EVIDENCE: Elephants (Ether 9:19)

Ed J. Pinegar, Richard J. Allen

Backed by archaeological evidence, an article in a scholarly journal (Ludwell H. Johnson, III, “Men and Elephants in America,” Scientific Monthly 75 [1952]: 220) states that Native Americans hunted elephants on the American continent. The magazine estimates that elephants disappeared from America at least three thousand years ago. Interestingly, Native American tradition includes ancestral stories of elephants roaming the wilds of America. According to Hugh Nibley, the theory in Scientific Monthly “would place [the elephant’s] extinction about a thousand years BC, when the Jaredite culture was already very old and Lehi’s people were not to appear on the scene for some centuries… . Here, then, is a strong argument for Jaredite survivors among the Indians.” (See Echoes, 476.)

Commentaries and Insights on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 2

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