Book of Mormon Prophecies Fulfilled in Latin America

The Book of Mormon contains dozens of major prophecies about the children of Lehi in the Americas in the latter days. Many of these prophecies fit comfortably in Latin America. Some of them exclusively refer to Latin America. We now know that Mesoamerica is the part of the world with the highest degree of fit to the Nephite text. See the article "Book of Mormon Geography #04 Mesoamerica Best Fits the Text." Most prophecies referencing Book of Mormon peoples can be productively understood in a Latin American context.

Mexican Dancers

Point #01  The Americas are home to 35 independent nations. 33 of them (94%) are in Latin America.

Point #02  1,056,714,000 people live in the Americas. 744,357,000 of them (70%) are Latin Americans. See the article "Interesting Baseline Numbers." 

Point #03  The size of the US expatriate population residing in Latin America (2,016,000) is about the same as the number of federally enrolled American Indians (2,000,000) residing in the US. See the article "Interesting Baseline Numbers."

Point #04  Many Book of Mormon instances of the phrase "this land" reference an extent of territory larger than any single modern nation. See the article "This Land". Ditto 19th century usage of the phrases "this continent" and "this country."

Point #05  Columbus, in his 4 voyages, visited what are today 18 modern nations in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. According to 1 Nephi 13:12, these 18 modern nations are all part of "the promised land." See the article "Voyages of Columbus."

Point #06  The Book of Mormon mentions a "mighty nation" that will be preeminent ("lifted up") in both the Americas and the world. As you follow the chronology described in these passages, you realize this mighty nation was Spain. See the articles "Prophecy Fulfilled 016" and "Mighty Nation = Spain."

Point #07  The Book of Mormon prophesies that the Gentiles will be established in the New World as free nations in a land of liberty. See the article "Free Nations." The Americas generally are a land of liberty. The nations in the Americas that are most free are, in order: Canada, Uruguay, Barbados, Chile, and Dominica. The US is #15 on the list behind Belize, Argentina, and Panama.

Point #08  The Book of Mormon prophesies that any endeavor to enthrone a king in the Western Hemisphere will be short lived. See the article "No Kings." Kings have been attempted in the US, Mexico, and Brazil. None endured.

Point #09  The Book of Mormon says the Gentiles in the Americas will scatter, drive, hunt, smite, and slay Lehi's posterity. From 1492 to 1650, 45 million people died by violence or disease under Spanish and Portuguese colonial administration. See the articles "Prophecy Fulfilled 017" and "Scattered Driven Hunted Smitten Slain."

Point #10  Samuel the Lamanite prophesied that in the latter days, the Lamanites would be driven, hunted, smitten, and scattered with "no place for refuge." This prophecy was explicitly fulfilled in Latin America where Indian reservations never developed. In contrast, the US has over 300 Indian reservations in 41 of the 50 states where Native Americans have enjoyed some degree of safety and autonomy. See the article "Prophecy Fulfilled 013."

Point #11  The Book of Mormon predicts there will be Christians in the Americas - lots of them, and there are. See the article "Christians by Continent and Country." South America (83%) is the most Christian of the 7 continents, followed by North America (77%) and Oceania (65%). In North America, Mexico (91%) is the most Christian country, followed by Panama (90%) and Guatemala (85%).

Point #12  At the beginning of his record, Nephi explained the type of content that should be documented on the large plates: reigns of the kings, wars, and contentions. That is precisely the type of content scholars find today on Maya stelae from Mesoamerica. See the article "Prophecy Fulfilled 005."

Point #13  Lehi prophesied that the information on the plates of brass would go to his seed in multiple nations and multiple languages. This is happening throughout Latin America as the Book of Mormon gets translated into more and more languages. See the article "Prophecy Fulfilled 004."

Point #14  Mormon prophesied that the Lamanites in the future would be counted as naught among the Gentiles. Naught means zero, nothing, non-entity. This prophecy was explicitly fulfilled in the early days of the Spanish conquest as the Europeans claimed that natives were sub-human animals without souls. See the article "Prophecy Fulfilled 006."

