In my earlier post, I noted that I was out of time and would provide source data later. You apparently missed that.
Ummm...no.
It just seemed..odd...to me to have time to make
assertions without support. (Nor is it the first time you have done so.)
The Montague information is from the book The World of the Book of Mormon, Paul A. Cheesman, Horizon Publishers, 1984, pp. 194, 181.
I found, and addressed, the Montagu quote. You apparently missed that.
The general upshot is that the opinion you attribute to Montagu ( to wit: "Another distinguished American paleontologist, whose special interest is the horse, is, I understand, of the opinion that the horse never became extinct in America.") was, in fact, someone
else's opinion, not Montagu's; further, that
someone else is not identified in any source I found.
Does your new citation provide the identity of the
someone else? Alternatively, is "
The World of the Book of Mormon, Paul A. Cheesman, Horizon Publishers, 1984" available on line?
The Kuchinsky data is at
http://www.strangeark.com/nabr/NABR5.pdf. Kuchinsky
noted that 1) Horse traditions among the Indians may pre-date the arrival of the Spaniards; 2) There are pre-Columbian petroglyphs that
may depict horses, and 3) There are noticeable differences between the typical Spanish horse and the much smaller Indian ponies.
I looked up, and addressed, some of Kuchinsky's work. You apparently missed that. In the StrangeArk Cryyptozoology selection,
Indian Pony Mystery, Kuchinsky once again endorses the Spencer Lake Horse Hoax as a genuine artifact; I will admit that he is the first person I have seen raise the CT issue about the confession of the hoaxer.
As for his conclusion that a "party of Asians" "may have" introduced the horse in North America "2000 years ago", it is (how to put this politely?) a bit thin on actual evidence; further, the "horse cultures" of which he speaks show no evidence of using the wheel, or waging chariot war.
I have asked you before, and you have declined to answer--
where in the New World are the exciting New World episodes of the
BoM supposed to have taken place?
When are they supposed to have taken place?
The rest of Kuchinsky's claims repeat his astonishment that the North American Plains tribes could have had the horse as "early" as the mid-1600's, which is, as I understand it, definitively post-colombian.
Whether Cheeseman and Kuchinisky are right or wrong, it's instructive that you auto-reject any information that calls into question your position (a practice that isn't very scientific). You seem to think that everything—every last jot and tittle—is already known about the pre-Columbian period in the Americas. If that's the case, why are archaeological digs being conducted by universities and organizations such as the National Geographic at multiple sites in the Americas? And furthermore, why is some significant new information being literally uncovered?
What an oddly dishonest accusation to level. In what way is pursuing your unsourced claims, reading them, and commenting on their deficiencies (and inaccuracies in their presentation) "pre-rejecting" them?
You continue to try to reverse the burden of proof. I am still waiting for practical, empirical, objective, non-speculative, non-anecdotal evidence that any culture in the pre-colombian americas husbanded the horse, or waged chariot warfare. My knowledge of the fact that none such has ever been offered is not "pre-rejection".
I still await evidence.
Much that follows supports my observation that the issue of the possible presence of horses in the pre-Columbian Americas is not as settled as you suppose it is.
The fact that there is no evidence offered for the existence of a culture that husbanded and employed the horse, in commerce, agriculture, or battle, is widely attested to; nor does claiming that someday, such evidence may, in fact, be discovered change that fact.
Show me roads. Show me tack. Show me silage and fodderage. Show me the acoutrements of a horse culture.
And do not presume that my acknowledgement of the utter lack of such evidence is "pre-rejection".
Note, for example (moving to different geography), a recent revision in the long-held belief by scientists that Abraham could not have had camels while in Egypt, despite what the Bible says. New findings show that camels were used in Egypt from pre-historic times until the present day.
Which provides not the least skerrick of actual evidence for the existence of the "language" in which Abraham's autographic account of his "time in Egypt" (a language not accepted by actual linguists, actual Egyptologists, actual historians, or actual anthropologists, among others); an account somehow transplanted into standard Egyptian funerary texts, is anything but a patent fraud. The presence or absence of camels is not, nor have I raised it as, the issue.
You are rushing to judgment in stating with certainty that there were no horses in the pre-Columbian Americas. That happens to be true with other items in the BoM you claim are anachronisms. I will list them in a subsequent post, including barley.
Um, no. I "rush to admit" that there is not, nor has there yet been presented, the least bit of objective, non-anecdotal, empirical, practical evidence, attested to by neutral scholars, of the cultivation of modern wheat (or barley--please do not bring up the Hohokam "barley" again, as it has been dealt with), or domestic bovine cattle, or of steelmongery, in the pre-colombian americas, to name but a few. Were such ever to be presented, I would evaluate it.
I look forward to actual evidence.
