So early on, the saints who came into the church as converts, like I am, North America was the place. But somewhere along the line we've walked away from this and looked totally south of the Rio Grande. And my whole thing for doing what I'm doing, I'm trying to get people to look to the east. To look east of the Mississippi. Back to North America.
Reading the book here from Dean C. Jesse (quote). Well, I've got to tell you. I've been in the Church for 19 years. And when I saw this, because I had the background of Hopewell archaeology, my poor wife, I remember I turned to her and I said, and some of you will recognize this, I said "Houston, we've got a problem." And I meant that sincerely. Because for me right there, that's when the flood-gates opened. And I knew we just had to get our guys in meso-America to come to the east, and check out the Hopewell. There's just too many parallels. And that's what I want to address.
I think we need to pay attention. As the archaeologists hit this vast array of information in the Ohio, they all went for the burial mounds, because they wanted the artifacts. The earthen banks, the ditches, the entrance ways, places of entrance as Alma calls it, they have just now begin to start having them excavated. It began in the 1970's by Dr. Robert Reorden of Wright State University. He is leading the way on attacking the berms and the doorways. And he is finding that these things have gone down by fire. They've been burned out showing confrontation. Up to that point, they've been writing off the forts as churches, sacred places. And I've got to tell you, the people in the Ohio, the Hopewell, whoever they are they built more churches than the Mormons did.
In western New York we find in the actual ditches of the forts and in the forts we find, the early guys did, these 250 plus forts, they find these huge piles of bones showing tremendous warfare. And of course throughout the Midwest we find battle mounds. And when they are cleared we find piles of people. Men, women, and children where genocide has taken place and entire villages have been eliminated. Again, things from the Book of Mormon.
As we go into western New York, we find that the fortifications are not built so well. They are very poorly built, because in the Book of Mormon, they only had a few years to go up into that area and settle as they waited for the big day at Hill Cumorah. And so the forts here are not anywhere near as nicely made as they are in the Ohio. An this is an Indiana fort. As you can see how nice it is. Again look at the size of it. Huge earth berms. These were taken time. These were engineered walls. The walls made of different layers of clay and gravel and earth. They were made to last. Because they lived here for a long time. But not in western New York. That was a short timespan for the Hopewell people.
So early on, the saints who came into the church as converts, like I am, North America was the place. But somewhere along the line we've walked away from this and looked totally south of the Rio Grande. And my whole thing for doing what I'm doing, I'm trying to get people to look to the east. To look east of the Mississippi. Back to North America.
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