Point #15  The Book of Mormon prophesies that:

• Multitudes of Gentiles will emigrate to the Americas. 1.4 million came over in the colonial era.
• These Gentiles will originate from many nations. The 1.4 million came from 9 European nations.
• The Lamanites will be vastly more numerous than the Gentiles. Scholarly estimates of the indigenous population in the Americas at European contact (1492) exceed 50 million. 93% of those were in what is today Latin America with 32% in Mexico and 29% in the Andean countries.

See the article "Prophecy Fulfilled 007."

Point #16  The Book of Mormon prophesies that the Gentiles emigrating to the Americas will leave captivity and become prosperous in their new home. That is exactly what happened in Latin America. People who were in the lower classes in Europe became landed elites in the New World. See the article "Prophecy Fulfilled 008."

Point #17  The Book of Mormon lays out a precise multi-faceted prophecy with a strict timeline. Large Lamanite populations will be decimated by a Gentile invasion that will nearly annihilate the hapless natives. After a demographic recovery, the Gospel will be restored and Lamanite fortunes will improve to the point that they will become a powerful force to be reckoned with. See the article "Prophecy Fulfilled 010." This explicit pattern is attested in Latin America, but not in the US or Canada.

Scattered Driven Hunted Smitten Slain

Codex Coyoacan 1529, Mexico

 
The image shows Hernan Cortes and his mistress Marina looking on while a hapless native gets killed by a man-eating Spanish attack dog. 

The Book of Mormon says the Gentiles invading the Americas would treat Lehi's posterity with inhumane brutality.

1 Nephi 13:14 The Gentiles would be numerous "many multitudes." See the blog article "Prophecy Fulfilled 007" that documents the arrival of 1.4 million Europeans during the colonial era.

1 Nephi 13:14 The natives "were scatterred before the Gentiles and were smitten." Deuteronomy 28:22 says God smites with the sword and with disease. The blog article "Prophecy Fulfilled 010" documents the death of 45 million human beings in Latin America from 1492 to 1650 from both violence and disease.

1 Nephi 22:7 After the house of Israel in the Old World has been scattered and confounded, God "will raise up a mighty nation among the Gentiles." That mighty nation was Spain which was the most powerful country on earth for about 150 years in the 1500's and 1600's. It was the most powerful country in the New World for 300 years. See the blog articles "Prophecy Fulfilled 016"  and "Mighty Nation = Spain."

1 Nephi 22:7 Spain prior to the 1820's was "upon the face of this land" which means North and South America. See the blog article "This Land." By them (Spain) shall our seed (Lamanites) be scattered.

1 Nephi 22:8 After Spain scatters the Lamanites, then the marvelous work of the Restoration and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon will commence.

2 Nephi 1:11 Spain and other colonial powers will take control of formerly native lands. Lamanites will "be scatterred and smitten." The expropriation of indigenous land began on Columbus' second voyage in 1493. 

Helaman 15:12 Lamanites will be driven, "hunted, and shall be smitten and scattered." 

Helaman 15:12 Lamanites will have "no place for refuge." This describes the Latin American system where Indian reservations do not exist. See the blog article "Prophecy Fulfilled 013."

3 Nephi 16:8-9 Lamanites will be scattered, cast out, trodden under feet, smitten, afflicted, slain, hated by the Gentiles. Native Americans will be a hiss and a byword among the Gentiles. 

Mormon 5:20 Lamanites will be "driven and scattered by the Gentiles."

So, how did the Spanish conquistadores displace, dispossess, and generally destroy amost 50 million children of Lehi? They used military force, forced relocation, and enslavement. Natives were forced on pain of death to relocate and become gold and silver miners, pearl divers, plantation slaves, loggers, cochineal harvesters, weavers, etc. On the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic) those natives who fled into the mountainous interior were hunted down by cavalry and war dogs. As natives died by the millions on Hispaniola and Cuba from disease and starvation, the Spanish staged slave raids across Venezuela and the Bahamas to replenish their labor pool. Most of the captured slaves died enroute and their bodies were thrown into the ocean. 

