This paper from the Smithsonian Institution has been
routinely sent to people who write asking for a statement regarding the
Book of Mormon as a guide to Western Hemisphere archaeology:
(pdf
file #1 for this document)
(pdf
file #2 for this document)
Information From the
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20560
1. The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in
any way as a scientific guide. Smithsonian archaeologists see no direct
connection between the archeology of the New World and the subject matter
of the book.
2. The physical type of the American Indian is basically Mongoloid,
being most closely related to that of the people of eastern, central, and
northeastern Asia. Archeological evidence indicates that the ancestors
of the present Indians came into the New world--probably over a land bridge
known to have existed in the Bering Strait region during the last Ice Age--in
a continuing series of small migrations beginning from about 25,000 to 30,000
years ago.
3. Present evidence indicates that the first people to reach this continent
from the East were the Norsemen who arrived in the northeastern part of
North American around A.D. 1000. There is nothing to show that they reached
Mexico or Central America.
4. One of the main lines of evidence supporting the scientific finding
that contacts with Old World civilizations, if indeed they occurred at all,
were of very little significance for the development of Indian civilizations,
is the fact that none of the principal Old World domesticated food plants
or animals (except the dog) occurred in the New World in pre-Columbian times.
American Indians had no wheat, barley, oats, millet, rice, cattle, pigs,
chickens, horses, donkeys, camels, etc., before 1492. The domesticated
dogs of the Indians accompanied their ancestors from northwestern Asia.
domesticated sweet potatoes occurred in both hemispheres, but probably
originated in the new world and spread from there into the Pacific.
5. Iron, steel, glass, and silk were not used in the New World before
1492 (except for occasional use of unsmelted meteoric iron). Nuggets of
native copper were used in various locations in pre-Columbian times, but
true metallurgy was limited to southern Mexico and the Andean region, where
its occurrence in late pre-historic times involved gold, silver, copper,
and their alloys but not iron.
6. There is a possibility that the spread of cultural traits across
the Pacific to Mesoamerica and the northwestern coast of South America began
several hundred years before the Christian era. However, any such inter-hemispheric
contacts appear to have been the results of accidental voyages originating
in eastern and southern Asia . It is by no means certain that even such
contacts occurred; certainly there were no contacts with the ancient Egyptians,
Hebrews, or other peoples of Western Asia and the Near East.
7. No reputable Egyptologist or other specialist on Old World archeology,
and no expert on New World prehistory, has discovered or confirmed any relationship
between archeological remains in Mexico and remains in Egypt.
8. Reports of findings of ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and other Old World
writings in the New world in pre-Columbian contexts have frequently appeared
in newspapers, magazines, and sensational books. None of these claims has
stood up to examination by reputable scholars. No inscriptions using Old
World forms of writing have been shown to have occurred in any part of the
Americas before 1492.
9. there are copies of the Book of Mormon in the library of the national
Museum of natural History, Smithsonian Institution.
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