Although not all people consider central America as the site of these Book of Mormon events, it is interesting to note that a civilization existed there with fortifications strongly similar to those described in the Book of Mormon, and which date to the right time period. Twenty-five years ago, John L. Sorenson’s book, Images of Ancient America (pp. 128, 132), broke new ground by showing fortified sites discovered by archeologists from this era, beginning about 600 B.C. To quote Professor Sorenson:
Not many years ago archaeologists were confident that very rarely were sites in pre-Spanish Mesoamerica fortified. The last twenty-five years have seen a huge body of data come to light to the contrary. We now know of over three hundred places that were fortified or sited in relation to protective terrain, and they date from no later than 1000 BC, up to the Spanish Conquest. lnstead of being the rarity it was considered a few years back, military fortification now appears to have been a normal cultural pattern for Mesoamerica with many interesting variations.
Definite Fortified Sites | Possible Fortified Sites | |
|---|---|---|
Before 600 B.C. | 0 | 3 |
Late Pre-Classic: 600-50 B.C. | 35 | 3 |
Proto Classic: 50 BC- 200 | 26 | 8 |
Early Classic: 200-400 | 14 | 8 |
400-650 | 11 | 13 |
Again, quoting Professor Sorenson:
The most basic form was begun by digging a dry moat. The earth from the excavation was thrown up to form an inner embankment. Atop that, a palisade of tree trunks was erected. The combined moat and bank provided defenders a downward sloping field of fire for their weapons that gave them substantial advantage over attackers.
The Book of Mormon describes some of the same forms of fortifications. In the simplest type, the Nephites “cast up dirt around about to shield them” (Alma 49:2; see 49:4). “The highness of the bank which had been thrown up, and the depth of the ditch which had been dug round about” prevented the Lamanite enemy from climbing over or digging away the ridge without being exposed to deadly fire from above (Alma 49: 18; 49:22). A refined form had “works of timbers built up to the height of a man” (Alma 50:2) atop the earthen ridge. Protected towers were erected overlooking those palisades from which defenders could gain even more height to rain down weapons against attackers (see Alma 50:3–5). The original city of Nephi had a stone wall around it, apparently modeled upon the wall at Jerusalem in Israel (Nephi, the city’s founder, had firsthand knowledge of Jerusalem; see Mosiah 22:6), and the Nephite armies also constructed small stone-walled redoubts to protect garrisons (see Alma 48:8) (Sorenson, 132).
Sorenson’s bold presentations of this evidence challenged the received opinions that the inhabitants of the Western hemisphere were peaceful and largely rural peoples. But especially with the new breath-taking LiDAR discoveries, reported especially in 2019 by Stephen Houston, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxh3MjL9Y6Q), and by the National Geographic (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/03/lasers-reveal-maya-war-ruins/), all of those previous views are now being totally revised.
Book of Mormon Central, “What Was the Nature of Nephite Fortifications? (Alma 50:6),” KnoWhy 158 (August 4, 2016).
Sorenson, John L., Images of Ancient America: Visualizing Book of Mormon Life; (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998), 128–132.