Introduction and Purpose

I have always loved apolo­get­ics. I enjoy dis­cussing doc­trine, scrip­tur­al ver­sus and evi­dence that sup­port or are seen as evi­dence against the Book of Mor­mon or LDS church. For that rea­son I have stud­ied the most com­mon com­plaints and evi­dence for and against the church.

In my teen years, when some teens would be doing reg­u­lar teen activ­i­ties and tak­ing dates to the Mesa tem­ple pageant, I would go to the Mesa tem­ple pageant — not to watch the pageant, but to have a “dis­cus­sion” with the evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians hand­ing out their tracks. From the time I was 17 until I left on my mis­sion, I believed I was prepar­ing myself to not only win con­verts but to defend the LDS church. I was very sur­prised when I received my mis­sion call to Syd­ney Aus­tralia to teach athe­ist and Bud­dhist Chi­nese immi­grants in Man­darin Chi­nese. While in Aus­tralia, I con­sid­ered myself lucky if a came across a Chi­nese immi­grant that was vague­ly famil­iar with the bib­li­cal Moses or Adam and Eve. Need­less to say, all the time I spent research­ing cri­tiques of the Book of Mor­mon and Bible was not uti­lized, but I still enjoyed my mis­sion and found it immense­ly chal­leng­ing and reward­ing.

After my mis­sion, I still stud­ied apolo­get­ics, but by 2004 my enthu­si­asm for LDS apolo­get­ics start­ed to wane. A lot of that was due to the type of evi­dence com­ing out in sup­port of the Mesoamer­i­can mod­el. Non-LDS archae­ol­o­gists and anthro­pol­o­gists could not sup­port the claims being made by their LDS col­leagues. I found this to be con­fus­ing, but many times with LDS apolo­get­ics when those Mesoamer­i­can cri­tiques could not be suit­ably answered, a wait and see atti­tude was tak­en. I think of that time peri­od as the dark ages of Book of Mor­mon geog­ra­phy and DNA apolo­get­ics. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, my opin­ion is that LDS researchers suc­cess­ful­ly proved that the Book of Mor­mon did not take place in Mesoamer­i­ca.

Around 2011 I watched a four hour long video by Rod Mel­drum about the North Amer­i­can Book of Mor­mon Geog­ra­phy mod­el. I found the video extreme­ly excit­ing in that it all made sense why the gold­en plates were found in New York state and cer­tain scrip­tur­al ver­sus found in the Book of Mor­mon and Doc­trine and Covenants. This video reignit­ed my excite­ment about apolo­get­ics, and I began watch­ing oth­er videos by Wayne May about the Heart­land Book of Mor­mon geog­ra­phy mod­el.

At about this point, I start­ed going on blogs that were crit­i­cal of the LDS church and its claims. There was one blog in par­tic­u­lar that was run by a geneti­cist. I start­ed post­ing some of the Rod Mel­drum and Wayne May evi­dence in the com­ment sec­tion of his blog. At one point a dis­cus­sion about Mic­mac char­ac­ters ensued regard­ing their orig­i­na­tion. Were they a cre­ation of Father Chret­ian Le Cler­cq, or did he use already exist­ing Mic­mac char­ac­ters? I found a trans­lat­ed copy of Father Clercq’s book and start­ed read­ing to find the answer to this ques­tion. While read­ing his book, I read what appeared to be Christ’s vis­it to Amer­i­ca, the Gen­e­sis account, the flood, and sev­er­al Hebrew and Book of Mor­mon tra­di­tions and beliefs that appear to sup­port the Book of Mor­mon and Bible. This was about two years ago; from there I con­tin­ued to research more evi­dence writ­ten by ear­ly explor­ers and his­to­ri­ans and expand­ed my research by geneti­cist and anthro­pol­o­gist regard­ing DNA and arti­facts. Unlike the Mesoamer­i­can mod­el, all quotes and accounts in this doc­u­ment are from non-LDS archae­ol­o­gists, anthro­pol­o­gists, geneti­cists, and his­to­ri­ans. The research and accounts date from 2015 all the way back to the 16th cen­tu­ry.

20 Reasons why the Book of Mormon is a Historical Match in North America

In the 6 sec­tions of this essay, I pro­vide evi­dence that the North Amer­i­can geog­ra­phy mod­el answers all the nor­mal cri­tiques of the Book of Mormon“s his­toric­i­ty. The fol­low­ing 20 points out­line the evi­dence I have gath­ered:

