the fact that the impressively tall towers was once a major landmark and now they are gone.

The Lord himself is quoted as describing the terrible destruction caused in both the Land Southward and the Land Northward (3 Nephi 9:1-2), a destruction described in some detail by 3 Nephi 8:5--A destruction that was probably more severe than the leveling of Berlin during World War II, where entire cities and tall buildings were reduced to rubble, piles of brick, plaster, stucco, and rock were piled everywhere. No doubt, in many of the city areas of the Land of Promise, such as Zarahemla, such a sight was repeated (3 Nephi 8:15;9:3). Hills and valleys covered over numerous cities (3 Nephi 9:8), and scores of cities were sunk into the ground (3 Nephi 9:5,8), and many others covered over by the sea (3 Nephi 9:4,7).

Solid rocks, cliffsides, and other solid formations were broken up into fragments and the earth was left with severe cracks and seams upon all the face of the land (3 Nephi 8:18)—for this to have even been mentioned suggests to the severity of the damage to the appearance of the topography as described by “the face of the whole earth became deformed” (3 Nephi 8:17).

Whatever basis Mormon used to describe geographical settings before and after the destruction, is not known. However, both he and his son, Moroni, knew that certain Jaredite landmarks were the same ones the Nephites knew (Ether 7:6; 15:11), therefore, the records they had before them must have been quite complete in describing the geography of the Land of Promise, or inspiration testified to the locations.

Geography of the Book of Mormon—Necessary or Superfluous?

Some claim that the authenticity of the Book of Mormon can be determined by the consistency of issues found within its pages. And those regarding such minor ideas as the geography of the events are even more important in this regard for it is easy to become confused in covering events within a geography over a thousand year period.

Thus, the geography of the Book of Mormon plays an important part in showing the accuracy of the book itself. Therefore, scholars and theorists ought to pay particular attention to the descriptions with the scriptural record and not try to change or alter them—or ignore them—for their own purposes.

While we all know from studying the Book of Mormon, it is not a geography text book by any means—but then, neither is the Bible, yet the biblical events can be placed within a geographical setting that has become, over the years, completely understandable. And, too, can the Book of Mormon reach that level of acceptance if scholars and theorists would pay 100% attention to the descriptions of the scriptural record and accept them at face value rather than trying to make them fit some pre-determined theories and ideas.

After all, we do not as a people try to alter or change the doctrinal information within the pages, so why do so many try so hard to change and alter the simple understanding of the geographical statements made?
To begin with, perhaps the nearest thing to an organized clarification of the overall layout of the Land of Promise is Mormon’s geographical picture inserted into the Alma narrative. While relating an occurrence involving Nephite missionaries and Lamoni’s father, the Lamanite high king, Mormon inserted a 570-word explanation that outlined the major features of the Land of Promise, beginning in the Land Southward (Alma 22:27–34). Starting with the Land of Nephi as far south as Lehi’s landing site (the Land of First Inheritance) , Mormon begins moving northward from there to finally settle his description in the Land Northward, “so far north as the Land of Many Waters.”

Obviously, Mormon considered this explanation of the location of the lands sufficient for his future readers that he never addressed the subject again. But that is not all. There are over 550 verses in the Book of Mormon containing information of geographical significance—of where the events took place, from the many journeys to numerous descriptions. This is important, because any writing that is based on historical events will be judged by how consistent the writing is in referring to geographical locations of cities, places, and topography. Even the most ardent critic has to accept the fact that Mormon never misses to stay within the framework of the geographical outline he has given.

This, of course, could only happen if the original writer, in this case Mormon, had a perfect mental picture or image of the geography of the area about which he was writing. Not once does he stray from the picture he has described to his future readers, and that is why scholars and theorists must stay within the intent and purpose of the scriptural record and not wander off into unknown and untested areas in trying to prove their exotic settings—especially when they do not agree with the plain and simple language of the text provided.

And there is one last thought that should be kept in mind. With all the rhetoric that has been written about Hebrew words and their meanings and how that is needful to understand the Book of Mormon geographical descriptions, it should be kept in mind that the small and large plates of Nephi, and the abridgement of Mormon, were all written in Reformed Egyptian. Consequently, knowing what Hebrew words meant is meaningless, since they were never used in the compiling of the Book of Mormon.

