The face of Kennewick Man on the cover of Face of a Nephite (Digital Legends Press). Scientists who created the clay model were angered to see this image on David Read's book, but were unable to prevent its use because of Smithsonian Institute policy.
Mormons defending the historicity of the Book of Mormon fall into two major camps. The academics at BYU camped in Guatemala, and the literalist Heartland group, led by salesman Rodney Meldrum, camped in North America. Basically, BYU scholars twist scripture to fit science, Meldrumites twist science to fit scripture. Rodney Meldrum’s fundamentalist movement is grounded on the claim that Native American mitochondrial DNA lineage X2a was brought to America by Lehi. However, in 2015, the genome of Kennewick Man, an ancient Native American skeleton discovered in Kennewick, Washington, was sequenced and found to possess the ancestral form of the X2a lineage. This was troubling news for Heartlanders, because Kennewick Man lived in what is now Washington state about 6,000 years before Lehi set sail for America.
In the past I have not paid much attention to Meldrum’s pseudoscience. However, Meldrum’s circus is now the main event in town, with Mormon celebrities like Glenn Beck, Tim Ballard, the Osmonds and 70+ other speakers appearing at his latest Heartland lovefest. These conferences typically attract 7,000+ attendees. Meldrum’s fake science is now firmly established in the Mormon mainstream.
The more I read, the more fascinating the story of Kennewick Man became. His skeleton is almost complete, very well preserved, and has been more thoroughly studied than any other ancient skeleton in American history. I have just posted an essay on my website that looks closely at the Kennewick Man story, and how Heartland pseudoscientists are perverting it.
I was amazed to discover how well Kennewick Man has impaled Meldrum and his lies.
https://simonsoutherton.com/how-kennewi ... land-scam/
TLDR (Conclusion of the essay).
“There can be no doubt Kennewick Man lived about 6,000 years before the Book of Mormon claims Nephites existed. The following evidences, both independently and collectively, prove this is the case.
1. Twelve highly accurate radiocarbon dates on Kennewick Man’s well-preserved bone collagen revealed he lived almost 9,000 years ago.
2. Kennewick Man does not carry any recent Middle Eastern DNA in his genome. He is closely related to nearby indigenous tribes.
3. All Native American mitochondrial X2a lineages (ancient and contemporary) are descended from the ancestral X2a lineage possessed by Kennewick Man. The X2a lineage family is equally as old as the A, B, C and D mtDNA families in Native Americans.
4. The Cascade spearpoint buried in Kennewick Man’s pelvis is over 7,600 years old.
5. The absence of Mazama ash and presence of allophane (weathered Mazama ash) attached to his bones, proves Kennewick Man was buried before the well documented Mazama eruption 7,700 years ago. – The date of the Mazama eruption (7,700 years ago) has been as firmly established as the year Columbus set foot in the New World. It has been confirmed in hundreds of locations across the Pacific Northwest using many different techniques, including dendrochronology, radioisotopes and thermoluminescence. It has even been observed in the annual rings of the Greenland ice core.
6. Stable N and C isotope analysis revealed Kennewick Man was a hunter-gatherer and lived before Pacific Northwest cultures developed techniques for long-term storage of salmon about 5,000 years ago.”
