If we are to go strictly by the text, when it says that the Nephites did "multiply in the land" (2 Nephi 5:13), how much population growth would there have been? According to John Sorenson, the three original couples in Nephi's party, plus possibly four unmarried singles (all brothers and sisters--2 Nephi 5:6), could not have done more than, say, quadruple the adult population by the time of Nephi's death--hardly dramatic enough to be described in this way. On the other hand, the Lamanite party, if unmixed with "natives," could not have numbered more than twice as many as the Nephites. With a combined adult male population of probably no more than 60, the groups could probably only have been some limited miles apart in order for "wars" even to be feasible. Therefore, we might assume that many "others" (natives) were involved. [John Sorenson, The Geography of Book of Mormon Events: A Source Book, F.A.R.M.S., p. 218]
“I Nephi Had Also Brought the Records and I Did Teach My People to Work Metals”
According to Ammon O'Brien, we find in the works of Pedro Carrrasco, a widely published archaeologist-ethnologist and general expert on Mexican antiquities, a native tradition regarding not only lost records, but the lost art of working metals. Chapter 19 of Archaeology of Northern Mesoamerica contains an essay entitled: "The Peoples of Central Mexico and Their Historical Traditions," in which Carrasco comments thus:
There is a native tradition however, which reaches farther into the past. It is one recorded by Sahagun (Bk. 10, Chpt. 29, part 12) as part of his account of the Mexica and is here summarized:
In the distant past the people who first arrived in this land came over the water in boats; they landed in Panotla or Pantla and moved along the coast as far as Quauhtemallan (Guatemala). They were led by their priests, who counseled with their god. Their wise men (tlamatinime) were called amoxoaque (keepers of the books); they soon left and took with them the old books and the art of casting metals. (Carrasco, c. 1966--italics added)
The words in Carrasco's observation: "they soon left and took with them the old books and the art of casting metals," refers to a specific detail in the Mexica legend which recounts that there was a split within the company, whereupon the people were divided into two factions. One of these factions, according to the legend, departed from the other, "taking with them the books," and other precious "metal" items of religious significance. This legend provides interesting similarities to the account in 2 Nephi 5:5-15, which describes the flight of Nephi, with the records and the knowledge of metalworking, from the land of first inheritance to the land of Nephi. [Ammon O'Brien, Seeing beyond Today with Ancient America, pp. 141-142]