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This article is an exact reproduction of a letter compiled by The
Smithsonian Institution that was recieved by Computers for
Christ, and has been graciously provided free of charge by them.
For your own copy, write to:
The Smithsonian Institute
National Museum of Natural History
Department of Anthropology
Washington D.C.
20560.
Computers For Christ, Panama City, Fl.
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Information from the
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF OF NATURAL HISTORY
Smithsonian Institution Washington D.C.
Your recent inquiry concerning the Book of Mormon has been
received in the Smithsonian's Department of Anthropology.
The book of Mormon is a religious document and not a scientific
guide. The Smithsonian Institution does not use it in
archeological research. Because the Smithsonian Institution
recieves many inquiries regarding the book of Mormon, we have
prepared a "Statement Regarding the Book of Mormon," a copy of
which is enclosed for your information. This statement
includes answers to questions most commonly asked about the Book
of Mormon.
PREPARED BY
THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTROPOLOGY
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STATEMENT REGARDING THE BOOK OF MORMON
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1. The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon
in any way as a scientific guide. The Smithsonian archeologists
see no direct connection between archeology of the New World and
the subject matter of the book.
2. The physical type of American Indian is basically Mongoloid,
being most closely related to that of the peoples 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 Staight 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 fist people to reach this
continent from the East were the Norsemen who who briefly visited
the northeastern part of North America around A.D. 1000 and then
settled in Greenland. 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 occured at all, were of very little significance for the
development of American Indian civilizations, is the fact that
none of the principal Old World domesticated food plants or
animals (except the dog) occured in the New World in pre-
Columbian times. American Indians had no wheat, barley, oats,
millet, rice, cattle, pigs, chickens, horses, donkeys, camels
before 1492. (camels and horses were in the Americas, along with
the bison, mammoth, mastodon, but all these animals became
extinct around 10,000 B.C. at the time the early big game hunters
spread across the Americas.)
SIL - 76
Summer 1982
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5. Iron, steel, glass, and silk were not used in the New World
before 1492 (except for occasional use of unsmelted meteroic
iron). Native copper was worked in various locations in pre-
Columbian times, but true metallurgy was limited to southern
Mexico and the Andean region, where its occurance in late
prehistoric 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
occured 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 archeological remains in Egypt.
8. Reports of findings of ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and other
Old World writtings 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 occured in any part of the
Americas before 1492 except for a few Norse rune stones which
have been found in Greenland.
9. There are copies of the Book of Mormon in the library of the
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.
For more information see below:
This file has been brought to you by the ministry of the;
Southern Maryland Christian Information Service BBS, (SMCIS)
(301) 862-3160 HST
P.O. Box 463
California, MD 20619
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