In the former Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, Cortes drove the entire Mexica population out, levelled their structures, and built an exclusive Spanish enclave that still exists in the Mexico City Zocalo today, Native farming communities by the thousands were burned or torn down and survivors were concentrated into Spanish mission towns so they could be forced to convert to Catholicism, donate labor, and pay taxes. Many natives committed suicide rather than submit to this extortion.

In highland Guatemala, Pedro de Alvarado followed Cortes' example, burning nobles at the stake, destroying the Kiche and Kaqchikel capitals, and forcing survivors into new mission towns. After years of guerilla warfare, the natives finally gave up and submitted to Spanish domination. The Yucatan peninsula was turned into vast haciendas that controlled all the best land and scarce water supplies.

After Francisco Pizarro captured Cusco, the Inca nobility fled to Vilcabamba in the Amazon basin. The Spanish soon invaded, killed Tupac Amaru, and forced the survivors to relocate. Francisco de Toledo forced 1.4 million Andean farmers and herders into controlled towns thbat provided a rotating labor force for the rich silver mines at Potosi, Bolivia and the mercury mines at Huancavelica, Peru. The mortality rate in these mines was so high that the Spanish began importing African slaves as replacements.

In northern Mexico, indigenous towns were destroyed and the former inhabitants were sent as slaves to plantations throughout southern Mexico and the Caribbean. In New Mexico, Juan de Oñate took revenge on Acoma Pueblo because his nephew was killed. Hundreds were enslaved. Men over 25 had one foot cut off to prevent their escape.

The carnage described in the foregoing 5 paragraphs all happened before the year 1600.

Huge Spanish mastiffs were trained to dismember, disembowel, and kill people by biting their throat. These dogs terrorized the natives who literally provided a ready food source for the beasts. If you visit any of the Inquisition museums throughout Latin America today you will see instruments of torture that will make your stomach turn. All of these insidious methods of inflicting pain were used on the native Americans at the mere suspicion of insubordination. In the words of Linda Schele, the Spanish overlords stole not only land, possessions, and family members, they destroyed the native's "mental sovereignty." Indigenous Americans in Latin America became a permanent underclass groveling in subservience.

For more context on Spanish (and Portuguese) depravity, see the blog article "Prophecy Fulfilled 017." 

For more than 300 years, this kind of inhumane brutality fulfilled Book of Mormon prophecies about the children of Lehi being scattered, driven, hunted, smitten, and slain. English colonial treatment of American Indians in what is today the United States of America was tame in comparison.  

Interesting Baseline Numbers

 Population of the Americas (35 nations) (2025)

• Latin America less Mesoamerica  497,240,000  47.06%
• US and Canada  389,503,000  36.86%
• Mesoamerica  169,971,000  16.08%
• The Americas  1,056,714,000  100% 

Size of Regions in the Americas (square kilometers)

• US and Canada  19,818,190  49.70%
• Latin America less Mesoamerica  17,818,741  44.69%
• Mesoamerica  2,238,224  5.61%
• The Americas  39,875,155  100% 

Highest Peaks in the Americas (feet)

• Latin America less Mesoamerica (Aconcagua) 22,838
• US and Canada (Denali) 20,310
• Mesoamerica (Orizaba) 18,491

Latter-day Saint Members (2025)

• US and Canada  7,141,500  50.86%
• Latin America less Mesoamerica  4,696,000  33.44%
• Mesoamerica  2,204,000  15.70%
• The Americas  14,041,500  100%

Dedicated Temples (October, 2026)

• US and Canada  117  65%
• Latin America less Mesoamerica  43  23.89%
• Mesoamerica  20  11.11%
• The Americas  180  100%

US Expatriates Living in Latin America (US State Department)

• Mesoamerica  1,634,000  81.05%
• Latin America less Mesoamerica  382,000  18.95%
• All of Latin America  2,016,000  100% 

