What does the Book of Mormon say about early inhabitants in the Americas?
There are two main groups talked about in the Book of Mormon…Jaredites and Nephites/Lamanites. The Nephite/Lamanite peoples started around 590 B.C.E. with a very small group of people. The civiliation grew and for the most part collapsed in the 5th century A.D. The Book of Mormon is not as specific about the dating of the Jaredite civilization, but its progenitors were people that left the old world at the time of the Tower of Babel event, and the Jaredite civilization collapsed at roughly the time the Nephite civilization was beginning to grow (perhaps between 600 B.C.E. and 300 B.C.E). Some LDS scholars speculate that the Mayans (or at least a part of the Mayans) may match with the Nephites/Lamanites and the Olmecs may match with the Jaredites. But this is just speculation. We don’t know. There are some things that fit about the Mayans/Nephite comparison, including their geographic location, the rise and fall of the Mayan classic period ROUGHLY lines up with the rise and fall of th