In addition, even though the Nephites spoke and thought in Hebrew, the plates themselves were laboriously written in Reformed Egyptian—and to show that they were, Moroni ended his father’s record by stating: “And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech” (Mormon 9:32). And even if some diehard linguist wants to claim they thought in Hebrew, therefore would have used Hebrew in their manner of writing Reformed Egyptian, Moroni also said, “And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew, but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also” (Mormon 9:33).

Thus, we see, that all this rhetoric by scholars and theorists regarding the Hebrew words and their meaning has two problems: 1) The plates were not written in Hebrew, and 2) Whatever Hebrew the Nephites knew had been altered by them by the time Mormon abridged the records in the 4th century A.D.

The Disingenuous Promotion of the Great Lakes Theory

It is one thing to make a claim about a people in antiquity matching the Nephites in a location claimed to be the Land of Promise. However, one cannot in all honesty consider the archaeological and anthropological description of the almost stone-age people of the Great Lakes as that of the Nephites. Compare what is found regarding the achievements of the Jaredite and Nephite nations in the Book of Mormon to the description below of the first people into the Great Lakes that span the Book of Mormon period.

Writing about the First Inhabitants of the Great Lakes Region in North America, and quoting several archaeologists and anthropologists who have worked in and written about the area, we find: “Another group of Native Americans referred to as the Old Copper tribe also existed in the period between 3000 B.C. to 500 B.C.. The Old Copper tribe frequented the southern shoreline. This area of the Great Lakes had a high content of copper in the soil, which the “Old Copper tribe frequently mined and extracted copper for use in their tool and weaponry manufacturing.” The Old Copper tribe were considered the “first fabricators of metal in the Americas” and relied heavily on hunting caribou, deer, elk and bison for survival.

As the Old Copper tribe was nearing extinction, a new indigenous group emerged inhabiting a grand part of Wisconsin, northeast Illinois, northern Indiana, and northern Ohio. This group were referred to as the Red Ocher people who lived between 1000 B.C. and 500 B.C.. Like the Old Copper tribe, the Red Ochers also used an enormous amount of copper to construct “awls, celts, knives, and points.” They also “made flint points, and large ceremonial blades as long as 19 inches in length.”

Artifacts and remnants of Red Ocher Culture have been discovered from eastern Iowa to central Ohio and from southern Ohio to the Manitoulin District of Ontario. Further west and south, artifacts of the Red Ochers have been found in “southeastern Wisconsin, northern Illinois, northern Indiana and the southern half of the lower peninsula of Michigan.

In much of this area, the “Red Ochers were co-occupants with the Old Copper tribe before both eventually became extinct at nearly the same time. Similar to the group before, the Red Ochers were also a group of hunters and gatherers but what makes them unique were their burial rituals and the burial grounds they developed. Anthropologists describe a typical burial site of the Red Ocher as consisting of “flexed burials in pits or ridges of sand, gravel or loess, with powdered red ocher in grave, ‘"turkey tail"’ blades of chipped blue grey flint, rather large lanceolate ceremonial knives of whitish flint and caches of ovate triangulated points.”

As one can tell from their burial rituals, the Red Ochers seem unique to their time and place in using ceremonial blades, marine shell beads; gathered from the lake shores, and copper beads; gathered from the ground to symbolize or represent some type of spiritual affection to accompany the deceased.

Directly following the Red Ochers, were the Early Woodlands peoples who became the dominant indigenous group in the Great Lakes region circa 500 B.C. to about 100 B.C. The Early Woodlands “migrated from southern Illinois along the Illinois River until reaching the western shores of Lake Michigan.” During the spring and summer seasons, they would build temporary dwellings, referred to by historians as sod houses slightly submerged underground. They would use the “bark from cedar, ash, elm, spruce and fir trees,” depending on the area, and from among the Early Woodland peoples, a subculture group developed known as the Hopewell Indians. The Hopewellian Indians existed from “500 B.C. to 700 A.D. and they originated from points further south along the Mississippi River valley.” The Hopewellians were famous for “developing the first trade and commerce system within the Early Woodland era.”

