Many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> are excited about an exclusive National Geographic article that appeared online at\u00a0news.nationalgeographic.com<\/a>\u00a0on Feb. 1, 2018, by Tom Clynes, titled, \u201cLaser Scans Reveal Maya \u2018Megalopolis\u2019 Below Guatemalan Jungle<\/a>: A vast, interconnected network of ancient cities was home to millions more people than previously thought.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Their excitement is both understandable and justified.<\/span><\/p>\n The article discusses a laser technology known as LiDAR, which stands for light detection and ranging, that has revealed previously undiscovered ancient ruins by digitally removing the tropical forest canopy of northern Guatemala that conceals them. Using this \u201cmajor breakthrough\u201d in Maya archaeology, researchers have thus far identified artificial features, including more than 60,000 houses, palaces and roads that have been hidden for centuries. \u201cAfter decades of combing through the forests,\u201d writes Clynes in National Geographic, \u201cno archaeologists had stumbled across these sites.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Plainly, a great deal remains to be learned about Pre-Columbian America, and several new findings here seem relevant to the Book of Mormon.<\/span><\/p>\n For example, according to\u00a0Mosiah 7:4<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a08:8<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 not to mention my own personal experience \u2014 it\u2019s easy to lose cities in the Mesoamerican jungle and to walk, wholly unaware, past massive structures.<\/span><\/p>\n But they exist, though they\u2019re difficult to see: Contrary to previous population estimates of around 5 million, Tulane University archaeologist\u00a0Francisco Estrada-Belli<\/a>\u00a0says that the ancient Guatemalan lowlands may have supported 10-15 million people. \u201cAt its peak in the Maya classic period (approximately A.D. 250\u2013900),\u201d summarizes National Geographic, \u201cthe civilization covered an area about twice the size of medieval England, but it was far more densely populated.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Thus, when Mormon\u2019s father brought him southward to the capital district of Zarahemla in roughly A.D. 321-326, the 11-year-old future prophet was wide-eyed with astonishment: \u201cThe whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea\u201d (see\u00a0Mormon 1:7<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n In the National Geographic article, Clynes describes \u201chighways connecting urban centers and quarries.\u201d \u201cVirtually all the Mayan cities,\u201d he says, \u201cwere connected by causeways wide enough to suggest that they were heavily trafficked and used for trade and other forms of regional interaction. These highways were elevated to allow easy passage even during rainy seasons.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Similarly,\u00a03 Nephi 6:8<\/a>\u00a0records that \u201cthere were many highways cast up, and many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place.\u201d (Does the verb \u201ccast up\u201d suggest that Nephite highways were \u201celevated\u201d?)<\/span><\/p>\n The National Geographic account speaks of \u201cmilitarization\u201d and \u201cthe ubiquity of defensive walls, ramparts, terraces and fortresses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWarfare wasn\u2019t only happening toward the end of the civilization,\u201d says Ithaca College archaeologist Thomas Garrison. \u201cIt was large-scale and systematic, and it endured over many years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n For its part, the Book of Mormon is notoriously full of warfare. At\u00a0Alma 49:2-8<\/a>;\u00a050:1-6<\/a>;\u00a053:1-5<\/a>; and\u00a062:42-43<\/a>, for instance, we read of innovative fortifications built during the first century B.C. Ultimately, the Nephites are destroyed around A.D. 385, but the fighting continues:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe Lamanites have hunted my people, the Nephites, down from city to city and from place to place,\u201d Moroni reports somewhere between A.D. 400-421, \u201ceven until they are no more; and great has been their fall; yea, great and marvelous is the destruction of my people, the Nephites. And behold, it is the hand of the Lord which hath done it. And behold also, the Lamanites are at war one with another; and the whole face of this land is one continual round of murder and bloodshed; and no one knoweth the end of the war\u201d (see\u00a0Mormon 8:7-8<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n None of this proves the Book of Mormon true, of course. But it\u2019s certainly consistent with the book\u2019s historical narrative. And it bears further watching:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLiDAR is revolutionizing archaeology the way the Hubble Space Telescope revolutionized astronomy,\u201d says\u00a0Estrada-Belli<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ll need 100 years to go through all (the data) and really understand what we\u2019re seeing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n So far, National Geographic notes, the project has covered 800 square miles (2,100 square kilometers) of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, in Guatemala\u2019s Pet\u00e9n region, producing the largest LiDAR data set ever obtained for archaeological research. Mayanists hope, though, that they will have mapped more than 5,000 square miles (14,000 square kilometers) of the heavily forested Guatemalan lowlands within three years.<\/span><\/p>\n For further information on LiDAR and the Maya \u2014 readable, and with an explicit Mormon connection \u2014 see \u201cKing of the Jungle<\/a>: The Mayan Empire of Archaeologist Richard Hansen: On the trail with the man who discovered the preclassic Mayan civilization\u201d online at\u00a0weeklystandard.com.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
![\"Guatemala](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/11\/800px-Quetzaltenango_farm_highlands_2009.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n
My mind has obviously been on Pre-Columbian America for the past week and a half, so I thought that I would call attention to this article, which I published in the Deseret News<\/em> on 7 February 2018:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n