The old­est known Hopewell Indi­an civ­i­liza­tion began around 500BC at Crys­tal Riv­er Flori­da, a time­line that match­es the Nephite arrival in North Amer­i­ca The Hopewell dis­ap­pear­ance of 400AD-500AD match­es the Nephite geno­cide time­line from the Book of Mor­mon, the last epis­tle writ­ten in 421AD The Hopewell Indi­ans had a south to north migra­tion that match­es the Nephite south to north migra­tion, as described in the Book of Mor­mon The last Hopewell Indi­an sites are in close prox­im­i­ty to the Hill Cumorah, a geo­graph­i­cal match for Moroni’s farewell Some North Amer­i­can Indi­an tribes had fair skins and appear Euro­pean to ear­ly set­tlers and mis­sion­ar­ies Some North Amer­i­can Indi­an tribes believed that they sailed to Amer­i­can from anoth­er coun­try The Ade­na Indi­ans close­ly match the Jared­ite civ­i­liza­tion in the Book of Mor­mon – such as the end of the Ade­na cul­ture around 200BC Hopewell Indi­ans had a Cau­casian DNA mark­er called hap­logroup X that is also found in Israel and Europe, but not East Asia (page 2) The Hopewell (and Adena/Jaredites) Indi­ans had an advanced met­al­lur­gy that includ­ed the use of cop­per and mete­oric iron tools, breast-plates, head-plates and jew­el­ry as described in the Book of Mor­mon, includ­ing: (page 3) Smelt­ing

Iron Swords — ear­ly Amer­i­can set­tlers found oxi­dized Amer­i­can Indi­an iron swords in Indi­an mound ruins

Cop­per and brass plates with hiero­glyphs, Hebrew, and unknown char­ac­ters on them

Steel bows For­ti­fi­ca­tions: Hopewell sites had large earth­en mounds with wood­en pick­et post and tow­ers – this fits Book of Mor­mon descrip­tions (page 3) Ancient bat­tle grounds in the state of New York and oth­er mass bur­ial pits (page 3) Hopewell had fine twined linen and woven cloth­ing (page 3) Hopewell had an exten­sive and advanced trade sys­tem with High­ways that stretched to the Rocky ties to Joseph Smith rev­e­la­tion of Zelph (page 3) Ani­mals and modes of trav­el are con­sis­tent: (page 3) Ele­phants

Cat­tle

Hors­es & Char­i­ots

Goats

Bees

Sheep

Cureloms and Cumoms Bar­ley and wheat in Hopewell agri­cul­ture (page 3) Native Amer­i­can tribes had ancient met­al tablets (page 3) Native Amer­i­can tribes tell of los­ing their scrip­ture and the gospel (page 3) Native Amer­i­can cus­toms and words that match up to Book of Mor­mon words and places (page 4) Many oth­er ties between Book of Mor­mon and North Amer­i­ca: (page 4) Indi­an his­to­ries include Christ’s appear­ance in Amer­i­ca

The New Madrid Fault

Keeshku­men

Bury the Hatch­et

Sto­ry of Laman­ite daugh­ters

King Benjamin’s Tow­er

Med­i­cine

Waters of Mor­mon

Hill Cumorah

Met­al Plates

Coins

Ken­tucky (Riv­er of Blood)

Riv­er Sidon is most like­ly the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er Vers­es of scrip­ture show­ing the geog­ra­phy sup­ports the Heart­land mod­el (page 5)

Why North American Indians and ‑only- North American Indians are Direct Descendants of Lehi

Hopewell Indi­ans match the time­frames and geog­ra­phy of the Book of Mor­mon

North Amer­i­can Indi­ans have a Cau­casian DNA mark­er

The Native Amer­i­cans believed they removed and killed off a Cau­casian race of Indi­an

North Amer­i­can Indi­ans have his­to­ries of sail­ing from anoth­er coun­try

Hopewell Indian

The old­est Hopewell site Crys­tal Riv­er Flori­da close prox­im­i­ty to the ocean is a like­ly match for Lehi’s land­ing in North Amer­i­ca.

The Hopewell dis­ap­pear­ance of 400AD-500AD match­es the Nephite geno­cide time­line from the Book of Mor­mon the last epis­tle writ­ten in 421AD.

While the cause of the cul­tur­al shift away from Hopewell prac­tices may be unclear, this change had occurred by around 400AD.

(Thel­er and Boszhardt 2003:121).

16 rune­stones found in North Amer­i­ca are gen­er­al­ly believed to be fake. These rune­stones have what appears to be Hebrew, Phoeni­cian, and Greek-like char­ac­ters. These are the Bat Creek Stone, AVM Rune­stone, Bourne stone, Grave Creek Stone, Heav­en­er Rune­stone, Kens­ing­ton Rune­stone, Nar­ra­gansett Rune­stone, Okla­homa rune­stones, Poteau Rune­stone, Spir­it Pond rune­stones, Vérendrye Rune­stone, Shawnee Rune­stone, Ohio Key stone, Ohio Deca­logue stone, The Jon­son Brad­ner stone, and the Michi­gan Relics. The gen­er­al­ly accept­ed the­o­ry behind these rune­stones is that 19th and 20th cen­tu­ry farm­ers and cit­i­zens had an insa­tiable desire to make fake Indi­an paleo Hebrew, Greek and Phoeni­cian like arti­facts and had the abil­i­ty to do so. I find this prob­lem­at­ic.