American Indian and Alaska Native Population in the US

• Some Native American Ancestry Mixed with Other Races  9,700,000 (US Census Bureau)
• Native American  3,700,000  (US Census Bureau)
• Native Americans on Federal Rolls 2,000,000 (US Bureau of Indian Affairs)
• Indian Reservations  326  (US Bureau of Indian Affairs)

Latin Americans (Hispanics) in the US and Canada

• US  73.2 million  21.34%  (US Census Bureau)
• Canada  1.2 million  2.87%  (Statistics Canada)

Latin Americans in the Americas

• Others not Latin Americans  312,357,000  29.56%
• Latin Americans  744,357,000  70.44%

Book of Mormon Geography #04 Mesoamerica Best Fits the Text

1st video in this series: "Book of Mormon Geography #01 River Sidon Flowed North."

2nd video in this series: "Book of Mormon Geography #02 500 Clues."

3rd video in this series: "Book of Mormon Geography #03 Misreading the Map."

The 4th video in this series was published on October 13, 2026:

In this episode, Brad Omer and I walk through 18 major criteria from the text that all converge on one place: Mesoamerica. We explain why Meso throughout our lifetimes has been the Book of Mormon model with the highest degree of fit to the text. Here is an executive summary of the 18 points:

1. East Sea and West Sea. These are salt water oceans.
2. Land Northward and Land Southward. These were probably in a NW relationship to each other because passages describing them reference the West Sea.
3. A Narrow Place (Neck, Pass, Passage) is between Land Northward and Land Southward.
4. A Narrow Strip of Wilderness ran from the East Sea to the West Sea, dividing the Land Southward into Nephite lands to the north and Lamanites lands to the south.
5. You always go down from Nephi to Zarahemla and up from Zarahemla to Nephi.
6. River Sidon originates in the Narrow Strip of Wilderness and flows northward to the sea.
7. The Book of Mormon describes a temperate or tropical climate. Armies in the field nearly naked at New Years imply a low latitude setting.
8. The maximum extent of Book of Mormon lands does not exceed about 800 miles in any direction.
9. The Book of Mormon describes state level society, i.e. advanced civilizations.
10. Directional cardinality based on point of view.
11. Hill Cumorah N of the Narrow Place in Land Northward.
12. Large scale migrations northward, even beyond Jaredite heartland.
13. Shipbuilding industry, cargo and passenger vessels in West Sea.
14. Timber shipped from Land Southward to Land Northward.
15. Cement as a building material in Land Northward. Cement is a durable material that will leave traces in the archaeological record discoverable today.
16. Destruction in 3 Nephi 8 caused by volcanic, seismic, and meteorological activity.
17. Abundant precious metal ores.
18. Dozens of plausible micro geographies.

Appropriate methodology is to start with the text, read it closely, and use the scientific method to judge the strength of real world correlations. Serious students who apply this methodology are nearly unanimous that Mesoamerica is the region with the highest degree of fit to the text. Contemporary scholarship tends to reinforce this proposed setting. In other words, the more we learn, the stronger the case becomes. 

A viable geography will not make the Book of Mormon more true. It will make the Book of Mormon more real. It will help us understand this text with more profound comprehension.

Book of Mormon Geography #03 Misreading the Map

The first video in the 2026 Book of Mormon geography series explains how the text unambiguously requires the river Sidon to flow from south to north. See the blog article "Book of Mormon Geography #01 River Sidon Flowed North."

The second video in this series explains why the text itself is the most important of 6 major tools that will allow us to accurately locate Book of Mormon geography in the real world. See the blog article "Book of Mormon Geography #02 500 Clues."

The third video in this series was published on September 24, 2026.

It walks through assumptions about the text and establishes guidelines that will help us more accurately interpret what the Nephite authors intended us to understand. This is an executive summary of the points Brad Omer and I make in the video.

The text is foundational - the ultimate source of truth for any serious Book of Mormon geography effort. This ensures compliance with the Church directive to not imply any prophetic or Church support for proposed theories.

