Responding
to an Evangelical Protestant who said that "In truth it is scientifically
*impossible* for the events in the BOM to have taken place without leaving
massive amounts of residual debris behind at Hill Cumora[h]!", LDS
apologist D. Charles Pyle wrote:
Spoken like one who is ignorant of what
archaeology represents and of what happens to remains that are left unburied.
Alkaline and Acidic soils, together with exposure for air can result in bone
tissue being turned to dust in only a few years. It is hardly likely that the
Lamanites would have left the weapons without picking through them. In such a
case, the likelihood of finding remains under those conditions is slim.
Additionally, one must know where to look. Look in the wrong place and find
nothing. (source)
That this
was probably the case for the final battle at Cumorah (Mormon 6) can be seen
from the earlier Olmec civilization and the lack of skeletal remains thereof.
As one scholar of the Olmecs wrote:
Virtually no Olmec skeletons in the acid
tropical soils of Olman, the portion of southern Veracruz and Tabasco occupied
by the Olemcs, thus their physical
appearance remains a mystery. (Richard A. Diehl, The Olmecs: America’s First Civilization [London: Thames and
Hudson, 2004], 13)