Hopewell Indian Interaction Sphere

The old­est Hopewell civ­i­liza­tion start­ed near the Gulf Coast and moved north to the Great Lakes area to Include New York. See the map below:

Hill Cumorah

At the final bat­tles at the Hill Cumorah, near­ly a quar­ter of a mil­lion Nephites were slaugh­tered. An untold num­ber of Laman­ites were also killed. Indi­an leg­end sup­ports this great and ter­ri­ble bat­tle that caused the death of hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple.

Thayen­da­negea Mohawk/Iroquois Chief:

“From the ear­li­est knowl­edge the white men have pos­sessed of the coun­try of west­ern New York, the Paint­ed Post has been not­ed as a geo­graph­i­cal land­mark. When first tra­versed by the white men, a large oak­en post stood at the spot, which has retained the name to this day. It was paint­ed in the Indi­an man­ner, and was guard­ed as a mon­u­ment by the Indi­ana, who renewed it as often as it showed evi­dence of going to decay. Tra­di­tion says it was a mon­u­ment of great antiq­ui­ty, mark­ing the spot of a great and bloody bat­tle, accord­ing to some state­ments. Accord­ing to oth­ers, it was erect­ed to per­pet­u­ate the mem­o­ry of some great war-chief.” (My opin­ion is the great Chief is Mor­mon I can’t prove it though)

(Paint­ed Post, New York is locat­ed about 70 miles away from Hill Cumorah)

(Stone 1838 pg. 318)

In ref­er­ence to Buf­fa­lo, New York in close prox­im­i­ty to what is the nar­row neck of land and the Hill Cumorah:

“Tra­di­tion fix­es upon this spot as the scene of the final and most bloody con­flict between the Iro­quois and the ”Gah-kwas” or Eries, — a tra­di­tion which has been sup­posed to derive some sanc­tion from the num­ber of frag­ments of decayed human bones which are scat­tered over the area.”

(Squier 1849)

Caucasian North American Indians

Since tra­di­tion­al Jews are known to be Cau­casian or of lighter skin col­or. It’s not hard to fath­om that the Tribe of Man­asseh, the tribe Lehi descend­ed from, also would have Cau­casian or lighter skin col­or. Hap­logroup X found in North Amer­i­can Indi­ans is con­sid­ered to be a Cau­casian DNA mark­er. Oth­er North, Cen­tral, and South Amer­i­can Indi­ans show the hap­logroups A, B, C, and D, which came from migrat­ing Asian eth­nic tribes of that peri­od, with which Laman’s seed would have like­ly inter­mar­ried.

The Nephites became Laman­ites and Laman­ites became Nephites sug­gest­ing dif­fer­ent shades in skin col­or as the Book of Mor­mon states.

“A recent sur­vey of Euro­pean mtD­NA has demon­strat­ed the pres­ence of the same “oth­er” hap­lo­type motif in mod­ern Euro­pean pop­u­la­tions, in which it is called “Hap­logroup X.””

(MtD­NA hap­logroup X: An Ancient Link between Europe/Western Asia and North Amer­i­ca?)

“To date, hap­logroup X has not been unam­bigu­ous­ly iden­ti­fied in Asia, rais­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that some Native Amer­i­can founders were of Cau­casian ances­try.”

(MtD­NA hap­logroup X: An Ancient Link between Europe/Western Asia and North Amer­i­ca?)

Near­ly one-third of Native Amer­i­can genes come from west Eurasian peo­ples with ties to the Mid­dle East and Europe.



(Nation­al Geo­graph­ic “Great Surprise”—Native Amer­i­cans Have West Eurasian Ori­gins”)

On the basis of genet­ic analy­sis of some serum and red-cell pro­tein poly­mor­phisms, Sza­th­mary and Reed (1972) and Sza­th­mary et al. (1974) were able to reveal the pres­ence of “Cau­casian” alle­les in the south­east­ern Ojib­wa and to give an esti­mate of Cau­casian admix­ture of ~30%; how­ev­er, more recent data on oth­er auto­so­mal locus poly­mor­phisms indi­cate that the genet­ic admix­ture may be as great as 50%.

(mtD­NA and Y Chro­mo­some-Spe­cif­ic Poly­mor­phisms in Mod­ern Ojib­wa: Impli­ca­tions about the Ori­gin of Their Gene Pool)

William Penn wrote the fol­low­ing to a friend in Eng­land. “I found them [the Indi­ans of the east­ern shore of North Amer­i­ca] with like coun­te­nances with the Hebrew race; and their chil­dren of so live­ly a resem­blance to them that a man would think him­self in Duke’s place, or Bar­ry Street, in Lon­don, when he sees them.”

(Mur­ray 1908)

“The Chero­kee are of a lighter col­or than the greater num­ber of the North Amer­i­can Indi­ans that are known to me.”

(Bar­ton 1798 pg. XIV)

“They (Algo­nquin Indi­ans) have the same com­plex­ion as the French.”

