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“BEARDED FOREIGNERS" IN MESOAMERICA by V. Garth Norman, February 2005 American anthropologists, who are steeped in isolationist evolution theory in the origin and development of ancient Americancivilizations, tend to avoid the subject of significant trans-oceanic contacts of the type recorded in the Book of Mormon. However, the late leading Mesoamerican art historian, Tatiana Proskouriakoffpublished a paper in 1968 in which she recognized the Preclassic bearded figures on LaVenta sculpture (Late Olmec/Jaredite and early Mulekite time period) as "bearded foreigners". But she did not suggestan obvious Middle Eastern origin from lack of concrete evidence, where Mediterranean and Atlantic seafarers were vital to trade networks of that civilization. Heavy bearded figures dating to earlyNephite times are prominent on Izapan as well as La Venta sculpture (for example, Izapa Stelae 5, 11, 67; La Venta Stela 3 and Altar 3). The adjacent figures are Stela 17 from Kaminaljuyu (left) (photoin Norman 1976, courtesy S. W. Miles) and La Venta, Stela 3 (Right) (Photo in Norman 1976 courtesy National Geographic Society, Washington D.C.). This hunch backed bearded old man with a crookedwalking stick could be a monument to the original ancestral father of Guatemala/Nephi. This figure is characteristic of father Lehi, who wandered a "crooked" path over many years in his old age beforereaching the Promised Land in America. It is a fact that American Indians do not have much facial hair to grow beards (Wirth 1986, p. 29, citing Sylvanus G. Morley1956, p. 23). So how are the numeroussculptures and the terracotta portraits of heavy bearded "Indians" explained? Considering their prominence, there had to be another dominant racial type in the high cultures of Mesoamerica that no longerexists. A logical explanation is provided in the decline of Nephite peoples in the Book of Mormon. Mormon being a pure descendent of Lehi (3 Nephi 5:20), implies a significant number of the Nephite...