Multiple people can and do read the same textual passages quite differently. Hence, the need for guidelines aka assumptions about the text aka an interpretive apparatus.

The Book of Mormon is a real record of real people who lived in the real world, so a physical map is possible. The Church has told us the book is set in the Americas, so we have a general starting point. The Old World setting of the Book of Mormon is well-established. In the Old World, we had a reliable specific starting point - Jerusalem. Once we establish a viable specific starting point in the New World, progress solving the Book of Mormon geography puzzle will be rapid. 

Cardinal directions from the Old World carried through to the New World. Ditto ups and downs in a spatial context referring to elevation. 

There are no silver bullets, no easy button, no single criterion solutions. Seeds brought from the Old World flourishing in the New World are one example of a complex topic that can easily get oversimplified. We must account for hundreds of data points. This is not an algebraic equation where a + b = c. It is more like a 3 dimensional scatter plot where best fit analysis typically uses calculus. 

We must account for all references to a word or phrase. Cherry picking, even from the text of the Book of Mormon, is a logical fallacy.

As a true eye-witness account, the Book of Mormon is rational and consistent. 

Geonymns are physical, not selectively metaphorical. John Sorenson ("I could not make it fit my schema, so like many references in the Old Testament, it must be metaphorical.") is a counter example. Named geonyms are singularities. A double definition is a logical flaw. The city of Aaron entry in the 1981 and 2013 indices ("possibly two different cities") is a counter example. Ditto the city of Nephihah ("possibly two cities by this name").

Hyperbolic phrases such as the "face of the whole land" (Mormon 1:13) can be interpreted via hyper-literal, common sensical, or metaphorical lenses. Hyperbolic phrases are generally figures of speech that should be interpreted with common sense. The most likely interpretive solution derives from the text's extreme consistency. It is so consistent Royal Skousen coined the term "systematic phraseology." So, we analyze every instance of a word or phrase and deduce patterns that explain Nephite idioms' semantic range of meaning.

The Nephite author's point of view was boots on the ground. The correlation of the Gulf of Mexico/America with the place where the sea divides the land (Ether 10:20) is one counter example. People on the ground would not perceive a 500 kilometer wide feature the way we do on a modern map. Our proposal for the place where the sea divides the land (Boca de Tonalá) is half a kilometer wide and when you are standing on one side of it, you can easily see the other side with the open ocean and lagoon waters swirling and mixing through the gap.

Multiple attestations of a location in the text facilitate triangulation and contextualization, but single instances of a place name should still be included in any map. 

The text explicitly gives multiple meanings to a few major place names such as Nephi and Zarahemla.

Joseph Smith's translation was under divine tight control as per 2 Nephi 3:21, 2 Nephi 29:2-3, D&C 5:5-7, 10-11, 15-16; D&C 18:34-36.

The Yale 2009 edition is our preferred text. This means Amalekites should be Amlicites (Alma 21:2). Midian should be Middoni (Alma 24:5). Nephihah should be Moroni (Alma 51:26).

The language of the text as it fell from the lips of the prophet Joseph was Early Modern English (EModE) which places the linguistic setting in the 1500's and 1600's. This means the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is our relevant lexical resource. Places where EModE makes a difference in Book of Mormon geography:

• A "neck of land" is NOT an isthmus. It is generally a peninsula, cape, head, sandbar, spit, or some other coastal feature.
• The "head" of a river is generally the confluence of 2 tributaries that come together to form a stream large enough to be called a "river."
• "Between" means somethng of a different nature by two twins as in a hall between two rooms. Since the narrow neck was between the lands northward and southward, we should be looking for a landform strikingly different from either of the two twins.

To interpret the text consistently,

• "A Nephite" is an ordinary citizen or soldier.
• A "day's journey" is a standard unit of measure.
• "Many waters" is a salt water ocean. That means Hill Cumorah is seaside.
•  East or west of Sidon is riverside. If the land of Melek is riverside, and the Sidon is flowing northwesterly at that point, then 3 day's journey north of Melek (Alma 8:6) will be east of Sidon.