Though the Early Woodland Indians were expert hunters of wild game within the boreal forests, the “Hopewellian brought an abundance of furs and clay pottery from points further south to commence a trading procedure in exchange for copper, fish, and game gathered by the remaining Early Woodlands. As a whole, the Early Woodlands were famous for “constructing elaborate burial mounds over the dead using pottery of fired clay brought on by the Hopewellians.” Thanks in great part to the Hopewellian Indians, new artistic achievements were developing among the Early Woodlands with “the use of clay, copper and the abundance of wood to build long canoes from birch trees with the attempt to spread their trade and commerce to points east of Lake Michigan.”

Unfortunately, the Early Woodlands were never as successful as the Late Woodlands (500 to 1000 A.D.) in terms of trade, travel and the exchange of goods since new technological advances and faster mobility would end up favoring the Late Woodlands Indians by far.

The disingenuousness of comparing such a backward and under-developed people of the Great Lakes region to the magnificent building and accomplishments described for the Nephites, a people with over 1000 years of history before arriving in the Land of Promise, and who developed magnificent cities and highways and a culture equally the finest in history, cannot be excused. Absolutely nothing in the Great Lakes can compare with the magnificent accomplishments of the Nephites, and even the Jaredites before them.

(If you have not already read the last three posts on these comparisons with the scriptural record, you might want to do so for further information)

The Great Lakes Myth and the Scriptural Record – Part III

Construction achievement around the last century B.C. Top: Hopewell Indians in Great Lakes; Center: Early Peruvians in Andean Area of South America; Bottom: Maya Temple in Guatemala

According to Anthropologists, the Hopewell Indians may have been in the Great Lakes region as early as 200 B.C., but this cannot be confirmed. By 1 A.D., the Hopewells mastered agriculture and grew crops of sunflowers and squash. By 200 A.D., the Hopewells began to construct mounds. By 500 A.D. they were completely gone from Indiana. The Ho-Chunk moved northward around 200 A.D., and built large shell-mounts, where they buried their dead. By 500 A.D. they were building the effigy mounds in Great Lakes area in what is called the Woodland Cultural period, building thousands of mounds throughout Illinois and southern Wisconsin

• Compare this to the facts, as stated in the last post, that the Nephites were building large cities and highways, and spreading across the land as a cultured, technologically developed society with more than 600 years history building and tending crops, from constructing temples that would rival Solomon’s to cities the Lord called “great” (3 Nephi 8:24; 9:4-5))

Again, according to archaeologists and anthropologists, the Mississippians moved into the Ohio River Valley around 1100 A.D., where they built mounds much larger and far more grand than the Hopewells before them. Some of these mounds remain visible at locations near the Ohio River today.

• Compare that to Nephi’s statement in 588 B.C. “And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance.” (2 Nephi 5:15)

Anthropologists claim the agrarian Mississippians were the first to grow maize in the region of the Great Lakes after their arrival in 1100 A.D.. The people developed the bow and arrow and copper working during this time period. (1 Nephi 16:23)

• Compare that to “And it came to pass that as I, Nephi, went forth to slay food, behold, I did break my bow, which was made of fine steel” (1 Nepbi 16:18,23), which would have been around 595 B.C. And, again, “I, Nephi, did make out of wood a bow, and out of a straight stick, an arrow; wherefore, I did arm myself with a bow and an arrow” (1 Nephi 18:23). And again, “Therefore the people of the Nephites were aware of the intent of the Amlicites, and therefore they did prepare to meet them; yea, they did arm themselves with swords, and with cimeters, and with bows, and with arrows, and with stones, and with slings, and with all manner of weapons of war, of every kind.” (Alma 2:12) which was in the last century B.C. 1200 years before the Mississippians

According to archaeological finds, the city of Cahokia, built by ”the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico,” was inhabited from about 700 to 1400 A.D.. At its peak, from 1050 to 1200 A.D., the city covered nearly six square miles and 10,000 to 20,000 people lived here. Over 120 mounds were built over time, and most of the mounds were enlarged several times. Houses were arranged in rows and around open plazas, and vast agricultural fields lay outside the city. Within the 2,200-acre tract, located a few miles west of Collinsville, Illinois, lies the archaeological remnants of the central section of this ancient settlement that is today known as Cahokia.