(Jou­ven­cy 1710)

About Gaspesian/Micmac Indians

“Although chil­dren are born among them with hair of dif­fer­ent colours, as in Europe.”

(Cler­cq 1680 pg. 237)

“The hue or col­or of their bod­ies is gen­er­al­ly not as white as ours though some quite fair skinned ones are to be found and most are born white.”

(In Mohawk Coun­try: Ear­ly Nar­ra­tives about a Native Peo­ple, by Dean R. Snow, Charles T. Gehring, William A. Star­na)

The Amlicites were Nephites who want­ed to be ruled by a king instead of appoint­ed judges. These Nephites rebelled and in their rebel­lion joined the Laman­ites. There was one prob­lem though. I believe that their skin col­or was of a lighter Cau­casian skin col­or. The seed of Laman on their arrival in the new world most like­ly inter­mar­ried with the indige­nous Asian eth­nic tribes of their day. So the Amlicites would have most like­ly looked like Nephites instead of Laman­ites. So in order for the Amlicites to dis­tin­guish them­selves from the Nephites they marked their fore­heads with red paint. The Chero­kee Indi­ans are excel­lent can­di­dates to be the Amlicites. From his­tor­i­cal accounts to the cur­rent day many Chero­kee who claim to be full blood­ed Chero­kee have Euro­pean fea­tures and skin col­or. Its looks as though red paint con­tin­ued to be a part of Laman­ite cul­ture.

Alma 3:4 – And the Amlicites were dis­tin­guished from the Nephites, for they had marked them­selves with red in their fore­heads after the man­ner of the Laman­ites.

The hap­logroup X Cau­casian DNA mark­er might be demon­strat­ed in sev­er­al George Cait­lyn Native Amer­i­can por­traits. This is assum­ing that the Native Amer­i­can chiefs and indi­vid­u­als have no Euro­pean admix­ture of the 18th and 19th cen­tu­ry, since the por­traits were paint­ed in the 19th cen­tu­ry.

George Caitlin paint­ed sev­er­al Native Amer­i­can por­traits, includ­ing the eight por­traits shown below.

“The Chero­kee are of a lighter col­or than the greater num­ber of the North Amer­i­can Indi­ans that are known to me.”

(Bar­ton 1798 pg. XIV)

Wolf Pawnee Tribe, his name

trans­lates to Brave Chief Chero­kee Indi­an, Cól-lee, Band Chief

“They (Algo­nquin Indi­ans) have the same com­plex­ion as the French.”

(JOSEPH, JOUVENCY 1710)

“(Mic­mac Indi­an chil­dren) are born among them with hair of dif­fer­ent colours, as in Europe.”

(Cler­cq 1680, pg. 237)

Sauk Fox Tribe, Pam‑a ho Lay-láw-she-kaw, Goes up

the Riv­er, an Aged Chief Mis­souria Tribe, Haw-che-ke-sug-ga Shawnee, Lay-loo-ah-pee-ai-shee-kaw Nako­ta Sioux, Tah-zee-keh-da-cha Chief Bread of the Onei­da Tribe

It’s inter­est­ing that many of the por­traits with Euro­pean fea­tures also wear a tur­ban like head dress.

A White Race and its Extermination

Con­cern­ing Hat­tera Indi­ans of North Car­oli­na:

“These Hat­tera tell us, that sev­er­al of their Ances­tors were white Peo­ple, and could talk in a Book, as we do; the Truth of which is con­firmed by gray eyes being found fre­quent­ly amongst these Indi­ans, and no oth­ers.”

(John Law­son 1709 pg. 62)

The Nephites who I believe had Cau­casian DNA were killed off by the Laman­ites. The North Amer­i­can Indi­ans have a leg­end of a for­eign white race being com­plete­ly killed or removed from cer­tain areas.

Cap­tain Brant Thayen­da­negea was a well-known Iro­quois and Mohawk leader and Chief who sided with the British dur­ing the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary war. He was born of Iro­quois par­ents who con­vert­ed to Chris­tian­i­ty. They gave him a Chris­t­ian name Joseph Brant. The quote is from his biog­ra­phy:

