By Alan C.
Miner
The
Ancient America Foundation (AAF) is pleased to present
AAF Notes: a series of research articles by scholars
of Book of Mormon culture and history and reviewed by
AAF
editors. Visit our Web site:
http://www.ancientamerica.org This article contains excerpts from Step By Step
Through the Book of Mormon, Volume 4.
According to Daniel H.
Ludlow, Alma 18:9 states that, "the king had commanded
his servants ... that they should prepare his horses
and chariots, and conduct him forth to the land of Nephi."
Two major questions have
been raised by anti-LDS critics of the Book of Mormon
concerning the statement that there were "horses
and chariots" on the American continents before
the time of Christ (see Alma 18:9). These critics have
maintained that:
- No horses existed on
the American continents before the time of Columbus;
and
- The people who lived
on the American continents did not know the principle
of the wheel before the coming of Columbus.
However, since the publication
of the Book of Mormon, considerable archaeological evidence
has come forth to reinforce its claims that there were
horses on the American continents before the time of
Columbus and that these early peoples did know the principles
of the wheel. [Daniel H. Ludlow, A Companion to
Your Study of the Book of Mormon, p. 206]
According to Hunter and
Ferguson, the claim made by the Book of Mormon that
horses were on this continent and used in ancient America
for purposes similar to the uses we make of them today
finds strong support in the numerous fossil remains
of horses that have been obtained from the asphalt deposits
of Rancho La Brea in southern California. Of course,
it is claimed that those fossil remains pre-date Book
of Mormon times. However, there is no logical reason
for believing, since horses were here prior to the arrival
of the Jaredites and the Nephites, that horses could
not have still been in America during the period in
which those ancient civilizations flourished.
We could do no better at
this point in dealing with this subject than to quote
from an official publication of the Los Angeles County
Museum on the subject of the existence of horses in
early times in America:
The presence of herds of
horses in the vicinity of the asphalt deposits during
the period of accumulation is clearly testified to by
the numerous remains of these mammals found at Rancho
La Brea. While many individuals are recorded in the
collections, all of them belong to a single species,
the extinct western horse (Equus occidentalis Leidy).
In stage of evolution and in general body structure
this type resembles the modern horse, although differing
from it in a number of specific details. Standing on
the average about 14 1/2 hands (4 feet, 10 inches) at
the withers, this animal was of the height of a modern
Arab horse. It was, however, of considerably heavier
build…
Horses were among the more
common types of hoofed mammals on the North American
continent during Pleistocene time, and several distinct
species have been described from fossil remains. The
abundance and widespread distribution of horses in North
America make the apparent disappearance of the group
in this region prior to the advent of the white man
an added and an unusual feature of their long and eventful
career.[Milton R. Hunter and Thomas Stuart Ferguson,
Ancient America and The Book of Mormon, pp. 312-313]
Joy Osborn provides the
following interesting quote relative to horses in the
Americas:
Fossil remains of true
horses, differing but very slightly from the smaller
and inferior breeds of those now existing, are found
abundantly in deposits of the most recent geological
age, in almost every part of America, from Escholz Bay
in the north to Patagonia in the south. In that continent
however, they became quite extinct, and no horses, either
wild or domesticated, existed there at the time of the
Spanish conquest, which is the most remarkable as, when
introduced from Europe the horses that ran wild proved
by their rapid multiplication in the plains of South
America and Texas that the climate, food, and other
circumstances were highly favorable for their existence.
The former great abundance
of Equidae in America, their complete extinction, and
their perfect acclimatization when reintroduced by man,
form curious but as yet unsolved problems in geographical
distribution. (New Americanized Encyclopedia,
Vol. 5, p. 3197) [Joy M. Osborn, The Book of Mormon
—The Stick of Joseph, p. 159]
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