• Compare that to Moroni writing about 400 A.D. “And now it came to pass that after the great and tremendous battle at Cumorah, behold, the Nephites who had escaped into the country southward were hunted by the Lamanites, until they were all destroyed” (Mormon 8:2) and “Behold, four hundred years have passed away since the coming of our Lord and Savior. And behold, the Lamanites have hunted my people, the Nephites, down from city to city and from place to place, even until they are no more; and great has been their fall; yea, great and marvelous is the destruction of my people, the Nephites. And behold, it is the hand of the Lord which hath done it. And behold also, the Lamanites are at war one with another; and the whole face of this land is one continual round of murder and bloodshed; and no one knoweth the end of the war” (Mormon 8:6-8).

That is, the Nephites were long gone before the mounds that are seen today were constructed. Mounds, as impressive as they are, cannot compare with the description of cities and buildings that are written about from Nephi through Mormon. The Great Lakes, as has been more than adequately proven here, cannot be the Land of Promise since it does not match any of the scriptural record relating to these many points shown.

The Great Lakes Myth and the Scriptural Record – Part II

If the Great Lakes theorists had not made such an issue of their model being the only model that is correct, and that so many people have been drawn to it, and that it does not match the scriptural record of the Book of Mormon, the continual rebuttal of this would not be necessary. However, when comparing a model, one must compare the facts of that model area to the basic scriptural record. In this case (see last post), the facts of the area simply fall far short of the scriptural record.

This chart shows the Annual Low Temperatures of the Eastern U.S. Note that the area of the suggested Land of Promise (black arrow) around Lake Erie and Lake Ontario show an annual low of 0º to -20º. The gray area (Path North) is the movement of grain crops which began in the south and slowly moved their way north around 100 A.D., reaching the Land of Promise area around 400 to 500 A.D.

According to archaeologists, maize (corn) made its way up from the southern states of the American South, moving up the Mississippi to the Great Lakes area, arriving early in the first century A.D. Corn reached Ontario by 500 A.D., “however, it took some time until people in the Great Lakes became full-time farmers.”

• Compare that to: “And we began to till the ground, yea, even with all manner of seeds, with seeds of corn, and of wheat, and of barley, and with neas, and with sheum, and with seeds of all manner of fruits” (Mosiah 9:9). This occurred about 200 B.C., and obviously, those seeds were brought with Zeniff’s group from the area of Zarahemla, which would have been growing there earlier than 200 B.C. In addition, we know that the Lehi Colony planted seeds for their sustenance as early as 600 B.C. (1 Nephi 18:24), and before them the Jaredites planted their crops (Ether 6:13) as early as 2200 B.C.

Archaeologists also claim that the seeds, which arrived in the Great Lakes region in the first century A.D., had to have undergone a climate change. That is, the seeds “had to adopt to the cold climate of the Great Lakes.” And this over time as the seeds made their way up the Mississippi from the southern states area, including later beans and squash from Mexico.

• Compare that to: “Lehi dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days” (1 Nephi 1:4), and that upon departing into the wilderness (1 Npehi 2:4), he took with him provisions which included “all manner of seeds of every kind, both of grain of every kind, and also of the seeds of fruit of every kind” (1 Nephi 8:1), and upon boarding the ship Nephi built, they “did go down into the ship, with all our loading and our seeds, and whatsoever thing we had brought with us” (1 Nephi 18:6). An when they arrived in the Land of Promise, they “did begin to till the earth, and we began to plant seeds; yea, we did put all our seeds into the earth, which we had brought from the land of Jerusalem. And it came to pass that they did grow exceedingly; wherefore, we were blessed in abundance” (1 Nephi 18:24). And when Nephi separated from his brothers, and traveled many days into the wilderness, “the Lord was with us; and we did prosper exceedingly; for we did sow seed, and we did reap again in abundance. And we began to raise flocks, and herds, and animals of every kind” 2 Nephi 5:11). It should be noted that seeds “brought from the land of Jerusalem” had grown in a Mediterranean climate. In 600 B.C., seeds grew in the climate and soils they were used to, and the Great Lakes is far too cold for seeds from a Mediterranean climate to grow. In fact, there are only four Mediterranean climates in the world outside the Mediterranean. They are southern tip of Africa, southern tips of Australia, southern California, and 30º south latitude in Chile. Nephi’s seeds would not have grown initially in any climate but these four.