“I was curi­ous to learn in the course of my con­ver­sa­tions with Cap­tain Brant (Thayen­da­negea Mohawk/Iroquois Chief), what infor­ma­tion he could give me respect­ing the tumuli (mounds) which are found on and near the mar­gin of the rivers and lakes, from the St. Lawrence to the Mis­sis­sip­pi. He stat­ed, in reply, that the sub­ject had long been agi­tat­ed, but yet remained in some obscu­ri­ty. A tra­di­tion, he said, pre­vailed among the dif­fer­ent nations of Indi­ans through-out that whole exten­sive range of coun­try, and had been hand­ed down time immemo­r­i­al, that in an age long gone by, there came white men from a for­eign coun­try, and by con­sent of the Indi­ans estab­lished trad­ing-hous­es and set­tle­ments where these tumuli (mounds) are found. A friend­ly inter­course was con­tin­ued for sev­er­al years; many of the white men brought their wives, and had chil­dren born to them; and addi­tions to their num­bers were made year­ly from their own coun­try. These cir­cum­stances at length gave rise to jeal­ousies among the Indi­ans, and fears began to be enter­tained in regard to the increas­ing num­bers, wealth, and ulte­ri­or views of the new com­ers; appre­hend­ing that becom­ing strong, they might one day seize upon the coun­try as their own. A secret coun­cil, com­posed of the chiefs of all the dif­fer­ent nations from the St. Lawrence to the Mis­sis­sip­pi, was there­fore con­voked; the result of which, after long delib­er­a­tion, was a res­o­lu­tion that on a cer­tain night des­ig­nat­ed for that pur­pose, all their white neigh­bors, men, women and chil­dren, should be exter­mi­nat­ed.“

(Stone 1838 pg. 484)

“Here the Indi­ans tell us there was a war in ear­ly times, against an Indi­an town, traces of which are yet vis­i­ble, corn pits, etc. This was inhab­it­ed by a dis­tinct nation, nei­ther Iro­quois nor Delawares, who spoke a pecu­liar lan­guage, and were called Tehoti­tachse, against them the Five Nations warred and rout­ed them out; the Cayu­gas for a time held a num­ber cap­tive, but the nation and the lan­guage are now exter­mi­nat­ed and extinct.”

(Mur­ray 1908 pg. 46)

Natchez Indi­ans of Mis­sis­sip­pi, in ref­er­ence to an ancient race of Indi­an who pre­ced­ed them and even­tu­al­ly were defeat­ed:

“I did not fail to ask him who these war­riors of fire were. “They were,” said he, “beard­ed men, white but swarthy… They had come on float­ing vil­lages from the side where the sun ris­es. They con­quered the ancients of the coun­try, of whom they killed as many as there are spears of grass in the Prairies, and in the begin­ning they were good friends of our broth­ers, but ulti­mate­ly they made them sub­mit as well as the ancients of the coun­try, as our Suns (lead­ers) had fore­seen and had fore­told to them.””

(Swan­ton 1909 pg. 184)

“There is a dim but per­sis­tent tra­di­tion of a strange white race pre­ced­ing the Chero­kee, some of the sto­ries even going so far as to locate their for­mer set­tle­ments and to iden­ti­fy them as the authors of the ancient works found in the coun­try. The ear­li­est ref­er­ence appears to be that of Bar­ton in 1797, on the state­ment of a gen­tle­man whom he quotes as a valu­able author­i­ty upon the south­ern tribes. “The Chero­kee tell us, that when they first arrived in the coun­try which they inhab­it, they found it pos­sessed by cer­tain ‘moon-eyed peo­ple,’ who could not see in the day-time. These wretch­es they expelled.” He seems to con­sid­er them an albi­no race.* Hay­wood, twen­ty-six years lat­er, says that the invad­ing Chero­kee found “white peo­ple” near the head of the Lit­tle Ten­nessee, with forts extend­ing thence down the Ten­nessee as far as Chicka­mau­ga creek. He gives the loca­tion of three of these forts. The Chero­kee made war against them and drove them to the mouth of Big Chicka­mau­ga creek, where they entered into a treaty and agreed to remove if per­mit­ted to depart in peace. Per­mis­sion being grant­ed, they aban­doned the coun­try. Else­where he speaks of this extir­pat­ed white race as hav­ing extend­ed into Ken­tucky and prob­a­bly also into west­ern Ten­nessee, accord­ing to the con­cur­rent tra­di­tions of dif­fer­ent tribes.”

(Mooney 1902 pg. 22)

“Did not these skele­tons belong to per­sons of the same race with those white peo­ple, who were extir­pat­ed in part, and in part dri­ven from Ken­tucky, and prob­a­bly also from West Ten­nessee, as Indi­an tra­di­tion reports?”

(Hay­wood 1823 pg. 166)

“An old Indi­an, in con­ver­sa­tion with Colonel James F. Moore, of Ken­tucky, informed him that the west­ern coun­try, and par­tic­u­lar­ly Ken­tucky, had once been inhab­it­ed by white peo­ple, but that they were exter­mi­nat­ed by the Indi­ans. That the last bat­tle was fought at the falls of Ohio, and that the Indi­ans suc­ceed­ed in dri­ving the Abo­rig­ines into a small island below the rapids, where the whole of them were cut to pieces.”

(M.H. Frost 1819; On the abo­rig­ines of the West­ern Coun­tries)

“Mr. Thomas Bod­ley was informed by Indi­ans of dif­fer­ent tribes north­west of the Ohio, that they had under­stood from their old men, and that it had been a tra­di­tion among their sev­er­al nations, that Ken­tucky had been set­tled by whites, and that they had been exter­mi­nat­ed by war. They were of opin­ion that the old for­ti­fi­ca­tions, now to be seen in Ken­tucky and Ohio, were the pro­duc­tions of those white inhab­i­tants. Wap­pock­anit­ta, a Shawnee chief, near a hun­dred and twen­ty years old, liv­ing on the Auglaze Riv­er, con­firmed the above tra­di­tion.”

