“And They Did Preserve the Land Southward for a Wilderness to Get Game”

Brant Gardner

The land southward is guarded by a “great city.” The text tells us that the land southward was a game preserve. This may have been the way that the land was originally considered, but movement will occur into the southland around this time or later. Perhaps some movement has occurred prior to this time, and the city and declaration are to stop the “escape valve” of people moving toward the south. Regardless of the specifics of the timing, the southward movement of peoples connected to the ancestral Olmec into the “land southward” is known archaeologically and linguistically.

Multidimensional Commentary on the Book of Mormon

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