Remember the fabulous city of Zarahemla from "The Book Of Mormon?" They haven't found it yet, but they keep looking...and looking...and looking...


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https://www.science.org/content/article/laser-mapping-reveals-oldest-amazonian-cities-built-2500-years-ago

Laser mapping reveals oldest Amazonian cities, built 2500 years ago

Neighborhoods, farms, and roads are 1000 years older than previous discoveries

"Archaeologists once believed the ancient Amazon rainforest was an inhospitable place, sparsely populated by bands of hunter-gatherers. But the remains of enormous earthworks, pyramids, and roads from Bolivia to Brazil discovered over the past 2 decades have proved conclusively that the Amazon was home to large, complex societies long before European colonizers arrived. Now, there’s evidence that another human society—the oldest yet—left its mark on the region: A dense network of interconnected cities, now hidden beneath the forest in Ecuador’s Upano Valley, has been revealed by the laser mapping technology called lidar. The settlements, described today in Science, are at least 2500 years old, more than 1000 years older than any other known complex Amazonian society.

"Lidar, which allows researchers to see through forest cover and reconstruct the ancient sites below, “is revolutionizing our understanding of the Amazon in pre-Columbian times,” says Carla Jaimes Betancourt, an archaeologist at the University of Bonn who wasn’t involved in the new work. Finding such an ancient urban network in the Upano Valley highlights the long-unrecognized diversity of ancient Amazonian cultures, which archaeologists are just beginning to be able to reconstruct.

"Stéphen Rostain, an archaeologist at CNRS, France’s national research agency, began excavating in the Upano Valley nearly 30 years ago. His team focused on two large settlements, called Sangay and Kilamope, and found mounds organized around central plazas, pottery decorated with paint and incised lines, and large jugs holding the remains of the traditional maize beer chicha. Radiocarbon dates showed the Upano sites were occupied from around 500 B.C.E. to between 300 C.E. and 600 C.E. “I knew that we had a lot of mounds, a lot of structures,” Rostain says. “But I didn’t have a complete overview of the region.”

> Radiocarbon dates showed the
> Upano sites were occupied from
> around 500 B.C.E. to between
> 300 C.E. and 600 C.E.


Tell me, with a straight face, that these dates are not going to make mormons giddy!

Wait until ground penetrating radar finds a bagel shop.

Just topped this to see if anyone has heard anything else about this. I always get a little nervous when these things pop up and in the past the experts here have always cleared things up quickly.
Usually by clarifying exact timelines or in discovering that the people that lived in these previously undiscovered cities had different types of religion or worship than what was taught or followed in the BoM. Any insights?

Nobody here cares because the BoM peoples never existed. There were never any Nephites and Lamanites because such a civilization as described is physically impossible and contradicted by 20th century science. There are no genuine novelties in the BoM, just folk tales.

Well I care. Does that count? I would not say that “nobody here cares” because you never know who may be showing up looking for answers or when. So, that being said, is that anyway to be when others like me are here searching?
I just want to feel secure about my decision to leave so I came here. I just feel that the more I know the stronger I’ll feel that’s all.
I will never be going back but at this time my decision to leave has cost me everything.so I came here.
I will continue my search. Thank you.

I think the key is that the church will spin anything. In the 1950s and 1960s they insisted that archaeology all over the Americas proved the veracity of the BoM. When that was disproved, they shut down all talk of ancient ruins.

The same thing happened with the BoA. It was absolutely true until it wasn't, and then it was just de-emphasized to the point where it's never used in church anymore.

This new information will go the same way. Since these cultures almost inevitably, given the Latin American polities of the time, involves human sacrifice, it will be spun as Lamanite rather than Nephite. But proof it is, any way you look at it.

We, and you, are free to reach our own conclusions about the BoM in accordance with what archaeology, linguistics, and genetics prove, but that won't affect the church.

You want to make sure. Okay. Same thing I wanted way back when. It's not hard to prove to yourself that the BoM is a synthesis. Okay but then what? What does that actually change?

When my shelf collapsed, I said to myself I was living a lie. But that was a meaningless statement. No matter what you believe, you will be living a lie. That's the nature of the game. You are really free to believe anything you want, cuz free agency, so choose beliefs that serve you.

Mormonism resonated with you because it has beneficial (yet made up) beliefs. Over the last 50 years, the church has accreted beliefs that don't serve me, like busy work and authoritarianism.

I like to circle back around and reevaluate my position. Would I go back? I don't think so, but not because I was lied to about church history etc. Those things don't matter, as much as I hate to agree with church leaders. The church is supposed to create better human beings. It doesn't. That, for me, is the crux of the problem. The fact that it is an island of BS in a vast sea of BS is much less relevant.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2024 04:19AM by bradley.

      
  

Something becomes reality when you give it power. The church is one big power game. I was giving away my power - shame on me. That's codependency.

A hypothetical JoJu quote comes to mind: "The truth will set you free, but it won't get you laid."

> A hypothetical JoJu quote comes
> to mind: "The truth will set you
> free, but it won't get you laid.


I fault you for inserting 'hypothetical' ... I would suggest 'typical.'



I see absolutely EVERY reason to consider 'getting laid' as a foundational goal of "...he who is only second to Jesus Christ in this dispensation..."