Archaeologists also claim that from the period 400 B.C. to 500 A.D., the people of the Great Lakes region were “hunters and gatherers.”

• Compare this to the Nephites who built major cities (City of Nephi, the City of Zarahemla) and 46 other cities in the Land of Promise during this time. Many are mentioned in 3 Nephi 9, when they were destroyed. The point is, hunters and gatherers do not build cities. Nor highways and roads, which were constructed around 30 A.D. (3 Nephi 6:8)

Archaeologists also claim that the people of the Great Lakes who built the Norton Mound Group in Michigan did so somewhere between 1 and 200 AD. And also that “some sites near the mouths of rivers, are remaining where they are for a longer period of time—in other words, people are becoming more sedentary.”

• Compare this to the fact that in the first and second century A.D., after Christ’s appearance to the surviving Nephites (3 Nephi 9:15), around 50 A.D., the Nephites were again building cities (4 Nephi 1:7), including “that great city Zarahemla” (4 Nephi 1:8). During this 200 years following Christ’s appearance, the Nephites were an enlightened people, building cities, and multiplied exceedingly fast (4 Nephi 1:10) spreading across the land. Archaeologists have not found any comparable happening in the Great Lakes are to equate to this spiritual and technological growth in the first two centuries A.D.

(See the next post, “The Great Lakes Myth and the Scriptural Record – Part III,” regarding the height of the Great Lakes peoples not existing until several centuries after the annihilation of the Nephites)

The Great Lakes Myth and the Scriptural Record – Part I

To understand the archaeology of the Great Lakes one needs to understand its climate. Temperature wise it has more in common with modern day Oslo, Scandinavia, or Beijing, China than it does with the warmer western Europe. And over the past 6,000 years the climate in the Great Lakes region has changed very little—and is a climate that can be very harsh, with howling winters bringing snow as early as October and as late as April. In Toronto on the northern end of Lake Ontario, the average 24-hour temperature for January is -5 degrees Celsius. To put that in perspective the average for London, England, in that same month is positive 4.9 degrees Celsius.

Weather Map showing snow over the entire proposed Great Lakes Land of Promise. Weather here is severe in the winter months.

• Compare that to Alma 46:40 in which there were such hot seasons that fever was rampant among the Nephites and would have killed many except for the marvelous herbs the Lord had provided.

In the Great Lakes region, the climate makes basic survival, not to mention agriculture, very difficult. A hunter-gatherer must find or build adequate shelter to survive the long winter months, and also construct tough, winter-resistant clothing from animal hides. A family dependent on agriculture faces great challenges for without enough food grown during the summer months, a family living off the land can easily starve or succumb to the elements.

• Compare that to the fact that Nephi tells of crops growing exceedingly and providing abundance for them (1 Nephi 18:24; 2 Nephi 5:11), and Zeniff, who planted corn, wheat, barley and two other grain crops, as well as all manner of fruit, that obviously grew exceedingly for the Lamanites raided their crops (Mosiah 9:9,14).

The people who arrived in the Great Lakes were hunter-gatherers. It’s believed that they traveled in small groups, and spent their time hunting migrating caribou herds.

• Compare that to the fact that Nephi immediately taught his people how to build buildings and work with metal (2 Nephi 5:15), and built a temple that rivaled the one built by Solomon (2 Npehi 5:16). The Jaredites built all types of impressive buildings (Mosiah 8:8), and the Nephites built the “great cities” of Zarahemla (3 Nephi 9:3), of Moroni (3 Nephi 9:4), and of Moronihah (3 Nephi 9:5).

The tools the initial settlers of the Great Lakes region used were flint arrowheads, spear points, stone axes, flake knives. Eventually, they eventually learned to cold-hammer copper into tools or heated it over fire.

