Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle

Re:Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle by ga_golfnut on Friday February 02, 2018 @03:28PM (#16293944)

And it also says things like horses, chariots, steel, and other anachronistic things existed in the pre-Columbian Americas. There is no evidence (to date) to support any of those claims. You might want to look into the history of NWAF and Thomas Ferguson. Michael Coe, a renowned expert in this field and also mentioned on this post, was friends with Ferguson. It's an interesting history.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle by dragonwriter on Friday February 02, 2018 @03:37PM (#16294004)

> And it also says things like horses, chariots, steel, and other anachronistic things existed in the pre-Columbian Americas. There is no evidence (to date) to support any of those claims.

Horses definitively existed in (far enough) precolumbian America. The dominant belief seems to be that they died out (perhaps due to human hunting) at or shortly after the end of the Pleistocene, ca. 10-12kya, but there is some evidence there may have been some populations around as late as ca. 3kya, IIRC.

EDIT: of course, one must keep in mind that the horses of precolumbian America were much smaller than Old World horses, so it's not really plausible that they'd be being ridden, pulling chariots, or generally being used like Old World horses even if it is (just barely) plausible that they were around at the right time.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle by Krich123 on Saturday February 03, 2018 @08:42PM (#16300782)

John Sorenson ( Professor of Anthropology at BYU) addresses most of your speculations in this article. I found his responses very well written: https://www.fairmormon.org/archive/publications/an-open-lett...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle by ga_golfnut on Friday February 02, 2018 @03:41PM (#16294032)

I should have qualified that with "during the Book of Mormon timeline".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle by dragonwriter on Friday February 02, 2018 @03:44PM (#16294054)

3kya is just about at the Book of Mormon timeline.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle by ga_golfnut on Friday February 02, 2018 @04:02PM (#16294177)

Just about is fair but still short by ~400 years, unless you count the Jaredites. They purportedly fled the Old World around the time of the Tower of Babel (~2000 BCE IIRC?).

EDIT: I wasn't sure if the Book of Ether even mentioned horses, but it did, along with elephants. [1]

[1] https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/ether/9.19?lang=eng&clan...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle by crobertsbmw on Saturday February 03, 2018 @12:45AM (#16296377)

Could it be that maybe some things were lost in translation? Maybe a “chariot” isn’t exactly the way we think of a chariot now. Maybe it was just a saddle?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle by ga_golfnut on Saturday February 03, 2018 @09:57AM (#16297832)

You might want to look into the loose vs. tight translation theories. There are resulting consequences with sticking with either one.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle by mholt on Friday February 02, 2018 @03:37PM (#16294007)

There certainly is, you just have to look for it. https://bookofmormoncentral.org/blog/new-evidence-for-horses...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle by ga_golfnut on Friday February 02, 2018 @03:42PM (#16294037)

> While the evidence for horses in pre-Columbian America is encouraging, it still requires some caution. Additional C-14 dating from other samples will be needed to change the prevailing view. Until then, this evidence should be considered provisional, but promising.

And was that peer reviewed?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle by Krich123 on Saturday February 03, 2018 @08:44PM (#16300786)

You may find the responses in this article intriguing: https://www.fairmormon.org/archive/publications/an-open-lett...

[ Parent | on HN ]