While the correlations sound impressive, they are built on a misunderstanding of the actual history of the region. This reading is problematic. The Ulmec referenced are the historic Olmec, the only Olmec (or “Ulmec,”) that Ixtlilxochitl would have known. The Olmec considered to be the earliest civilization in Mesoamerica were not dated correctly until 1955.
While John L. Sorenson does not propose a specific landing site, he nevertheless locates the Jaredites in Olmec territory and associates the Jaredites with the Olmec. Because he includes information on a Pacific crossing but not on an Atlantic crossing, he apparently sees the Jaredites landing on the Pacific coast, then crossing the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the Gulf Coast. Regardless of the landing site, however, the geographic correlation between the Book of Mormon and Mesoamerica clearly points to the Olmec culture area on the Gulf Coast as the Jaredite homeland.
The Jaredites’ first requirement was to raise crops, so they settled in a fertile area but scattered enough to give them adequate farmland. Like the Lehite record, the Jaredite record as it has come to us says nothing of meeting other inhabitants.
History: Despite the record’s silence, the Jaredites would have met other people. The archaeological record establishes quite firmly that by at least 2200 B.C. the Gulf Coast region had inhabitants and that they were genetically related to the various migrations of Asian peoples that provided for the majority of the peoples of the New World. (For more information on the Olmec who represent the highest level of civilization in this area at this time, see Ether, Part 1: Context, Chapter 1, “Historical Background of the Book of Ether.”)