Archaeology and the absence of Nephite remains

After more than 70 years of professional, Church-funded excavation in the proposed lands, no site, inscription or artifact has been identified as Nephite.

What the Church claims

The Book of Mormon is a literal history of real peoples in the ancient Americas, and the failure to identify a single Nephite site, inscription or artifact does not count against it, because a minority people inside a larger culture need not leave remains anyone could recognize as theirs.

Once the evidence is in, this claim: Weak. The absence is systematic across independent lines of evidence and is conceded by LDS professionals. The claim stops short of untenable only because negative evidence can never be complete.

The record

  • The Smithsonian's 1996 statement said it had never used the Book of Mormon as a scientific guide and listed specific conflicts: Asian origins, no pre-Norse Old World contact, none of the Old World domesticates, no iron or steel, no Egyptian or Hebrew writing.
  • In 1998 the Smithsonian replaced the detailed letter with a two-sentence one saying only that the book 'is a religious document and not a scientific guide' and has never been used in its research; FAIR attributes the change to John Sorenson's 1982/1995 critique and to congressional queries. The letter existed to rebut Mormon folklore, traced to a 1935 W. Cleon Skousen speech, that the Smithsonian used the book as a guide.
  • The New World Archaeological Foundation was founded in October 1952 by Thomas Stuart Ferguson to find Book of Mormon evidence, received $15,000 (1953) and $200,000 (1955) from the Church, and became part of BYU in 1961. By 1976 Ferguson wrote privately that Book of Mormon geography cannot be placed anywhere 'because it is fictional'.
  • LDS archaeologist Dee Green wrote in 1969 that 'the first myth we need to eliminate is that Book of Mormon archaeology exists', noting the BYU-funded NWAF had found 'no Zarahemlas'.
  • Yale Mayanist Michael Coe wrote in 1973 that 'nothing, absolutely nothing' from any New World excavation suggests the book is historical, while calling the NWAF 'an unqualified success' as archaeology; he repeated the judgment in 2011.

The moving target

  • 2019-01: The Church takes no position on where the events occurred, so it endorses no site.

The exchange

John Sorenson; John Clark; FAIR

Only a small fraction of Mesoamerican sites has been excavated, ancient place names are rarely recoverable, and we would not know a Nephite site if we dug one; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The answer: Green and Coe made their judgments as specialists who knew how partial the record was. The problem is not one missing city but a missing civilization: no Old World script, language, crops, animals, metallurgy of the required date, or Israelite material culture in a region whose ceramics, diet, writing and iconography are well characterized. Coe notes Maya texts contain no Semitic vocabulary at all.

What they get right: The 1996 Smithsonian letter did contain dated statements, and NWAF's work is respected; skeptics should cite Green and Coe rather than the form letter.

Gospel Topics, 'Book of Mormon Geography'; FAIR

The Church never claimed archaeology would prove the book. Its position is that the Book of Mormon is a religious record whose truth is known by the Spirit, and it has declined to endorse any geography.

The answer: That is the present position, and it is a retreat from a stated one. The Church founded and funded the New World Archaeological Foundation in 1952 to find the Nephites, and its magazines ran confirmation stories for decades. Thomas Stuart Ferguson, who built the foundation, concluded after twenty-five years of excavation that the geography could not be located and lost his faith over it. A claim that risks nothing cannot be vindicated by anything either, and the modern position quietly abandons the evidential case while keeping the historical one intact.

What they get right: Identifying ethnicity from material remains is genuinely hard everywhere, and the Smithsonian letter has been misused for decades by people quoting a version that was withdrawn.

Both cases at full strength

The skeptics' case

The strongest evidence is the verdict of the Church's own archaeologists. The NWAF was founded by Thomas Ferguson to find the Book of Mormon in the ground and was funded by the Church through BYU; what it produced was excellent Preclassic Mesoamerican archaeology and nothing Nephite. Green, an insider, called the field a myth in 1969; Coe, a sympathetic outsider, said the same in 1973 and again in 2011.

The apologetic case

Identification of ethnic or religious groups from material remains is hard everywhere; a minority Nephite elite inside a larger Mesoamerican culture might leave little that is distinctive, and the trend of discovery (for example early complex society and warfare) has moved toward the book's picture.

What would change this

A securely excavated pre-Columbian inscription in a Semitic or Egyptian-derived script, or Old World domesticates and iron smelting in a dated 600 BC-AD 400 context.

Closely related

Sources

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