Yea clauses explicate a previous clause. Alma 50:34 describes a singular sea on the west that also has an eastern component such as you would find on a depositional coast with a lagoon system behind a barrier island or a sandbar. 

The Book of Mormon took place in the Holocene Epoch. The geological layout of the Americas has been relatively stable throughout the Holocene. The surface of the earth was impacted, but coastlines did not change much during the destruction described in 3 Nephi 8.

We should take advantage of the best modern tools such as the Yale 2009 text, searchable electronic databases, geographic information systems (we use Google Earth), and LIDAR.

Our best efforts to interpret the text using these assumptions, guidelines, and apparatus notwithstanding, there will still be some ambiguity. It is simply the nature of the beast. 

Book of Mormon Geography #02 500 Clues

The first video in the 2026 Book of Mormon Geography series explains how the text unambiguously requires the river Sidon to flow from south to north. See the blog article "Book of Mormon Geography #01 River Sidon Flowed North."  

The second video in this series was published on September 10, 2026.

In it, Brad Omer and I walk through 6 essential tools that will allow us to accurately locate Book of Mormon geography in the real world. This is an executive summary of the points we make in the video.

Introduction to Brad Omer of Lehi, Utah. He is a life-long careful student of the Nephite text who has written extensively on the war chapters. His video on the war chapters is on the Discover the Book of Mormon YouTube Channel.

Brad Omer and Kirk Magleby will produce a series of videos locating Book of Mormon places in the real world. We expect this series to be groundbreaking in its rigor and methodological sophistication. We will need exceptional tools in our backpack as we embark on this journey of discovery. 

Tool 1 of 6 is the realization that Book of Mormon geography is not essential. So, why do we care?

• Exploring Book of Mormon spatial correlations is very enjoyable.
• It helps us understand the text at a much more profound level. As an example, I cited this blog article "Captain Moroni in Space and Time."

Tool 2 of 6 is the intersection of mind and heart (D&C 8:2),  study and faith (D&C 88:118). A combination of devotion and rationality will help us take the Nephite scriptural record to the world.

Tool 3 of 6 is the realization that the Book of Mormon describes real people who lived in a real time in a real place. It is authentic ancient history. Our quest can eventually be successful. We patiently wait for revelatory finality, but in the meantime we will use the best means at our disposal. The witness of the spirit is decisive. As an example, I cite my personal conversion story. Rational processes bring pleasure, satisfaction, and affirmation that help ground testimony.

Tool 4 of 6 is the Church's Gospel Topics Essay on Book of Mormon Geography. It is foundational because it lets us know:

• The text has impressive internal consistency.
• The only known location is the entire Western Hemisphere aka the Americas, and that ambiguity extends even to the Hill Ramah/Cumorah whose location has not been revealed.
• Joseph Smith at various times seemed to support North American and Central American locations for Book of Mormon cities and events. (We describe the sensation Stephens and Catherwood's 1841 Incidents of Travel in Central America and Yucatan caused in Nauvoo.)
• We should avoid speculation. The only way to do this is to be grounded in the text - to let the text speak for itself.
• We must not imply prophetic or Church support for our theories. In fact, we should not even discuss the subject of Book of Mormon geography in official Church settings.

Cherry picking is a major logical fallacy. Debates over content in the modern historical record are a black hole that has not advanced the state of the art. We are to avoid contention. Brad and I will give grace and respect to serious Book of Mormon geography students even though we may differ with their conclusions. We mentioned Jay Mackley who is a Heartland theorist, George Potter who advocates a South American setting, and Dave Rosenvall who promotes the Baja California model.

Tool 5 of 6 is the text itself. The Book of Mormon is our primary source for information about its geography because it was written by inspired eye-witnesses. The Yale 2009 is our preferred text. Different interpretations of the same passage in the text are inevitable. We need assumptions, an apparatus for interpreting the text consistently. Royal Skousen coined the term "systematic phraseology" which means we can find patterns in Nephite language usage. 

