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Question: Have any ancient horse remains from the Nephite period been found in the New World?
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Question: Have any ancient horse remains from the Nephite period been found in the New World?
Wild horses were present in ancient America during the Pleistocene period (Ice Age), yet were not present at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards. Horses thrived once they were re-introduced by the Spaniards into the New World. The question then is: "Why were horses missing when the Spaniards arrived?" Is it possible that real horses lived in the Americas during Book of Mormon times? And if so, why does there seem to be no archaeological support?
At least a few non-Mormon scholars believe that real horses (of a stature smaller than modern horses) may have survived New World extinction. The late British anthropologist, M.F. Ashley Montague, a non-LDS scholar who taught at Harvard, suggested that the horse never became extinct in America. According to Montague, the size of post-Columbian horses provides evidence that the European horses bred with early American horses.[1]
Non-LDS Canadian researcher, Yuri Kuchinsky, also believes that there were pre-Columbian horses. Kuchinsky, however, believes that horses (smaller than our modern horses) were reintroduced into the west coast of the Americas about 2000 years ago from Asians who came by ship. Among Kuchinsky's evidences for pre-Columbian horses are:
- Horse traditions among the Indians that may pre-date the arrival of the Spaniards.
- Supposedly pre-Columbian petroglyphs that appear to depict horses.
- Noticeable differences between the typical Spanish horse and the much smaller American Indian ponies.[2]
Latter-day Saint scholars have also addressed this issue in various venues:
- Wade Miller, "The Presence of Pre-Columbian Horses in America," 2018 FairMormon Conference
- Wade Miller, et al., et al., “Post-Pleistocene Horses (Equus) from México,” The Texas Journal of Science 74:1 (2022).
- Wade E. Miller and Matthew Roper, “Animals in the Book of Mormon,: Challenges and Perspectives,” BYU Studies Quarterly 56:4 (2017).
- Daniel Johnson, “‘Hard’ Evidence of Ancient American Horses,” BYU Studies Quarterly 54 (2015).
Notes
- ↑ Paul R. Cheesman, The World of the Book of Mormon (Bountiful, UT: Horizon Publishers, 1984), 194, 181.
- ↑ http://www.strangeark.com/nabr/NABR5.pdf