26 August 2018

Ancient horse bones found in Utah

Last year, a family in Utah came across some unexpected bones while digging in their back yard. After some inspection and having experts take a look, it was determined to be the unfossilized bones of an ancient breed of horse, dating to the Ice Age. It appears to have died about 16,000 years ago. The size is about that of a Shetland Pony. Paleontologists came in to excavate it professionally, and will do further work on the skeleton to find out more about it.






















We find this to be an interesting find. Because of its age, it cannot have any direct connection to Book of Mormon events. We doubt that the events related in it extended as far as the western United States, but these finds should be a constant reminder that there is so much ancient history in this part of the world yet to be discovered. The existence of early horses in American prehistory is now commonly known, but it should be remembered that this was not always the case. When the Book of Mormon was first published in 1830, the common knowledge then was that there were no horses or similar large fauna at all until after European contact. Daniel has spoken and written extensively regarding the evolution of belief about ancient American horses and the evidence for pre-Columbian horses in this hemisphere. Click the links below to read more details about this find.

Read about this discovery on Live Science.
Read about this discovery at the NY Times.


3 comments:

Randy said...

I read the NYT article. The horse found is 15,00 years old. Right???
"Mr. Hunter also hopes to pin down the horse’s age with greater precision. The current estimate of 14,000 to 16,000 years is the team’s best guess until it can be studied further."

The title of your blog article makes a causal peruser believe that horses were alive and well in the BofM times. How does this article help prove anything related to the BofM???

I'm trying to find solid evidence for physical proofs of the BofM. This article is of no help in that search. Can you help me see where I am wrong?

Thomas Alvord said...

I don't believe they are trying to suggest, even with their title, that horses were alive in BOM times.

The reason this finding is relevant is that it shows there were horses in the Americas before Europeans brought them, and that there is still a lot we think we know about ancient american history but in fact we don't.

Dan Johnson said...

Thanks Thomas, you are right on the money. Randy, you are not wrong, and I'm sorry this article was of no help to you in your particular search, but that was not its intention. This post was not intending to prove anything, other than that new finds such as this contradict earlier beliefs about the ancient history of this land. I do believe that horses were on the American continent during BoM times and I've done a lot of research supporting that assertion. I even had a paper about it published.

I see that you are commenting on many of my posts. Thank you for following my blog so attentively. Why are you looking for physical proof? I'll admit, if that's all you want, you may be disappointed. But more to your point, I have information that goes along with what you claim to be looking for, right here on my blog, if you just look around a bit: http://ldsguide.blogspot.com/p/articles.html