Horses in America

Even though a lot has been said on this subject, the fallacy that there were no horses in America during Book of Mormon times annoyingly continues to prevail. Actually, I guess the real Fallacy is that there is any certainty about it. In truth, there is no conclusive evidence either way. Most LDS don't think about it much probably, just as we don't tend to think about most other anti-Mormon propaganda. I was surprised when I did some studying how much information there was out there. Anti-Mormon literature still maintains, "There were no Horses in America prior to Columbus." and though there are many rebuttals to this made by Mormons, there are also many things written by non-Mormons which, with no apparent awareness or regard to BOM claims, still claim the possible existence of pre-Columbian horses in America.

The fallacy was born from some premature conclusions by the early Europeans. When Spanish horses were brought to the Americas, there was no native horses to be found , nor did the native Americans seem to know what the beast was, calling it a deer. Many Europeans saw this as another reason America was inferior to Europe. So out of national pride the idea prevailed far longer than the evidence did.

By the mid 1800s, fossils were found in America from horses during the ice age. The big question was (and still is by the way) when and more importantly why did these species die out? There are plenty of disagreements about the answer to that. Only two things are clear: first, there were horses in prehistoric America, and second, there weren't any when the Spanish arrived.

Everything excluding that becomes a little fuzzy. Theres practically no Archaeological evidence of horses after 10,000 BC. There are several native American pictographs depicting horses for a long time after, but none after about 200BC, (The Book of Mormon mentions horses about up till the birth of Christ). The lack of bone or fossil evidence many scientists say is really not that spectacular. Many different species in different places, if there weren't many of the animal or if their bones were not used as tools, leave very little if any archaeological evidence. As to those who say there should at least be more pictures or paintings of the horse if there still were any: I say, we haven't found everything there is out there. And the pictures were not usually meant as an encyclopedia of all the animals they encountered. From my understanding, pictographs were usually made to tell a story, or honor a hero. I just don't think we can assume that only those animals pictured at any given time were the animals that were there.

Also, not meaning to be cheeky, but there is some important evidence from the natives, not in the form of pictures, but in writings: The Book of Mormon. If the scientific community did accept the book of Mormon as ancient writings, then they would accept it as evidence of horses or something similar in the Americas during that time. Its not in contrast to any other evidence, just the lack of evidence. Lack of evidence frankly can't be taken as evidence.

Others say references to the horse may not be a horse at all. But another similar creature that we already know was present during that time. This is a whole different argument entirely, but in my mind, its slightly irrelevant. The point to me is, the scientific community admits there is no evidence against the existence of horses is America during this time, and there may be some evidence for it. Thats good enough for me.