(Supposed)

Book of Mormon Anachronisms

(c) Copyright Michael R. Ash 1996. All rights reserved

Plants
Although the Book of Mormon mentions barley four times (Mosiah 7:22; 9:9; Alma 11:7, 15), the critics assure us that “...barley never grew in the New World before the white man brought it here.” (Scott, 82.) When this critic penned his claims in 1979, domesticated ancient New World barley was, indeed, unknown. As reported in Science 83, however, ancient domesticated barley was discovered at the Hohokam site in Arizona. Daniel B. Adams wrote that “the most startling evidence of Hohokam agricultural sophistication came... when... archaeologists found preserved grain of what looks like domesticated barley, the first ever found in the New World. Wild barleys have a fibrous husk over each grain. Domesticated barley lack this. So does the Hohokam barley.... Nearly half the samples from one site yielded barley.” (Adams, 32.)

Since this discovery critics have been forced to concede that domesticated barley was known in the ancient New World, but, they contend, this discovery was made in Arizona whereas most Book of Mormon scholars believe the Nephite cultures lived in Mesoamerica. Archaeological research of the Hohokam Indians-- who lived in Arizona from about 300 B.C. to 1450 A.D.-- suggests that they had been influenced by Mesoamerica. In fact Adams suggests that the barley may have come from Mexico. Alma 63:6-10 describes various Nephite migrations to the North that might have influenced North American cultures and crops.

Actually, to the surprise of many, the find at the Hohokam site in Arizona was a first only because it yielded “cultivated” or “domesticated” barley. Biologist Howard Stutz has recently disclosed that “three types of wild barley have long been known to be native to the Americas.” (FARMS, Updates, December, 1984.) Furthermore, scholars now report that other examples of what may be “domesticated” barley have been found in Eastern Oklahoma and Southern Illinois, dating from 1 to 900 A.D. If hitherto unknown barley can be discovered in ancient North American sites (some of which demonstrate Mesoamerican influence) there is little reason to suggest an anachronism in the Book of Mormon’s usage of the term “barley.”

Michael R. Ash

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