(M.H. Frost 1819; On the abo­rig­ines of the West­ern Coun­tries)

Sailed Here from another Country

In the Book of Mor­mon it states that Lehi and his fam­i­ly sailed from the Mid­dle East to anoth­er coun­try. Some North Amer­i­can Indi­an tribes have a belief that they arrived to the North Amer­i­can con­ti­nent through sail­ing from anoth­er coun­try.

Gaspesian/Micmac belief of how they arrived on the North American continent

The Gaspesian/Micmac have two the­o­ries of how they arrived. The first is by sail­ing from anoth­er coun­try, and the oth­er belief fits the Gen­e­sis account and flood.

“Oth­ers hold that this new world has been peo­pled by cer­tain indi­vid­u­als who, hav­ing embarked upon the sea for the pur­pose of estab­lish­ing a colony in for­eign parts, were sur­prised by storm and tem­pest, which threw them upon the coasts of North Amer­i­ca. Here they were unfor­tu­nate­ly ship­wrecked, and, with their ships, they lost every­thing which they must have had with them of prop­er­ty, and of the things which they val­ued most in the world. Affairs were such that this ship­wreck hav­ing left them whol­ly with­out hope of ever return­ing into their own coun­try.”

(Cler­cq 1680, pg. 85)

Iroquois legend of a foreign people who sailed to the continent then were destroyed

Cusick’s book I believe is about the Nephite and Laman­ite Inter­ac­tions and fight­ing except from the Laman­ite per­spec­tive told in Iro­quois Leg­end.

“After a long time a num­ber of for­eign peo­ple sailed from a port unknown; but unfor­tu­nate­ly before reached their des­ti­na­tion the winds drove them con­trary ; at length their ship wrecked some­where on the south­ern part of the Great Island, and many of the crews per­ished ; a few active per­sons were saved ….They imme­di­ate­ly select­ed a place for res­i­dence and built a small for­ti­fi­ca­tion in order to pro­vide against the attacks of furi­ous beasts….After many years the for­eign peo­ple became numer­ous, and extend­ed their set­tle­ments ; but after­wards they were destroyed”

(Cusick 1838, pg. 16)

Natchez Indians of Mississippi concerning a race of Indian that preceded them

“They had come on float­ing vil­lages from the side where the sun ris­es.”

(Swan­ton 1909, pg. 184)

“There is a rock, called the Dighton rock, on Taunton Riv­er, near Dighton, in Mass­a­chu­setts. It is a large rock in the mar­gin of the sea, and upon it are inscrip­tions in strange char­ac­ters, part­ly alpha­bet­i­cal and part­ly hiero­glyph­ic… In anoth­er scene, there is a ves­sel, with its masts, flags, and long rud­der, as in the ori­en­tal ves­sels at this day…The sub­ject gen­er­al­ly seems intend­ed to com­mem­o­rate the arrival of a peo­ple there from the ocean and the east, and who, hav­ing had inter­course with that natives)

(Hay­wood 1823, pg. 329)

The Jaredites

The Ade­na (Jared­ite) cul­ture end­ing at 200BC is a Book of Mor­mon match.

Bones dis­cov­ered in Hopewell and Ade­na Indi­an sites were of larg­er than nor­mal size. Some of the skele­tons were esti­mat­ed to be 7 feet in height. The Broth­er of Jared was con­sid­ered a mighty man large in stature.

The Ade­na civ­i­liza­tion also had breast­plates and cloth as described in the Book of Mor­mon.

Adena Culture

The Ade­na cul­ture is the civ­i­liza­tion that is most like­ly can­di­date to be the Jared­ites as explained in the Book of Mor­mon. The end of the Ade­na cul­ture is a match for the Book of Mor­mon of 200BC. The Jared­ites are stat­ed have breast­plates it’s shown that the Ade­na had a form of met­al­lur­gy. The Jared­ite writ­ten lan­guage was most like­ly cuneiform. Cuneiform is known to be writ­ten on met­al and clay tablets. The Ade­na are known to have stone tablets with styl­ized geo­met­ric designs on their tablets. Cor­re­la­tions between Ade­na and Hopewell in some ways also help sup­port the Ade­na as the Jared­ite peo­ple.

It’s believed that the Ade­na civ­i­liza­tion began around 1000 BC. The Jared­ites would have arrived on the Amer­i­can con­ti­nent around 2000 BC to the time of the Tow­er of Babel. Some the­olo­gians have sug­gest­ed the tow­er babel could be the Mesopotamia Zig­gu­rat of Baby­lon or the city of Ur.