There are at least 500 passages in the text with geographic implications. Some come from chronology - how long it took to travel from point A to point B. Some come from politics - The Nephite nation was a very different entity in Alma 22 that it was one generation later in Alma 50. The situation changed forever with the debacle in Helaman 4. 

We shared a jigsaw puzzle analogy. We have about 500 pieces of a 1,000 piece puzzle. There is no reference picture on the box. There are enough pieces that with great effort we can construct a viable internal map and then fit it to the real world. 

We enjoy advantages that previous generations of Book of Mormon geography students did not have such as geographic information systems (Google Earth), the Yale 2009 text, and fast computerized word and phrase searches.

Tool 6 of 6 is credible science. Many scientific results are largely incontrovertible meaning the vast majority of scientists accept them. Relevant examples are aerial photography, satellite remote sensing, topographic terrain mapping, shoreline configurations, and river courses. Dating is quite accurate because we can triangulate between speliology, dendrochronology, stratigraphy, thermoluminescence, carbon 14 radiometry, sediment cores, and written history. Yes, we do have some written history in the Americas that dates to Book of Mormon times. LIDAR is another source of generally accepted data. 

Spoiler alert. There is at least a 98% probability that the core Book of Mormon area was in Mesoamerica. Over time, Jaredite, Mulekite, and Lehite influence could have spread far beyond the core area. 

We are not peddling anything. Our motive is altruistic. We want to help fulfill President Ezra Taft Benson's 1988 plea to flood the earth with the Book of Mormon, and that is much more likely to happen if a plausible geography becomes widely accepted. 

We alluded to the purpose behind the Discover the Book of Mormon initiative within Ancient America Foundation.   

Hill Ramah Chronology

For years, I believed the demise of the Jaredites at Hill Ramah (Ether 15:29) was connected to the abandonment of La Venta ca. 400 BC. This was based on a naive assumption about the relationship between the Jaredites and Olmec civilization. This incorrect correlation caused a chronological problem. The Limhi explorers left the city of Nephi, traveled to Hill Ramah, and returned with artifacts ca. 121 BC (Mosiah 8:8-9). These 43 intrepid explorers found bones of men and beasts littering the ground. Skeletal ramains completely decompose in as few as 10 - 15 years in damp, warm, shady, aerobic conditions. It is virtually inconceivable that osteological material would still be visible on the surface of the tropical or temperate earth after more than 100 years elapsed time. Jaredite bones are such an important motif in the Nephite record we find them mentioned in Omni 1:22, Mosiah 21:26-27, and Alma 22:30 in addition to the Mosiah 8 reference cited above.

Coriantumr survived the annihilation at Hill Ramah (Ether 15:31-32), joined the people of Zarahemla (the Mulekites) for 9 moons, carved his history on a stone stela that the Mulekites could not read, (Omni 1:20-21) and died among these Mulekite strangers (Ether 13:21).

Mosiah I became king over the combined Nephite/Mulekite nations before Zeniff's reign which began ca. 200 BC. (Mosiah 9:1). So, a date of 210 BC for the Jaredite demise at Hill Ramah may be in the ballpark. The Book of Mormon explicitly says the bones Limhi's explorers found were dry (Mosiah 21:26).

So, 210 BC for the final Jaredite battles may work, but 400 BC is entirely out of the question. 

What caused the Olmec to abandon their capital, La Venta, ca. 400 BC? We now know it was due to an avulsion, a natural eastward re-routing of the big Mezcalapa-Grijalva River. See the work done on the Río Bari and Pajonal paleochannels by Mary Pohl, William F. Rust, Kevin Pope, and Robert Sharer.  

Ca. 400 BC the Grijalva River Shifted Course

Without its life-sustaining river, La Venta ceased to be a viable urban community. And where did the majority of its former inhabitants migrate to? The Tuxtla Mountains, Tres Zapotes, where they founded what we now call the Epi-Olmec culture. Since Hill Ramah is likely in the Tuxtlas, the Book of Mormon now seems more plausible, both spatially and temporally.