• Compare that to the Jaredites who “did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth…ore of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work. And they did have silks, and fine-twined linen; and they did work all manner of cloth, that they might clothe themselves from their nakedness” (Ether 10:23-24). “And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance. And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon's temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did cause my people to be industrious, and to labor with their hands” (2 Nephi 5:16-17)

In the Great Lakes region, those far to the south in the southern states area were far ahead of those in the Great Lakes, developing pottery and other methods long before the Great Lakes people, who received most of their crops and materials from the south.

• Compare that to the Nephites who were far more advanced in all things than the Lamanites, the latter occupying the southern lands. As Enos wrote of the Lamanites in the south: “their hatred was fixed, and they were led by their evil nature that they became wild, and ferocious, and a bloodthirsty people, full of idolatry and filthiness; feeding upon beasts of prey; dwelling in tents, and wandering about in the wilderness with a short skin girdle about their loins and their heads shaven; and their skill was in the bow, and in the cimeter, and the ax. And many of them did eat nothing save it was raw meat” (Enos 1:20)

(See the next post, “The Great Lakes Myth and the Scriptural Record – Part II,” for more comparisons between the Great Lakes region and the scriptural record)

Metallurgy in pre-Columbian America – Part II

According to archaeologists, there is no question that metallurgy in the Andean area of South America was far superior to anything found elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere and rivaled that of the Old World.


Also, that Andean metallurgy began long before other regions of the Americas. About two to three thousand years after it began in the Andean area, metallurgy was beginning in Central America. These cultures were highly advanced in the art. But in the eastern United States area, metallurgy never reached such sophistication, remaining much as it was found when the Europeans settled North America.

Similar metal artifact types to those of the Andean area are found in West Mexico and the two regions: copper rings, needles and tweezers being fabricated in the same ways as in Ecuador and also found in similar archaeological contexts. There is also a multitude of bells found, but in this case they were cast using the same lost-wax casting method as seen in South America. During this period, copper was being used almost exclusively.

In North American (north of Mexico) indigenous cultures did not smelt, melt, or alloy metals. Instead, they relied on the less technical approach due to the relative abundance of native copper. Their works were mostly utilitarian from very early on, and not concentrating on the prestige attached to the metal artifacts such as in South America and later, Central America. Their works were mostly of knives, fishhooks, and bracelets. In Etowah, a Mississippian culture site in Georgia, there were copper headdresses. In the Great Lakes region, hammer stones were used to break off pieces of copper small enough to be worked. Such a labor intensive process might have been eased by building a fire on top of the deposit, then quickly dousing the hot rock with water, creating small cracks, then repeated to create more small cracks.

The copper could then be cold-hammered into shape, which would make it brittle, or hammered and heated in an annealing process to avoid this. The final object would then have to be ground and sharpened using local sandstone. Numerous bars have also been found, possibly indicative of trade for which their shaping into a bar would also serve as proof of quality.

Great Lake artifacts found in the Eastern Woodlands of North America seem to indicate there were widespread trading networks by 1000 B.C. Progressively the usage of copper for tools decreases with more jewelery and adornments being found. This is believed to be indicative of social changes to a more hierarchical society. However this Great Lake model as a unique source of copper and of copper technologies remaining somewhat static for over 6000 years has recently come into some level of criticism, particularly since other deposits seem to have been available to ancient North Americans, even if a lot smaller.

The point is, however, that the metallurgy abilities of the Great Lakes region were far inferior to those of South America, and later Central America. There are numerous examples cited by archaeologists to show that the Andean area metallurgy heavily influenced and was directly connected to that of Mexico. The actual artifacts and then techniques were imported from the south, but west Mexican metallurgists worked ores from the abundant local deposits. Even when the technology spread from West into northeastern, central and southern Mexico, artifacts that can be traced back to West Mexican ores are abundant, if not exclusive, though it is not clear if the metal reached its final destination as an ingot, an ore or a finished artifact.

Provenance studies on metal artifacts from southern Mesoamerica cast with the lost-wax technique and dissimilar to west Mexican artifacts have shown that there might have been a second point of emergence of metallurgy into Mesoamerica there since no known source could be identified. However, the Aztecs did not initially adopt metal working (even if they had acquired metal objects), until shortly before the Conquest.

Thus it can be seen that metallurgy in the Great Lakes area was 1) begun long after that of South America, and 2) never reached a technology level anywhere near or as advanced as that of the Andean area.