The Mesopotami­an cul­ture was dis­tinct in sev­er­al ways. In one par­tic­u­lar man­ner is the shape Mesopotami­an built boats, it is dis­tinct from the major­i­ty of oth­er cul­tures. The Mesopotami­ans built boats that were round called cor­a­cles. The Book of Mor­mon states that the Broth­er of Jared built boats that are tight like unto a dish. The cir­cu­lar design of the Broth­er of Jared’s boats in today’s stan­dards is an odd and pecu­liar design. But dur­ing his time in what could be Mesopotamia the cir­cu­lar design of the boat would fit right in. Iraq peo­ple in what is ancient Mesopotamia con­tin­ued to make round cor­a­cles up until the 1990s when the cor­a­cles were replaced with mod­ern boats.



Neo Baby­lon­ian Zig­gu­rat

Because the Ade­na cul­ture began around 1000BC and the tow­er of Babel dat­ed to 2000BC. I’m going to assume the orig­i­nal set­tle­ments of the Broth­er of Jared have not been found. Accord­ing to scrip­ture the broth­er of Jared land­ed the eight cir­cu­lar boats in what would now be Lake Ontario. The boats as described in the scrip­tures were light upon the water. In this way the boats must have been blown up the St Lawrence Sea­way to Lake Ontario.

The end of the Ade­na cul­ture is believed to have hap­pened around 200BC. It’s assumed that the Ade­na even­tu­al­ly became part of the Hopewell peo­ple the Ade­na super­im­pos­ing the Hopewell cul­ture as their own. There are aspects of this that line up with the Book of Mor­mon.

From the time of Babel the Broth­er of Jared’s pos­ter­i­ty con­tin­ues until Cori­antumr leads his peo­ple in war to the point that he is the only per­son alive from the Jared­ites. After the slaugh­ter of all his peo­ple Cori­antumr lives with the Mulekites for the space of nine moons. As explained in the Book of Omni the peri­od of Cori­antumr liv­ing with the Mulekites and the destruc­tion of the Jared­ites is between 323BC-130BC. This time peri­od falls in line with the Ade­na cul­ture end or being absorbed into the Hopewell cul­ture. We know that the Mulekites who Cori­antumr stayed with became Nephites. It states that the Mulekites learned the Nephite lan­guage and that Mosi­ah became their king. Since archae­ol­o­gist are not show­ing a third civ­i­liza­tion along with the Ade­na and Hopewell. I’m going to spec­u­late that the Mulekites are being mis­tak­en as Hopewell pos­si­bly Ade­na.

There are archae­o­log­i­cal aspects and his­tor­i­cal records giv­en in the Book of Mor­mon that do line up cer­tain­ly not per­fect­ly but in pieces. Archae­o­log­i­cal records show that the Ade­na peo­ple and the Hopewell com­bined togeth­er at 200BC. Since archae­ol­o­gists have not sug­gest­ed that the Ade­na peo­ple dis­ap­peared it obvi­ous­ly an aspect that does not fit the his­tor­i­cal record of the Book of Mor­mon. But I don’t think it’s com­plete­ly out­landish to sug­gest that the Mulekites and Nephites took over Ade­na sites as their own after the geno­cide of the Jared­ites. But some sites stayed dis­tinct­ly Ade­na and do not show the Hopewell admix­ture after 200BC sug­gest­ing in my unpro­fes­sion­al opin­ion those sites were aban­doned by the Ade­na because they were all killed by war with their own peo­ple. Anthro­pol­o­gist can spec­u­late as to why but only a study of the Book of Mor­mon in my unpro­fes­sion­al will reveal mys­ter­ies of the Ade­na and Hopewell cul­tures.

Below is a map of Ade­na and Hopewell sites. One can see the admix­ture of Ade­na with Hopewell around 200BC and Ade­na sites that were aban­doned. Fort Ancient sites date to 1000AD are believed to have descend­ed from the Hopewell (Laman­ites). One can be very well look­ing at cities men­tioned in the Book of Mor­mon.

A con­tro­ver­sial aspect of the argu­ment is that I believe that the Ade­na cul­ture are the pos­ter­i­ty of the giants list­ed in the Bible. The bible states that a race of giants lived in cer­tain areas of the Old World. Goliath based on Jose­phus, and the 4th cen­tu­ry Sep­tu­agint man­u­scripts was 6 feet 9 inch­es tall. The Book of Mor­mon sup­ports the idea that the Jared­ites were of large size. The Book of Mor­mon states the Broth­er of Jared was con­sid­ered a large and mighty man (Ether 1:34). Also when the Nephites found Jared­ite breast plates they con­sid­ered them of large size (Mosi­ah 8:10). There is archae­o­log­i­cal evi­dence of 20th cen­tu­ry researchers and ear­ly set­tlers find­ing skele­tons that were of large size some being sev­en feet tall.

