Victor R. Claveau, MJ
Among the most significant cultural anachronisms in the Book of Mormon is the depiction of Nephite civilization as having iron and other metal industries; we read of metal swords and breastplates, gold and silver coinage, and even machinery (2 Nephi 5:15; Jarom 1:8; Mosiah 11:3,8; Ether 7:9;10:23). However, there is no evidence that any New World civilization attained any such industry during Book of Mormon times (600 B. C. – 421 A. D.).
As former Brigham Young University anthropology professor, Dr. Raymond T. Matheny, points out:
“The tools that the people [in cultures that did have metallurgical industries] used are primitive but nonetheless they are there, and they spell out a system of exploitation of those natural resources. In refining ores and then bringing these to casting and true metallurgical processes is another bit of technology that leaves a lot of evidence. You can’t refine ore without leaving a bloom of some kind or…that is, impurities that blossom out and float to the top of the ore…Also blooms off into silicas and indestructible new rock forms. In other words, when you have a ferrous metallurgical industry, you have these evidences of the detritus that is left over. You also have the fuels, you have the furnaces, you have whatever technologies that were performing these tasks, they leave solid evidences. And they are indestructible things…non-ferrous metallurgical industries have similar evidences. No evidence has been found in the new world for a ferrous metallurgical industry dating to pre-Columbian times. And so this is a king-size problem, it seems to me, for so-called Book of Mormon archaeology. The evidence is absent.” (Michael Coe, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 8, No. 2, Summer 1973, p. 23).
Book of Mormon Crops
The Book of Mormon indicates that the Nephites produced various crops including barley (Mosiah 7:22, 9:9; Alma 11:7, 15), figs (3 Nephi 14:16), grapes (2 Nephi 15:2, 4; 3 Nephi 14:16), and wheat (Mosiah 9:9, 3 Nephi 18:18). However, there has been no archeological evidence for any of these crops. Archeology does indicate the peoples of the region ate maize (corn), lima beans, tomatoes, squash, and amaranth, but none of these crops are mentioned in the Book of Mormon.
Thomas Ferguson, archaeologist, noted defender of the Book of Mormon, and founder of the New World Archaeological Foundation at BYU stated:
“I participated in excavating a trench at the edge of the Grijalva river in which we found a ceramic vessel in a stratum dating to about 200 BC… Art portrayals in ceramics, murals, and sculptured works–of ancient plant life–are fairly commonplace. Thousands of archeological holes in the area proposed have given us not a fragment of evidence of the presence of the plants mentioned in the Book of Mormon. The holes include the great one dug by Edwin Shook at Tehuacan, Puebla, Mexico. He excavated a cave — going back to 5000 BC., finding most of the major plants of the area. But no wheat, barley, figs or grapes.”
Book of Mormon Animals
Similarly, the Book of Mormon describes various domesticated animals: asses, cows, goats, sheep, horses, oxen, swine, and elephants. However, Pre-Columbian evidence for such animals in Mesoamerica is scant, at best. There is no evidence of horses in Central and North America before the Spaniards arrived (hundreds of years after the Book of Mormon). Why then does the Book of Mormon refer to horses where there were none?
Dr. John L. Sorenson proposed that the Nephites were really referring to either a species of deer or tapir, but since they did not have names for these animals, they called them horses. This seems a weak response, but even if it were true it doesn’t account for the many other animals and crops for which there is absolutely no archeological evidence.
Again from Thomas Ferguson:
“Evidence of the foregoing animals has not appeared in any form — ceramic representations, bones or skeletal remains, mural art, sculptured art or any other form. However… evidence has been found in several forms of the presence in the Book-of-Mormon times of other animals–deer, jaguars, dogs, turkeys etc. The zero score presents a problem that will not go away with the ignoring of it. Non-LDS scholars of first magnitude, some who want to be our friends, think we have real trouble here. That evidence of the ancient existence of these animals is not elusive is found in the fact that proof of their existence in the ancient old-world is abundant. The absence of such evidence…is distressing and significant, in my view.” (Tom Ferguson, Written Symposium on Book-of-Mormon Geography, 1978).