“The work­men who were engaged in dig­ging ditch­es for under­drain­ing had a few days before come upon large quan­ti­ties of pot­tery and skele­tons of large size, but had care­less­ly bro­ken them instead of pre­serv­ing them. “

(Peet 1892 pg. 163)

“These will prove demon­stra­tive­ly, that the ancient inhab­i­tants of this coun­try, either the prim­i­tive or sec­ondary set­tlers, were of gigan­tic stature, com­pared with the present races of Indi­ans.”

(Hay­wood)

“He took a jaw bone and applied it to his own face, and when his chin touched the con­cave of the chin bone, the hin­der ends of the jaw bone did not touch the skin of his face on either side.”

(Hay­wood)

“The remains of bur­ial 40 is one of the largest known to Ade­na; the skull-foot field mea­sure­ment is 84 inch­es (7 feet).”

(The Dover Mound, William S Webb and Charles Snow, 1959)

“This indi­vid­ual was of large pro­por­tions. When mea­sured in the tomb his length was approx­i­mate­ly 7.04 feet. All the long bones were heavy and pos­sessed marked emi­nences for the attach­ment of mus­cles.”

(Mounds for the Dead, by Don Dra­goo, 1963).

“Two out­stand­ing traits have been not­ed repeat­ed­ly for this group. One is the pro­trud­ing and mas­sive chin often with promi­nent bilat­er­al pro­tru­sions. The sec­ond trait is the large size of many of the males and some of the females. A male of six feet was com­mon and some indi­vid­u­als approach­ing sev­en feet in height have been found, for exam­ple, Bur­ial 40 in the Dover Mound and Bur­ial 54 in the Cre­sap Mound. Some of the females in the Dover Mound also were more than six feet in height. Not only were these Ade­na peo­ple tall but also the mas­sive­ness of the bones indi­cates pow­er­ful­ly built indi­vid­u­als. The head was gen­er­al­ly big with a large cra­nial capac­i­ty.”

(Mounds for the Dead, by Don Dra­goo, 1963).

Nephi and the Broth­er of Jared who’s pos­ter­i­ty would be the Nephites and Jared­ites are both depict­ed as large men (1 Nephi 4:31, Ether 1:34). Mor­mon also con­sid­ered to be large in stature.

(Mor­mon 2:1)

David Cusick book enti­tled Ancient His­to­ry of The Six Nations is about the leg­ends of the Iro­quois. I believe their leg­ends has a hodge­podge of the Jared­ites and Nephite his­to­ries mixed togeth­er. The tra­di­tion­al lands of the Iro­quois includes New York and they have leg­ends of exter­mi­nat­ing a white race of Indi­an. The six nations are com­posed of the Mohawk, Onei­da, Cayu­ga, Seneca, Ononda­ga, and Tus­caro­ra nations. Some of these tribes might have been Nephites. But in these leg­ends are signs that their ances­tors knew of the Jared­ites.

In the His­to­ry of the Six Nations one of their leg­end a pow­er­ful tribe of “ston­ish giants” enter the coun­try. The Iro­quois bat­tle the giants but the giants are too pow­er­ful. The Iro­quois God sees the dis­tress of his peo­ple and devices a plan to get rid of these giants. A band of giants are tricked into to enter­ing a ravine and a mass of rocks fall onto the giants killing all but one. This one sur­vivor tell the oth­er giants and the giants seek asy­lum in the North Coun­try. There are bits and pieces to this leg­end that match the his­tor­i­cal record of the Book of Mor­mon. One is that these giants have forts of pro­tec­tion. The giants had stony exte­ri­or which I would attribute breast plates and head plates that the Jared­ites had. The giants had clubs which I’m going to inter­pret as swords. I believe the use of swords got lost with time. Anoth­er impor­tant aspect is that the Iro­quois in this Leg­end nev­er kill off these ston­ish giants but the rea­son why the leave Iro­quois coun­try is due to their God. Their God kills off a band of giants there is one lone sur­vivor who tells the rest of the giants what hap­pened. The rest of the giants depart the Iro­quois coun­try via Nia­gara Falls or the nar­row pas­sage and seek asy­lum into the Land Des­o­la­tion. The Land Des­o­la­tion as described in the Book of Mor­mon is where all the Jared­ites or giants are even­tu­al­ly killed leav­ing noth­ing but bones and their forts of pro­tec­tion. The geo­graph­i­cal loca­tions where this leg­end takes place is per­fect in this way. The land Des­o­la­tion being entered by the nar­row pas­sage. The place that these giants seek asy­lum is also the place the Jared­ite peo­ple are extin­guished by war against each oth­er, and in the end there is one lone sur­vivor, Cori­antumr.

The depic­tions of the ston­ish giants is pic­tured below from Cusick’s book:



In the next sec­tion, I present the con­vinc­ing DNA con­nec­tion between the Hopewell Indi­ans and the Mid­dle East.

Series Nav­i­ga­tion: North Amer­i­can Book of Mor­mon Geog­ra­phy — David McK­ane Tribe of Man­asseh — Native Amer­i­can DNA »